The Constitution - The Bill of Rights

I have not been sure whether I want to go over all of the amendments, and if I do, whether to do one at a time or to do them in groups. For right now I am going to punt and just write a little about the first ten and their genesis.

There Articles of Confederation were not able to keep things running smoothly when there were conflicts between individual states. The move to the Constitution accomplished that by strengthening the federal government, but not everyone was in favor of that.

Those who approved less of this centralization, notably George Mason and Elbridge Gerry, wanted to include a statement of the rights of the people, or a Bill of Rights, and there was some bitter contention about this.

It makes sense for the time. They had just rebelled against king and country for freedom, and now they were strengthening this new government, when they had meant for the strength to be in the people. The Constitution described how the government would run, but not in what direction.

It may be helpful to think of the Bill of Rights as the check for the people. The Legislative can make laws or fail laws, the Executive can propose and veto laws, and the Judicial can interpret and overturn laws, and the citizens participate by voting, but also there is a statement of rights. The laws can't go in some directions, because that would be too much of an attack upon liberty.

It was not even immediately agreed upon that the principles in the Bill of Rights affected state laws, as they were originally only applied to federal laws, but that has evolved too. Usually when we speak of constitutional rights, we are referring to the first addition to the Constitution.

And it matters that these apply to state laws, because usually whenever people start talking about state's rights, some state is wanting to abuse someone else. Historically that has been the case over and over again. It would appear that the states have enough rights to treat their residents fairly.

If we do go over all of the amendments, that might be something that comes up.