Bill of Rights Project: The First Ten Amendments

Our Constitution has actually changed very little since it was first created in 1787.  It has been amended 27 times, and two of those amendments, the 18th and 21st (Prohibition), canceled each other out. The 27th Amendment is in one way the most interesting in that it was passed by the first Congress in 1789 but was not ratified until 1992, after it was discovered as still “active” by a University of Texas law student. Although a number of amendments—those deadling with slavery and women's right to vote, for example—were very important, none of them has changed the basic functioning of our government.

The first ten amendments were ratified soon after the Constitution was formally adopted and can in a sense be considered part of the original Constitution, since all those amendments in one form or another were made conditions under the states agreed to ratification.  It is sometimes asked why they were not included in the original Constitution, as Virginian George Mason had urged, but the chief reasons were first, that the state constitutions had bills of rights, and therefore a federal Bill of Rights was seen as unnecessary; and, second, the delegates had a great deal to accomplish, and if they had gotten into a lengthy discussion of what became the Bill of Rights, their job would have been even more arduous.

There are, in fact, some protections of individual rights within the actual Constitution in Article I, Section 9, which includes the following:

The privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in cases of rebellion or invasion the public safety may require it. No bill of attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed.

The first ten are seen, however, as our sacred guarantees of personal liberty. This project invites you to examine the Bill of Rights and select one or more for a careful examination.  A great deal has been written about these amendments, and they are not always as straightforward as they may seem.  Here are a few examples of areas in which disagreements over the Bill of Rights occur from time to time:

• The First Amendment guarantee of free speech is not absolute.  As one Supreme Court Justice put it, the First Amendment does not give us the right to shout “fire” in a crowded theater. It does not give us the right to interrupt formal proceedings, such as a jury trial.  Libel laws exist to protect the good name and reputation of our citizens.  False advertising claims cannot be protected under the rubric of free speech, nor are “fighting words”—inflammatory words—always protected.
• The Second Amendment, which gives the people the right to keep and bear arms, has been interpreted in various ways, and the door is still open on exactly what it means.  Does that mean that the people collectively, as an organized militia, have the right to arm themselves? Or did does it give every individual citizen the right to own one or more firearms with no restrictions?
• Under the fourth amendment, what exactly constitutes “probable cause”?
• Under the sixth amendment, how does one define a “speedy” trial?
• Under the eighth amendment, what is “excessive bail”?  And is the death penalty, as some claim, a “cruel and unusual” punishment?

Those are some of the kinds of issues you should discuss in your Bill of Rights essay.  Following are some resources you might consult in beginning your research:

• National Archives site on the Bill of Rights
• Bill of Rights.com
• A site on Constitution Day
• Lady Liberty's Constitution Site
• The National Libertarian Party is a fringe group that always reads the Bill of Rights alous at their conventions. You might find something interesting here. (Some of them say, “I'm pro-choice on everything.”)
• The American Library Association has some opinions on this topic.
• U.S Senate site on the Bill of Rights

Google your way to some more if you choose.

Projects for Part 2