The Importance Of The Bill Of Rights

When including a bill of right, James Madison, consciously added the Ninth Amendment to assure individuals that the listed rights in Constitution were nowhere near exhaustive. Concerns about too much power from a federal government, Madison wrote the Bill of Rights as a restriction against federal since states had their own bill of rights. However, this left states to act as they wished without checks from the federal government. Through the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendment, congress had hoped to safeguard individual rights from states as well. Its vague language, though, left too much room for interpretation and ushered in what many saw as a blatant disregard for textual understanding the Constitution.

Do you know what keeps, and has kept America in order since 1789? That would be The Bill of Rights. The Bill of Rights is simply the first ten amendments. Written by James Madison, The Bill of Rights lists specific prohibitions on governmental power. The Bill of Rights was officially added into the constitution in 1791. The amendments are on display in the National Archives Museum.

The Bill of Rights became a very important document in the United States Constitution in order to ensure United States citizens equal protection of their rights and liberties. The main objective of the Bill of rights was to place limits on the national government creating an understanding and dividing the powers between the states and the national government. Not all the powers were granted to the national government however not all the powers were prohibited to the states. As stated by Ginsberg, Lowi, Weir & Tolbert (2015) the bill of rights consists of 10 amendments incorporated in the U.S constitution. It is important to note that each amendment contains a legal court case in which the supreme court as well as the government have ruled and have ignored or have protected the rights of the individuals involved.

A very popular constitutional issue in America is the First Amendment. The First Amendment is meant to protect, but in today’s society it is being questioned that the argument is being overly used. The First Amendment of the United States Constitution protects the right to freedom of religion and freedom of expression from government interference (Esmaili). Freedom of religion created the separation of church and state. It prohibits the government from interfering with a person's practice of their religion. The right to freedom of speech allows individuals to express themselves without government interference or regulation. The right of freedom of expression gives the right to assemble and gather for peaceful and lawful purposes. It was adopted into the Bill of Rights in 1791. The Court later interpreted the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment as protecting the rights in the First Amendment from interference by state governments. Putting this is layman’s term, you can pretty much say what you want without being penalized.

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.

law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.") allows other amendments

When the first ten amendments were added to the Constitution, they were planned to shield the public from the national government and not the states. States had their individual constitutions, and their laws only had to comply with their constitution. The founders of our country were very concerned about creating too powerful of a centralized government that might overstep on the given civil liberties of the public. As a protection of individual liberties, the Bill of Rights was formed. The Bill of Rights contains the first ten amendments of the Constitution and protect and preserve inalienable rights against abuse by the federal government.

Such implied rights are only applicable if they are “plainly arising from the text of the Consititution, rather than assumptions upon which it is based, but which is does not express”. This supports a more recent trend to a purposive approach to interpretation of the constitution.

In 1791, the Bill of Rights was added to the Constitution to guarantee a limited government and protect the rights of the American people from the federal government. The 14th amendment was added later in 1868 in order to ensure due process for all and equal protection under the law. Many people have debated the effectiveness of these documents and called into question whether the freedoms of Americans are being protected. However, they have remained throughout the years as a steadfast guide for the basic freedoms we as Americans hold. The Bill of Rights and 14th amendment are effective because they have created a framework for court cases that have further refined and protected our freedoms, inspired action by the president and Congress to

The ninth amendment states that, “The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people” (http://www.house.gov/Constitution/Amend.html).The fourteenth and the most important in this case states in Section 1 that,

1. However, a bill of rights was required since the Constitution couldn't be ratified without one

In fact, Congress had to pass several pieces of legislation to spell out specifically what those rights were so they could no longer be assumed as they previously were.

The author, Donald Lutz continues, “second, since bills of rights were statements of commonly held values and commitments, and there were differences in these values from state to state, a national bill of rights would either have to contain the least common denomination and thus leave out things considered important by many people…” That is to say, not every right on every state’s bill of rights could be included in the national Bill of Rights. So, some rights would need to be eliminated despite the fact that they were important enough to be in a state’s bill of rights. Or an amalgamation of rights would be created by taking the rights state’s bills of rights found most important. Something has to give and there was no way to satisfy every person from every state.

An agreement was finally made to create the Bill of Rights to help secure ratification of the Constitution itself.

“The first enumerates basic rights and liberties of the kind familiar from a constitutional regime the second assigns these rights, liberties, and opportunities a special priority, especially with respect to the claims of the