Amendments After the Bill of Rights

3 Key excerpts on "Amendments After the Bill of Rights"

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  The Annotated U.S. Constitution and Declaration of Independence

  • Jack N. Rakove, Jack N Rakove(Authors)
  • 2009(Publication Date)
  • Belknap Press

    (Publisher)

  Amendments to the Constitution R 220 annotations In transmitting its proposed amendments to the states, the First Congress evidently felt it had to explain why the Constitu-tion was being revised so soon after it went into operation. The problem was not that the Constitution as adopted was really de-fective, Congress implied. Prompt adoption of the amendments would help “prevent misconstruction or abuse of its powers” and enhance “public confidence.” Nothing of substance was being al-tered; rather, the meaning of the Constitution was somehow being enhanced and clarified. When James Madison introduced his proposed amendments in the House of Representatives on June 8, 1789, he wanted them to be individually inserted, or interwoven, in the text of the Constitu-tion at those points where each seemed most salient. But Roger Sherman, the former framer from Connecticut, repeatedly pro-tested that Congress had no authority to alter the text of the Con-stitution as it came from the Federal Convention, and his view ul-timately prevailed. Amendments, if approved, would appear as supplemental articles. In his introductory speech, Madison casu-ally described his amendments as a “bill of rights,” and that is the name by which, over time, Americans have come to know the first ten supplemental articles to the Constitution. Just how well they know what their rights are becomes, periodically, a matter of civic or educational concern. Public opinion polls repeatedly indicate that alarming portions of the citizenry have only the haziest no-tion of the content of the Bill of Rights. From the vantage point of 1788, this would be disturbing indeed. For when Anti-Federalists argued that a Constitution lacking a bill of rights was flawed, they imagined that such documents would work best not as legal texts amendments to the constitution 221 Congress of the United States Begun and held at the City of New-York, on Wednesday the fourth of March, one thousand seven hundred and eighty nine.

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  eBook - ePub

  A Companion to the United States Constitution and Its Amendments

  • John R. Vile(Author)
  • 2021(Publication Date)
  • Praeger

    (Publisher)

  HAPTER 10

  THE BILL OF RIGHTS , THE RIGHTS OF THE STATES (AMENDMENTS 9–10), AND AMENDMENTS 11 AND 12

  Anti-Federalist concerns about states’ rights under the new system of government provided much of the impetus for the Bill of Rights. Whereas the first eight amendments largely focus on individual rights, the last two amendments in the Bill of Rights address concerns about states’ rights (and hence are not part of the debate about being “incorporated” into the Fourteenth Amendment). The Eleventh Amendment addresses similar concerns. The Twelfth Amendment was a response to specific weaknesses that experiences in early presidential elections revealed in the Electoral College, which had, in turn, been designed to provide for some continuing state representation in the choice for the nation’s highest officeholder. Ratification of both the Eleventh and Twelfth Amendments followed so closely on the Bill of Rights that they also illumine the views of the founding generation.

  THE NINTH AMENDMENT Amendment IX. The enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people. Origins

  In arguments with the Anti-Federalists, Federalist supporters of the new Constitution initially argued that a bill of rights was unnecessary because the national government was a government of enumerated powers that could only exercise powers that the Constitution specifically entrusted to it. Federalists argued that a bill of rights could even prove dangerous if those who enforced it regarded the rights listed there as exclusive. Could the national government claim a right under the necessary and proper clause or another general clause to penalize individuals who refused to tip their hat (as Quakers refused to do) to a governmental official simply because the Constitution did not specifically list such a right?

  The framers designed the Ninth Amendment to address this problem. The Ninth Amendment provides that the Constitution’s enumeration of certain rights “shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.”

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  Handbook of Constitutional Amendments

  • (Author)
  • 2014(Publication Date)
  • University Publications

    (Publisher)

  Ideological conflict between Federalists and anti-Federalists threatened the final ratification of the new national Constitution, and the Bill addressed the concerns of some of the Constitution's influential opponents, including prominent Founding Fathers, who argued that the Constitution should not be ratified because it failed to protect the fundamental principles of human liberty. Twelve articles were proposed to the States, but only the last ten articles were ratified in the 18th Century, corresponding to the First through Tenth Amendments. The proposed first Article, dealing with the number and apportionment of U.S. Representatives, never became part of the Constitution. The second Article, limiting the power of Congress to increase the salaries of its members, was ratified two centuries later as the 27th Amendment. The Bill of Rights plays a key role in American law and government, and remains a vital symbol of the freedoms and culture of the nation. One of the first fourteen copies of the Bill of Rights is on public display at the National Archives in Washington, D.C. Text of the Bill of Rights Preamble Congress of the United States begun and held at the City of New-York, on Wednesday the fourth of March, one thousand seven hundred and eighty nine THE Conventions of a number of the States, having at the time of their adopting the Constitution, expressed a desire, in order to prevent misconstruction or abuse of its powers, that further declaratory and restrictive clauses should be added: And as extending the ground of public confidence in the Government, will best ensure the beneficent ends of its institution.

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