Chapter 4: Amendments and

RightsThe Conflicts of Understanding Our Freedoms

Rights

•Are civic (related to society), not moral (related to the beliefs of what is right and wrong).

•Rights are legal freedoms or claims for one group to act without being restrained or to be protected from being acted upon.

Bill of Rights•First 10 Amendments

•Why it created?

•Protects Civil Rights: freedoms that protect individuals from the government.

•negative rights: rights that come from the government’s inability to act. (example: free speech)

•positive rights: rights that come from the government’s ability to act. (example: public schools)

1st Amendment•Congress shall make no law

respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people to peaceably assemble, and to petition the Government for redress of grievances.

•The “cornerstone” of democracy.

1st Amendment•Freedom of Religion: protect the safeguards

started by the English Colonists. Many believed that it was only a protection for other Christian religions.

•Freedom of Assembly: assembly must be peaceful. The government can regulate, but not ban.

•Freedom of Petition: Petition- a formal request to change an aspect of government.

•Freedom of Press: Printed publications and sources of media.

•Refrains government from Censorship: the use of state or group power to control freedom of expression.

Freedom of Speech•Freedom of Speech- Democracy requires

communication and the questioning of the status quo in order to make the best social decisions.

•Includes public and private speech as well as symbols and actions- Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District. (pg. 108)

- To Protest the war in Vietnam, students war black armbands which were promptly banned at school.

Limits•Speech: One may not spread lies that

harm a person’s reputation.

•libel: when lies are printed

•slander: when lies are spoken

•Why create these limits?

•“Where do one’s rights begin and another’s come to an end.

Rights of the Accused

•4th Amendment: No unreasonable searches and seizures.

•search warrant: a court order allowing law enforcement officials to search a person or location.

•5th Amendment

•An indictment: a formal charge (accusation) from a grand jury. To determine if a trial is necessary.

•No double jeopardy: If found innocent of a specific crime, one cannot be tried again for the same crime.

Why are these important?

•Right to remain silent: to protect people form being forced to testify against themselves.

•Due Process: one must not be denied their rights due to them by the law of the land until following the legal process.

•6th Amendment: Trial by jury

•Entitled to a lawyer; if you can’t afford one, the government must provide you with one.

•8th Amendment: Forbids cruel and unusual punishment.

•Bail: a sum of money used as a security deposit. Bail is returned upon appearance in court. No excessive bail.

Additional Rights•2nd Amendment: A well regulated militia, being

necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to bear arms, shall not be infringed.

•Regulation is allowed.

•3rd Amendment: No quartering in times of peace.

•7th Amendment: The right to a jury trial in civil cases of the amount $20.

•civil case: lawsuits that involve disagreements between citizens, and not between the citizens and their government (crime).

•9th Amendment: Makes it clear that citizens have rights that are not mentioned in the Bill of Rights.

•10th Amendment: The powers not delegated to the United States [federal government] by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or the people.

Expanding the Constitution•13th Amendment: Abolished slavery.

•14th Amendment: Granted citizenship to all those born or naturalized in the United States, and equal protection under the law.

•17th Amendment: Provided for the elections of U.S. senators by popular vote instead of state legislatures.

•18th Amendment: Prohibition- the outlawing of sale and manufacturing of alcohol in the United States. (repealed by the 21st Amendment)

•19th Amendment: women received the right to vote.

•26th Amendment: the right to 18 year olds to vote.

Civil Rights Struggle•After slavery came to an end, the racism

that defended slavery continued to flourish under other political, legal, and social conflicts.

•Jim Crow Laws laws requiring the separation of African-Americans and whites in most public places.

•Plessy v. Fergurson (1896)- created a precedent for segregation.

• “Separate, but equal”

• Fight for civil rights which were ensured rights of full citizenship and equal protection under the law (derived from which amendment?).

•NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) was established in 1909 to help overturn “Separate, but Equal.”

•Brown v. Board of Education Topeka, KS (1954): Overturned Plessy v. Fergurson under the 14th Amendment.

•Affirmative Action: Programs to try to make up for past discrimination.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.- African-American Struggles

Women’s Suffrage

Harvey Milk- Gay Rights Struggle