Are there any parts of the Constitution that can be exceptions? For example, can free speech be an exception?

This question is not clearly phrased, but the poster sees to be asking if there are exceptions to various parts of the US Constitution.

Short answer: yes

Long answer: strap in for a bit of a ride, friends.

A main job of the Judicial Branch is to clarify exactly what is meant by each word in the Constitution. To describe in very general terms the way the 3 co-equal branches of the government work:

Legislative Branch: Writes laws

Executive Branch: Enacts laws

Judicial Branch: Determines if the laws written by the Legislative Branch and enacted by the Executive Branch obey the Constitution

By design, the Judiciary’s job is far more subtle than that of the other two Branches. Let’s take two kinds of laws that seem easy to understand, but wind up being anything but easy: freedom of speech, and the right to bear arms.

The First Amendment reads as follows: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. (bold to point out the relevant text).

Seems pretty simple, right? Freedom of speech is absolute- can’t “abridge” (limit) it whatsoever. But… what about immediately dangerous speech? One test for whether or not speech is protected by the First Amendment was established in the 1919 Supreme Court case Schenck v. United States. In his decision, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote “The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man falsely shouting fire in a theatre and causing a panic.”

In the 1969 case Brandenburg v. Ohio, the Court ruled that only speech both directed to inciting or producing "imminent lawless action” and likely to do so is not protected by the first amendment. As such, Brandenburg made it more difficult to restrict the exercise of free speech, as prosecution would have to prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, that not only did the speaker want people to act in a lawless manner, s/he had to be speaking in a way which was both intended and likely to do so.

So, calling for a gathering of grandmothers with walkers and wheelchairs to rise up and attack a building would be protected speech. Making the same speech to a group of angry young people, some of whom you knew- or at least expected- to be armed is probably not protected.

Donning my asbestos longjohns for this next section.

Second Amendment: A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed. (Note: did not bold any particular part as being more relevant than others, as the whole sentence needs to be considered as a whole, while the 1st Amendment includes multiple discrete rights.)

Before I begin, let me point out that I am a good enough shot to have earned an NRA medal as a Sharpshooter, 1st Bar, back in high school. I’m on nobody’s side, only that of the US Constitution. I’m going to do my best to focus this section on Supreme Court jurisprudence, just as I did above.

In United States v Miller (1939), the Court relied on the “well regulated militia” phrase to allow regulation of sawed-off shotguns, arguing that it seemed unlikely that such a weapon "has some reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia . . . ." The Court went on to explain the connection between the right to bear arms and military service.

In Heller v. District of Columbia (2008), the Court overturned this precedent, ruling that the right to bear arms is an individual right, not connected to military service. The Court struck down as unconstitutional a Washington, DC law banning private ownership of handguns.

However, in his opinion concurring (agreeing and supporting) with the majority in Heller, Antonin Scalia wrote that “Like most rights, the right secured by the Second Amendment is not unlimited. [It is] not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose.” In other words, while you are absolutely entitled to have a handgun in your home for self-defense, you are not entitled to own a rocket-propelled grenade for that purpose. Similarly, if the relationship with your neighbor gets hostile enough, the backyard nuclear bomb you’re constructing just might be a problem.

In Heller, the Court further found many restrictions of gun ownership and possession to be acceptable. These include prohibition of firearm possession by certain dangerous people (yes, I know, people can and will argue about what makes someone “dangerous), forbidding firearm possession in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, and imposing conditions on the commercial sale of firearms.

The Preamble to the Constitution reads as follows: "We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America." As such, all laws written in accordance with the Constitution should serve these goals. This often includes restrictions of some rights. The job of the Judiciary, headed by the Supreme Court, is to decide what restrictions are and are not acceptable under the Constitution.