The thirteenth amendment was a very important one, as it formally ended slavery in the United States. (House, 2012) the Emancipation Proclamation was only based on President Lincoln's war powers during the Civil War, and therefore the thirteenth Amendment was passed to solidify the end of slavery. (History, 2012) the fourteenth amendment guaranteed all Americans the right to representation and protection under the law, as well as prohibiting state and local governments from having any unfavorable action against any citizen regardless of race. The fifteenth amendment guaranteed the right to vote to any eligible man, regardless of race, color, or previous condition of servitude. The process for amending the Constitution is incredibly difficult. It requires a two-thirds supermajority vote in both the House of Representatives, and the Senate. A vote passed like this does not require the signature of the President, and is passed directly to...
To ratify an Amendment, three-fourths of the state legislatures of the fifty states is required. The time to do this is usually set at seven years. Out of the thousands of bills that have sought to amend the Constitution, only 33 have acquired the necessary votes in Congress, and just 27 have been fully ratified. This process is intentionally difficult in order to ensure that the Constitution could not be overridden by a single strong federal government or President, and in order to prevent quick adoption. This system is fair because it protects the sanctity of the Constitution at all costs, even if it makes the document extremely difficult to change.
Protecting Liberty Individual rights Bill of Rights defines the protections afforded individual citizens under the Constitution against excessive government intrusions into private lives and arbitrary prosecutions. These rights are contained in the Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, and Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution. Since these Amendments were first adopted by the ratifying states the courts have interpreted the intent of each and created rules that attempt to keep the government from running roughshod
Bill of Rights and Today's Criminal Justice System The administration of justice and security in America is based upon Constitutional powers, originally drafted in the Bill of Rights. While the Constitution has been amended several times since its inception, its laws still stand and have been defined by courts in landmark cases that have decided how particular amendments may be interpreted. In the light of these cases and the Constitution itself,
5.0 Conclusion As this paper has argued, the Second Amendment was designed not only to protect the militias; it was also intended to protect an individual's right to own and bear arms. Those groups opposed to the private ownership of firearms should base their arguments on their own personal beliefs rather than a Constitutional interpretation defense. As supported by its historical background and analysis of Constitutional context and meaning, "A well
The framers did not mention police departments or other local governmental units, which has led to some misconceptions about the right of people to arm themselves when protected by municipal government agencies. However, this is because municipal police forces, as they currently exist, did not exist at the time of the Revolutionary War. The closest approximation was a standing army or militia, and the concerns about the citizenry failing
Right to Privacy Being a citizen of the United States comes with many benefits in comparison to citizenship in other countries. Through the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights we are granted certain rights -- the right to free speech, freedom of religion, freedom of the press, and freedom of assembly -- just to name a few. However, despite the 27 amendments the Bill of Rights that guarantee American protections
Bill of Rights The United States Constitution was originally adopted at the Constitutional Convention in 1787, after the perceived failure of the colonies' first attempt at a foundational document for federal government, the Articles of Confederation. This is important to recall because in many ways the Constitution was written with an awareness of how such documents may fail in practice, and so its drafters included in Article 5 a set of
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