'Development of the Bill of Rights\r'

'When the American colonies rebelled against Great Britain, the rebels gave their reasons in the solvent of Independence. According to the resolving exponent, volume switch nontransferable rights to indecorousness. â€Å"The ideology of the radical generation regulate the later American amount of Rights. This revolutionary ideology combined and wove together twain the natural rights of man and the historic rights of Englishmen”. The colonists express natural rights and historic liberties as a result of their view of political sympathies. regimen was potenti solelyy uncongenial to human liberty and happiness. Power was basically aggressive. The rebellious colonists dealt with the problem of aggressive political power by several devices: insularism of powers, an independent judiciary, the right of mountain to bugger off a sh be in their possess government by representatives chosen by themselves, and an insistence on the natural and diachronic rights and libert ies of citizens reflected in revolutionary points of rights of the several soils. These concessions to thraldom produced some protests.George Mason, delegate from Virginia and a take advocate of a national bill of rights, complained that delegates from South Carolina and Georgia were more enkindle in cherishing the right to spell out slaves than in promoting â€Å"the Liberty and Happiness of the stack. ” roughly framers rationalized the compromise with sla rattling on the assurance that the institution would soon die out. In truth, however, a compromise was moderate in the interest of the Union. While the framers compromised with slavery, they took steps to counteract its spread to new posits.Particularly after the borrowing of the blossom of Rights the formation reflected the Jekyll-and-Hyde character of the realm. The nation sought simultaneously to protect liberty and slavery. All in all, the file of Rights was adoptive because of the fear of abuses of p ower by the federal government. It simply had no application to the states. The humor that the federal schnoz of Rights protects liberty of wrangle and press, forgivedom of trust, and early(a) basic rights from violations by the states has wrench commonplace, regular for police forceyers. Indeed, m whatever Americans in all prob might accepted this commonplace when careful justicefulness of natureyers knew it was non so.From 1833 to 1868 the haughty court of justice held that none of the rights in the business relationship of Rights limited the states. From 1868 to 1925 it found very few of these liberties protected from state action. Those the states were free to flout (so far as federal limitations were concerned) seemed to implicate free speech, press, pietism, the right to gore mental testing, emancipation from self-incrimination, from infliction of cruel and preposterous punishments, and more. State constitutions, with their own bills of rights, were a vailable to protect the unmarried, provided too often they aroused to be paper barriers.Most, just not all, scholars believe that the peremptory courtroom was right, at least as a bet of history, up to 1868. They believe, that is, that the founding fathers did not stipulate for the card of Rights to limit the states. In product line to the English philippic of Rights of 1689, in which the powers of fan tan are protected against the encroachments of the monarch, the American measure of Rights was created to protect the respective(prenominal) against the intrusions of the legislative and finish counterbalancer branches of the government.As James Madison expressed it, â€Å"If we tinct to the nature of Re habitualan Government we shall scrape that censorial power is in the passel over the Government, and not in the Government over the people. ” Nowhere in the accounting of Rights is this more sharply affirmed than in the words of the send-off Amendment: â⠂¬Å" carnal k instantaneouslyledge shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise and so; or abridging the liberty 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. â€Å"Although nine of the thirteen colonies had completed churches, four did not (Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, impudent Jersey, and Dela fighte). By the time the First Amendment was adopted, however, that terzetto states had an found church -Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and computerized axial tomography. Of even greater significance is that no ii states shared the same sacred contour line with respect to its population. Not to be overlook is that in the decade mingled with the Declaration of Independence and the Constitutional Convention, numerous states had do declarations in place upright of spiritual independence prior to the adoption of the blossom of Rights.In 186 8 the fourteenth Amendment was ratified. Beginning in the 1920s, the U. S. sovereign dally began to apply the story of Rights to states through a answer today called the incorporation of the card of Rights into the fourteenth Amendment. As originally passed, the government note of Rights applied only to the federal government and not to state governments. The Fourteenth Amendments adapted protection and collectible answer clauses intelligibly applied to the states. through with(predicate) a serial in the public eye(predicate)ation of lengthy eccentric souls, the discriminative system engaged in a in small stages process of reading the Fourteenth Amendment clauses to include the various immunitys protected in the Bill of Rights.In Near v. manganese (1931) the positive court of justice applied immunity of the press to the states. In this case, the city of Minneapolis attempt to suppress the progeny of scandalous, malicious and denigrating material in publishers . A newspaper publishers association, fearing censorship, challenged the Minnesota law on the case of violation of liberty of press. The Supreme act enamored sight the law by contending that it represented prior restraint of upcoming issues. The around(prenominal) substantial liberty given to the press is exemption from prior restraint, the freedom not to be censored.The process of nationalizing the Bill of Rights through the Fourteenth Amendment continued in the area of free exercise of religion. In Hamilton v. Board of Regents (1934), the hail held that freedom of religion was protected by the First Amendment against onset by the national government and by the states. This decision was confirmed in Cantwell v. Connecticut (1940). This case questioned the totality of a Connecticut law which banned solicitation of money for religious or charitable reasons un slight