Selective Incorporation

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.” These are the exact words used by our country’s forefathers when they made these amendments in the late 1700’s. Ever since then there have been people trying to abolish this right by censoring

Over the course of time the Supreme Court has had multiple cases reviewed, and using the past history of famous court cases to evolve the Sixth Amendment. The Supreme Court uses selective incorporation (this a constitutional doctrine that ensures states cannot pass laws that take away the constitutional rights of American citizens that are protected in the Bill of Rights.)One example of the Supreme Court using selective incorporation is Impartial Jury: Voir Dire-defendant and prosecutor look over all juries to get rid of any bias that might be against the person. This also gives the criminally convicted different varieties of people on the jury to have an un-bias judgement. The reason this is a selective incorporation because the Supreme Court

Selective Incorporation is basically a concept of taking specific parts of the Bill of Right and apply them to the States and local government, on a case by case basis. And That was after the Civil War (1868), when the 14th amendment was past and it has in it two famous clauses which are the ‘due process clause” in which the states can’t be working by a different standard then the National Congress, and the equal protection clause which people have to be protected equally from the Congress and the States government.

The ninth amendment is U.S. citizens are guaranteed their rights that are not listed on the Constitution, such as the right to privacy. Some court cases that are tied with the ninth amendment is the Griswold v. Connecticut (1965), Regents of the University of California v. Bakke (1978), City of Richmond v. J.A. Orson Co (1989), Boy Scouts of America v. Dale (2000), and Grutter v. Bollinger.

1. The concept of selective incorporation according to We the People, was a “progression by which different securities in the Bill of Rights were incorporated into the Fourteenth Amendment. In 1937 the “courts were still unwilling to defend civil freedoms beyond the First Amendment. The first case that established selective incorporation was Palko v. Connecticut. The courts determined that “the provisions of the Bill of Rights should be selectively combined and useful as a constraint on the states by the Fourteenth Amendment “(Ginsberg et al. 117). Gideon v. Wainwright “established the right to counsel during criminal courts”. The Miranda v. Arizona likewise established the right to counsel and remain silent” The incorporation that gained a lot of nationwide attention is McDonald v. Chicago where the “right to bear arms was granted” (Ginsberg et al. 118). This incorporation has paved the way for several national cities to pass gun laws.

Even in the early stages of American history there was an urge to put legally protected freedoms into written government documents. The result was the drafting of the first ten amendments to the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, by James Madison. The applications of the personal freedoms described in the Bill of Rights, particularly the freedom of speech, have been challenged repeatedly in American courts of law and elsewhere. These incidents and challenges of authority reflect the defensive American attitude toward the ever-important freedom of expression and the growing significance of personal rights throughout American history.

#2 How did Anti-Federalist concerns raised during the ratification process lead to the Bill of Rights?

The founders recognized the importance of these laws in the making of a free and just society and preventing the tyranny of government. The founders purposely amended these protections into the Bill of Rights and stripping these rights away from American citizens is not only unjust, it is unconstitutional. As a detriment to all American citizens, Lindh’s rights, fought so hard for by the framers of the Constitution, were assaulted in many ways.

Incorporation refers to the action of the 14th Amendment in implementing the content of the Bill of Rights to the states. Some

There have been many amendments that have made their way through the congress since first the constitution was instated. A few, however, never made it into the United States constitution. There were six amendments that were never ratified into the constitution. Some were justified in their reasons for not being ratified, but then there are some which to this day no one quite understands why they were not ratified into the constitution. In Americans attempt to be a fair and just country, its government made many different decisions that were later written into a simple document that would have such an impact on a nation and even the world. The six amendments that did not make the cut were either later rewritten or forgotten completely but here in this paper all six will be looked at and analyzed. The six amendments are Congressional Apportionment Amendment, Title of Nobility Amendment, Corwin Amendment, Child Labor Amendment, Equal Rights Amendment, and District of Columbia Voting Rights Amendment.

There were ten amendments added to the Constitution that provide citizens with unalienable rights, such as the right to bear arms, remain silent so as not to incriminate oneself in court, to defend against search and seizure, among several others. This paper will focus on the First Amendment:

It was not until after the Civil War that the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth amendments were enacted and began protecting individuals against the states. The Fourteenth Amendment has been the principal means by which this protection has been accomplished. It reads, in part, “No State shall...deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law.” The Supreme Court had interpreted this guarantee of liberty to embrace the fundamental liberties in the Bill of Rights, meaning that the state governments must observe and protect them to the same extent as the federal government this is also known called incorporation. The amendments in the Bill of Rights are said to be incorporated against the states through the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. There has been an ongoing debate on the Supreme Court about the extent of incorporation, and whether the entire Bill of Rights, or only some of it’s guarantees, should be incorporated against the states.

In 1791, a vital document for the United States of America was written. The Bill of Rights. James Madison fulfilled the Anti-Federalists wishes by adding a list of rights to the constitution in order for the document to be ratified. The Bill of Rights addresses rights and freedoms which were violated under British rule. Although all 10 amendments are important, I have analyzed each one and ranked their importance. In 1791, some amendments would seem more important than others due to the recent events from the Revolution. Each amendment is relevant in its own way but some are exercised more than others by individuals in the United States. The first amendment of the Bill of Rights is the most important amendment.

The US Bill of Rights, written to limit government power in response to the tyranny of England on the colonies, gave birth to the first 10 amendments to the Constitution. The fourth amendment, contained within the Bill of Rights, will be the principle subject in this research paper. Swanson, Chamelin, Territo and Taylor (2012), noted the Constitution’s fourth amendment stated the following:

In 1791, ten amendments were made to the U.S. constitution: The Bill of Rights. The first of these rights given to the citizens of America is the right to freedom of religion and freedom of the press. Countless court cases have brought the issue of the separation of church and state to light. Legal battles and administrative actions in the government have led to conversations about how much religion should be involved in schools and what power the state has over religion.