It also requires the federal government to pay just compensation for any private property it takes for public use. In addition to the famous right to refuse to testify against oneself (or “plead the Fifth”), the Fifth Amendment establishes other key rights for defendants in criminal proceedings, including the need for formal accusation by a grand jury and the protection against double jeopardy, or being tried for the same crime twice. Beginning in the 20th century, with the growth in power of federal, state and local law enforcement, the Fourth Amendment became an increasingly common presence in legal cases, limiting the power of the police to seize and search people, their homes and their property and ensuring that evidence gathered improperly could be excluded from trials. Most notably, British authorities made use of general warrants, which were court orders that allowed government officials to conduct searches basically without limitations. The Fourth Amendment’s guarantee of “the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures” also grew directly out of colonial Americans’ experiences prior to the Revolutionary War. The Supreme Court has never decided a case on the basis of the Third Amendment, but it has referred to its protections in cases surrounding issues of property and privacy rights. As a reaction against past laws allowing British soldiers to take shelter in colonists’ homes whenever they wanted, the Third Amendment doesn’t appear to have much constitutional relevance today, as the federal government is unlikely to ask private citizens to house soldiers. This amendment prohibits the quartering of militia in private homes in either war or peacetime without consent of the homes’ owners. Third Amendment (ratified 1791)īritish soldiers quartered in an American colonial home 1770s. Heller (2008), have argued the Second Amendment protects the right of an individual person to keep and bear arms for the purposes of self defense. Gun rights supporters, as well as Supreme Court decisions such as District of Columbia v. Those who argue it is a collective right point to the “well-regulated Militia” clause in the Second Amendment. The crux of the debate is whether the amendment protects the right of private individuals to keep and bear arms, or whether it instead protects a collective right that should be exercised only through formal militia units. The text of the Second Amendment reads: “A well-regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” During the Revolutionary War era, “militia” referred to groups of men who banded together to protect their communities, towns, colonies and eventually states.ĭiffering interpretations of the amendment have fueled a long-running debate over the original intention of the Second Amendment. These fundamental rights of thought and expression go to the heart of the revolutionary idea of popular government, as envisioned in the Declaration of Independence. It states that Congress can pass no law that encroaches on an American freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom to assemble and freedom to petition the government. Of these first 10 amendments, the First Amendment is arguably the most famous and most important. In order to secure support for the Constitution among Anti- Federalists, who feared it gave too much power to the national government at the expense of individual states, James Madison agreed to draft a Bill of Rights during the first session of Congress. Here is a summary of the 27 amendments to the Constitution: First Amendment (ratified 1791) This has never occurred, though state legislatures have passed hundreds of resolutions over the years calling for a constitutional convention over issues ranging from a balanced budget to campaign finance reform. Under Article V, states also have the option of petitioning Congress to call a constitutional convention if two-thirds of state legislatures agree to do so. Constitution have been ratified, out of 33 passed by Congress and sent to the states. Since the Constitution was ratified in 1789, hundreds of thousands of bills have been introduced attempting to amend it.
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