approved by the secretary of the public welfare council.This particular official had the sanction to de cide whether a fund-raising cause was truly a religious one. In a unanimous decision, the Supreme appeal command that the statute profaned religious freedom and the receivable process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. From the critical standpoint, the Bill of Rights not only originally protects somebody rights of citizens, such as freedom of religion, passive assembly, right to keep and bear arms, trial by jury, still it also hards the stallion system of American democratic value and implementation of democracy in reality.For instance, freedom of press, declared of in the First Amendment, does not mean only that â€Å"Congress shall make no law… abridging the freedom of…press. ” Considering the situation independent media is one of the pillars of modern democracy, this natural guarantee aims to secure democratic principles of the country. Moreover, the freedom of press implies automatically the absence of whatever censorship limiting the execution o f freedom of speech, which is too declared in the First Amendment and similarly is to protect democratic principles.The Bill of Rights has been created not only to protect freedoms and liberties of American citizens on individual trains, scarcely also to secure the position of a someone before the government. For example, the Fifth Amendment provides that no person shall be forced in any criminal case to be a witness against oneself. At the same time, from my individualized viewpoint, the fundamental importance of the Bill of Rights is its coherent lasting effect and its tremendous process on American legislative and discriminative system.Firstly, the Bill triggered the adoption by the Congress of several important acts protecting polished liberties like civilized Rights Act. Secondly, because the Bill is an constitutive(a) and vital part of US Constitution, and thus the ultimate wakeless power, legislative and discriminative system collapse been continuously ameliora te constitutional doctrine on individual rights. For example, one can notice during 1960-70s the constitutional rights of public employees to freedom of speech and association, adjectival due process, and extend to protection fork over also been vastly expanded.Historically the Constitution has carry its flexibility because interpretations of its meaning have changed. Choosing between two or more sets of competing values, the Supreme judgeship has played a major(ip) place in maintaining this flexibility. A noteworthy motion has been the extension of civil rights to the previously powerless. For instance, the involvement of the U. S. Supreme Court in civil rights for fatals is long-standing, dating back to issues from the long time of slavery.In the Dred Scott case (1857), important Justice Taney ruled that no macabres, slave or free, were citizens, and that bares had no citizenship rights (Hall, 38). In 1883, two decades after the Civil War and the official end of sla very, the Court ruled on five kick set downstairs fits affecting the rights of blacks, and collectively called the Civil Rights Cases (1883). These cases arose in response to the Civil Rights Act of 1875 which prohibit racial discrimination in jury selection and public accommodations. In these cases, the public accommodations portions of the 1875 act were challenged.The Court recognized that the Fourteenth Amendment forbade discrimination by states solely it made no mention of discriminatory acts connected by individuals. Since the Civil Rights Act veto discrimination by individuals and private businesses, the Court ruled that the act had overstepped congressional authority and was then unconstitutional. By the end of macrocosm War II, the Supreme Court had become more supportive of civil rights for blacks. It touch down the all- pureness native in smith v.Allright (1944), arguing that the Democratic party was in essence an agent of the state and was therefore subject to the Fifteenth Amendment. During the late forties and the 1950s, the Court followed the trends begun earlier of moving apart from the doctrine of â€Å" withdraw but equal” (Hall, 51). This may be seen in the cases of Sipuel v. okeh (1948), Sweatt v. Painter (1950) and McLaurin v. okey State Regents (1950). In the Sipuel case, which was similar to the Gaines case, the Court ordered Oklahoma to provide a separate but equal law direct for a black woman and stressed the neediness for equality in facilities.In Sweatt v. Painter, the state of Texas had established a separate black law nurture but it was inferior to the whiteness law school at the University of Texas in the size of its faculty and the quality of its program library and student body. The court ruled that the black law school had to be improved. The Court nearly overturned the â€Å"separate but equal” doctrine in the McLaurin case in which Oklahoma had allowed a black student to assure a white graduate school but had single out him from the rest of the students by designating separate sections of the library, cafeteria and classrooms for him.The Court struck down these sequestration provisions, claiming that they interfered with the ability of the black student to exchange ideas with other students, a requisite for a sizable education. Although these cases fell short of invalidating the â€Å"separate but equal” principle, they made segregation at the graduate school level more difficult to implement. Perhaps the most significant civil rights cases to aid blacks in the fight for equality were the two embrown cases in the 1950s.Brown v. Board of precept I (1954) arose as the result of a suit against Topeka, Kansas where Linda Brown, a black child, was not permitted to attend a segregated white school four blocks from her home. In Brown I, under(a) the leadership of Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren, the Court overturned the Plessy decision of â€Å"separate but equal” in the public schools by declaring that the separate but equal doctrine made black children feel inferior. In Brown v.Board of Education II (1955), the Court ruled on how to accomplish integration, concluding that local school boards should establish plans for desegregation under the supervision of federal district judges and â€Å"with all deliberate speed”. Despite these court rulings, southern school boards were slow to resolve and annuled court orders by closing public schools and placing white children in private schools. Consequently, desegregation was only implemented very slowly.Women are not a minority but they have historically experienced legal discrimination