The Bill of Rights: The Best Way to Limit the Power of the National Government

The Bill of Rights was proposed by James Madison in 1789 and has impacted the US ever since. When proposing the Bill of Rights, Madison had one main goal in mind, to enable United States citizens to fully be aware of their rights and be able to practice them freely and patriotically. With this being said, all of our rights are a necessity and play a huge role in our lives as US citizens. However, I personally view some rights more important than others.

Created September 25,1978 and ratified December 15, 179, the Bill of Rights was imputed into society as a tool to establish law,order, and morality. James Madison, a political theorist, was known as the father of the Bill of Rights. One of the most important amendments in the Bill of Rights is the right to freedom of speech, expression and media. In the Bill of Rights, the First Amendment states, “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.” The First Amendment guarantees the citizens of America that they have the right to freely express themselves about anything, including political arguments and views. This amendment also guarantees the press/media the right to overtly publish their ideas on any topic in the newspaper. The purpose of this amendment is to assure America’s people that they shouldn’t worry about being censored or punished for the expression of their feelings because they are human just as everyone else.

The bill of rights, written by James Madison, is the original 10 amendments. These amendments protect our personal freedoms and outlines the responsibility of out government. The people are the “protectors” or enforcers of these amendments. The first amendment is the most important amendment while the 3rd amendment is no longer relevant.

When the original Articles of Confederation was drafted in 1777, a bill of rights was considered unnecessary. The U.S government was not considered a single national government, but an alliance of independent states. Since the national government has no power to restrict people’s rights, there was no need for laws to prevent it from doing so. During the Constitutional Convention of 1787 the Constitution was passed without a bill of rights. When the constitution was sent to the states for ratification, a debate broke out between the Federalists, who supported a strong national government, and the Anti-Federalists, who supported retaining the spirit of the Articles of Confederation . Although the constitution was passed without a bill of rights, some Anti-Federalists felt that that it would be worthwhile to specifically protect through constitutional amendments such individual rights as free speech, religious exercise, and jury trials. Thomas Jefferson who sided with Anti-Federalists on this matter, sent a letter in 1789 to James Madison to pass the bill of rights . Madison submitted a draft of his proposed bill of rights several months later, and Congress passed it modified version by the end of the year. After ratification by the states, the Final Bill of Rights consisted of ten amendments that covered a wide range of topics, guaranteeing citizens individual rights such as freedom of speech and religious liberty and protecting them from excessive bail, unwarranted searches,

The first ten amendments to the constitution make up the Bill of Rights. These amendments were written by James Madison in response to the call for individual liberties. Madison was a member of the United States House of Representatives. He went through the Constitution line by line making changes that he thought they were most needed. Several Representatives, led by Roger Sherman, said that Congress had no authority to make the change to the Constitution. Madison’s changes were added as lists of amendments that would follow Article VII. The Bill of Rights lists the specific liberties that can’t be prohibited by the United States government. This document starts out with the Virginia Declaration of Right, written by George Mason, this document

In 1791, the Bill of Rights was drafted by congress after arguments ensued over whether the Constitution would uphold the rights of the American people. James Madison proposed twelve Amendments so to limit the power of government, allowing for a more stately and locally controlled system but, only ten were ratified. The ten amendments to be ratified were created to give American citizens freedoms they did not have under British rule. However, in current society the freedoms protected in the Bill of Rights are conflicted by the federal government and the confliction are justified as being beneficial for the general public. The altered interpretations of the Bill of Rights have forsaken freedom of speech, allowed unjustified search and seizure,

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 first amendment of the Bill of Rights states that every American citizen has the freedom of religion, freedom of the press, and the freedom of expression. It is also referred to as the Establishment Clause. It also states that an American has

In 1787 The constitution was written in attempt to stabalize the states and create a more perfect Union. Delegates that wrote the constitution payed really close attention not to give the government too much power and protect the citizen's rights (this in the constitution is known as the Bill of Rights). The Bill of Rights are the very first Ten amendments of the constitution. In my opinion the most important amendments in the Bill of Rights are the 1st, 2nd 3rd and 14th amendment (although it isn't technically in the Bill of Rights). The 1st amendment states that congress must respect an establishment of religion and cannot prohibit someone from their freedom of speech. Without this amendment congress could punish business owners and everyday

Countless Americans today don’t appreciate our nations bill of rights that our founding fathers included into our nation's constitution protects our own rights. Of all the 10 amendments in the bill of rights the 1st amendment protects our personal rights the most. The first amendment established the right for all Americans to have the freedom of religion, speech, and the press. This amendment essentially forbids the government from restricting an citizen from its own free exercise of religion, impeding one's right of freedom of speech, and to restrict the freedoms of the press. In this essay I will talk about why this amendment is so important to American citizens rights.

In 1789, the First Congress added a set of 10 amendments to the Constitution, which became known as the Bill of Rights (Robinson & Landrum, 2013). On December 15, 1791, The Bill of Rights, written by James Madison, was ratified to the United States Constitution. The Bill of Rights resulted from pressure from individual states; they wanted greater constitutional protections for individual liberties. The Bill of Rights enumerates explicit limitations of governmental entities, it further defines, interprets, and clarifies constitutional rights and protections that are guaranteed under the US Constitution.

The First Amendment includes six clauses that cover five basic areas: freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of assembly and the right to petition the government for redress of grievances.

The political and social ideologies during the founding of the United States greatly influenced the actions taken by the founding fathers, including the writing of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. The founding fathers’ strong belief that liberties were freedoms that could never be taken away lead to the Bill of Rights — ten amendments to the constitution that seek to protect certain liberties associated with the inalienable rights of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”. The liberties of religion, peaceful assembly, speech, and press were perhaps the most important to the founding fathers; they were listed first and the actions associated with these liberties ultimately led to the formation of the new country.

Citizens did not want to ratify the constitution without a bill of rights that would guarantee them their rights and would not be violated by the government. The proposition for the bill came during the wake of declarations made by Federalist and Anti-Federalist representatives that the ratification of the original U.S. Constitution must be postponed because it did not adhere to the principles of liberty. One of the many points of contention between Federalists and Anti-Federalists was the Constitution’s lack of a bill of rights that would place specific limits on government power. Federalists argued that the Constitution did not need a bill of rights, because the people and the states kept any powers not given to the federal government. Anti-Federalists held that a bill of rights was necessary to safeguard individual liberty (The Bill of Rights Institute, 2016). In response to this, On June 8, 1789, Representative James Madison introduced a series of proposed amendments to the newly ratified U.S. Constitution. That summer the House of Representatives debated Madison’s proposal, and on August 24 the House

The Bill of Rights are a list of ten amendments that were added to the constitution as the government's guarantee to protect the citizen’s individual rights. Moreover, Federalists such as Hamilton argued that, “if the Constitution were prefaced with a list of things government could not do to individuals, government would assume it had the power to do anything that wasn’t expressly forbidden” (Barbour and Wright 67). Despite the insistence of Hamilton and other Federalists, the addition of the Bill of Rights allowed the constitution to be ratified by the skeptical Anti-Federalists who were worried of an all powerful national