The Bill of Rights

The Bill of Rights

We’ve read the whole Constitution … of have we? Who could ever overlook the first ten amendments, collectively known as the Bill of Rights? Of course, no young USM historian would ever make that mistake. Over the next three days, we will be examining the Bill or Rights in and out of class, discussing the purpose behind the Bill of Rights, how our rights are protected and limited, and how the Bill of Rights applies to students in school. To begin, your task this evening is to do the following …

1)Read The Story of the Bill of Rights, located on the reverse of this sheet. Make sure you understand why the Bill of Rights was added to the Constitution (two major reasons).

2)Listen and watch the Voicethread about the bill of rights available on AHR,com. Using the separate graphic organizer, take essential notes on each of the Five Freedoms in the first amendment.

3)Think about the first amendment material you just listened to and spend a few minutes taking a look at some of the websites posted about the First Amendment. As you browse these sites, come up with a few scenarios concerning your (or anyone’s) freedoms protected in the First Amendment. For example …

Can a person marry more than one husband or wife, if it is part of their religion?

Can a person get arrested for wearing a t-shirt that says “Kill the President” in public?

Jot down a few questions or scenarios below. See if you can come up with one question for each of the “five freedoms” in the First Amendment! We will hopefully cover your questions in class on Friday!

Religion –

Speech –

Press –

Assembly –

Petition –

The Story of the Bill of Rights

From the time they first settled in Virginia and Massachusetts, the American colonists relied upon the rights enjoyed by Englishmen. The struggle for independence, however, demonstrated to them that rights not specifically written in law documents were not secure. The result was a movement, as soon as independence was declared, to adopt state constitutions that limited governmental powers and protected individual rights. Seven of the thirteen states adopted constitutions that included specific bills of rights; the other states included specific guarantees of individual rights in various parts of their constitutions. The first state bill of rights was the Virginia Declaration of Rights, adopted as part of the state's first constitution on June 12, 1776. Virginia's declaration, drafted mainly by George Mason, served as the model both for similar state documents and for the U.S. Bill of Rights.
The U.S. Constitution contains protection for some individual rights in the body of its text, notably the rights to Habeus Corpus and jury trial and against bills of Attainder and ex post facto laws. As originally drafted in 1787 by the Philadelphia Convention, however, no federal bill of rights was included. A motion by Elbridge Gerry and seconded by George Mason to add such a bill was defeated.
The failure of the Constitution to include a bill of rights gave rise to widespread opposition by the people, especially the anti-Federalists whop opposed ratification of the Constitution. The people refused to accept the Federalist claim that a bill of rights was not necessary, since the powers given to the new government did not include authority over individual rights.

The popular demand for a bill of rights was expressed in the state conventions that ratified the Constitution. The ratifying conventions of six states submitted proposed amendments protecting individual rights along with their ratification votes. These recommended amendments covered virtually all the rights that were later protected in the U.S. Bill of Rights. The action of the ratifying conventions made the movement for a federal bill of rights irresistible. Ratification would probably not have happened unless the Federalists agreed to add such amendments after ratification.

In the 1st Congress under the new Constitution, James Madison led the movement to make good these promises. He drafted the amendments that became the U.S. Bill of Rights and was the floor leader in the House debate on their adoption. The Madison amendments were put together from the various proposals coming out of the state conventions. In introducing the amendments in the House of Representatives on June 8, 1789, Madison urged the need for a bill of rights to "provide those securities for liberty . . . and expressly declare the great rights of mankind." The purpose was to limit and qualify power, guard against legislative and executive abuses, and protect the minority against the majority.
The Congressional debate on Madison's amendments produced stylistic and substantive changes. The most important of the former was adoption of the amendments as a series of separate articles to be added at the end of the Constitution, rather than as insertions into its body, as Madison had proposed. Four of Madison's amendments were eliminated during the Congressional debate; the most important of them was a prohibition against state violations of the rights of conscience, freedom of the press, and jury trial. Elimination of that amendment made the Bill of Rights apply only to the federal government and not to the states.
Congress voted in September 1789 to submit 12 amendments for ratification by the states. The first two, dealing with congressional size and compensation, failed. The other ten (renumbered to reflect the nonratification of the first two) were ratified by the required ten state legislatures, with Virginia the last to ratify, on Dec. 15, 1791. September 25--the day on which Congressional approval was completed--is celebrated as the anniversary of the federal Bill of Rights, but Bill of Rights Day is celebrated on December 15th. It’s so important, it has two holidays!

Scwartz, Bernard. “The Bill of Rights”. The American Revolution Home Page. [Online]. Available accessed October 7, 2001