based on their gender. The Supreme Court has played an important role in the elaboration of rights for women. Overall the Court has been less important in the expansion of womens rights than it has been in the extension of rights to blacks and other racial minorities. A major reason for the les s important role of the Court is that womens rights have mostly been broadened through legislation. Many womens rights cases intercommunicate by the Supreme Court have been concerned with employment.Early court decisions followed a trend of protectionism and upheld restrictions on the nature and conditions of employment for women. In Bradwell v. Illinois (1873), the Supreme Court upheld a state law preventing women from practicing law. Not until the 1970s did U. S. Supreme Court rulings begin to move out-of-door from the restrictive, protectionist trend of the past. Reed v. Reed (1971) was the graduation exercise instance of the Court striking down a state law which discriminated against women. Taylor v. lah (1975) overturned the precedent set in Hoyt v. Florida. Phillips v.Martin-Marietta (1971) ruled that employers could not discriminate against mothers of preschool children, notwithstanding fears that they might often miss throw to care for their children. In Stanton v. Sta nton (1975) the Court struck down a Utah law which required divorced fathers to support sons until they were jack oak under the assumption that they would need support while being educated, while daughters had to be supported only until they were eighteen under the assumption that they would get married and be supported by their husbands. Beginning in the 1920s, the U.S. Supreme Court began to apply the Bill of Rights to states through a process now called the incorporation of the Bill of Rights into the Fourteenth Amendment. As originally passed, the Bill of Rights applied only to the federal government and not to state governments. The Fourteenth Amendments equal protection and due process clauses clearly applied to the states. Through a series of lengthy cases, the Court engaged in a piecemeal process of interpreting the Fourteenth Amendment clauses to include the various freedoms protected in the Bill of Rights. In Near v.Minnesota (1931) the Supreme Court applied freedom of th e press to the states. In this case, the city of Minneapolis tried to suppress the publication of scandalous, malicious and defamatory material in newspapers. A newspaper publishers association, fearing censorship, challenged the Minnesota law on the grounds of violation of freedom of press. The Supreme Court struck down the law by contending that it represented prior restraint of future issues. The most important freedom given to the press is freedom from prior restraint, the freedom not to be censored.In many cases the statements embedded in the Bill of Rights are impacted directly or indirectly through the process of government operation in the United States. One of the most peculiar examples of this impact is adoption of the spousal relationship and Strengthening America by Providing set aside Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct terrorism Act of 2001, commonly known as the Patriot Act. This act significantly expands the power of the federal government to investigate, de tain, and deport those people who the government suspects are linked to terrorist activeness and other crimes.The quaternate Amendment of the United States Constitution requires the government to prove to a judicial officer that it has probable cause of a crime before it conducts an invasive calculate to find evidence of that crime or in exact words, this Amendment declares that â€Å"the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against counterintuitive searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause…” Before the handing over of the Patriot Act, if the primary purpose was a criminal investigation, the law enforcement officials had to first prove the higher standard of probable cause. probe criminal activity cannot be the primary purpose of surveillance. Now American golf club witnesses how one of the most fundamental statements of the Bill of Rights, particularly that one pr otecting individual freedoms from the state, is challenged.The change made by arm 218 of the Patriot Act authorizes unconstitutional activity by impinging on the Fourth Amendment protection that requires probable cause. Section 218 now provides law enforcement officials with a tool to avoid probable cause when conducting criminal investigation surveillance. The adoption of the Patriot Act has been triggered with the war the United States declared against terrorism. Interestingly, the same event, the war on terrorism, challenged another important chemical element of the Bill of Rights, namely the due process clause of the Fifth Amendment, which states that â€Å"no person shall … be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law….”Practically, this statement aims to secure individuals from unconstitutional exercise on the behalf of the government. Importantly, this member provides Americans with the right to be tried by unprejudiced courts wit h application of lawful procedures and laws. However, during the war in Afghanistan and Iraq, the US government measuredly deterred in prisons many prisoners of war (identifying them as terrorists) without court orders, indictments and further court hearings. here(predicate) one can notice the constitutional collision, in which the rights of the US government during wartime (including deterring of individuals without due process clause) challenges the statements embedded in the Bill of Rights.\r\nWorks Cited\r\nBarnett, Randy E. ed., 1989. Ninth Amendment. higher up note 29, at 18\r\nBailyn, Bernard. 1967. ideologic Origins of the American Revolution. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.\r\nEly, J. 1980. Democracy and Distrust. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.\r\nHall, Kermit L. 1989. The sorcerous Mirror. Law in American History, New York: Oxford University Press.\r\nLevine, James P. 1992. Juries and Politics, Pacific Grove, CA: countenance/Cole Publishing Compa ny.\r\nMadison, James. November 27, 1794. Republicanism. Speech in Congress. Annals of Congress 934.\r\nNelson, William E. 1988. The Fourteenth Amendment: From policy-making Principle to Judicial Doctrine. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.\r\nSchwartz, B. 1971. The Bill of Rights. A Documentary History. pp. 222-226.\r\nWiecek, W.  1976. The Sources of Antislavery Constitutionalism in America, 1760-1848. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. P. 74\r\n'