At a summit of world leaders in 2006, the chancellor of Austria noted that the United States historically had led the world in advancing “democracy, liberty, and individual rights.” The remark was so widely accepted that it was a commonplace and quickly forgotten. In fact, the ordinary acceptance of the comment is what should draw our attention.
Chapter 24: The Right to Property
Few rights have been more prominent throughout American history than property rights. The drive to settle North America was above all an attempt to exploit the economic potential of a new world, especially its vast tracts of land. Even individuals who came to escape political or religious persecution hoped for financial reward.
Chapter 23: The Right to Bear Arms
The Second Amendment is bitterly contested in modern America. Does the amendment recognize an individual right to own guns for sport and self-defense or a collective right, exercised through a militia, or citizen guard, to possess firearms for defending the nation? The framers clearly believed the right was important, but what they meant by it has become a source of deep division.
Eighteenth & Twenty-first Amendments (1919 & 1933)
The Eighteenth Amendment resulted from a national effort to control the making, distribution, sale, and consumption of alcoholic beverages. Prohibition, called a “noble experiment” in a paraphrase of President Herbert Hoover’s explanation of its goals, was an attempt to control reckless and destructive personal behavior.
Seventeenth Amendment (1913)
Initially, the legislatures of each state elected their U.S. senators. In a number of instances, disagreements between the two houses of a state legislature left Senate seats vacant for protracted periods.
Sixteenth Amendment (1913)
In Article I, sections 2 and 9 the U.S. Constitution said that no direct taxes could be imposed unless made in proportion to the population, as measured by the census. This meant that rather than taxing individuals directly, Congress had to levy taxes in each state based on the state’s population.
Fifteenth Amendment (1870)
The Fifteenth Amendment prohibits the use of race in determining who can vote. The last of the three Reconstruction Era amendments, ratified shortly after the Civil War, the Fifteenth Amendment sought to advance the civil rights and liberties of the freed slaves and other African Americans.
Chapter 22: The Right of Privacy
The right of privacy—the right to be left alone, as Justice Louis Brandeis once defined it—is fundamental to our understanding of freedom, but nowhere does the Constitution mention it. When Congress submitted the Bill of Rights to the people for ratification in 1789, privacy was not listed as a liberty that required protection from government.
Chapter 21: The Right to Protection against Cruel and Unusual Punishments
In February 2006, an inmate in California was minutes away from execution when two doctors assigned to monitor his death suddenly refused to participate. They protested the use of a three-drug cocktail designed to put the condemned man to sleep before he received the heart-stopping dose.
Chapter 20: The Rights of Juvenile Defendants
The legal separation between children and adults was still hazy at the time of American independence, especially in criminal law. One central issue concerned the age when children formed consciences sufficient to hold them responsible for their actions.
Chapter 19: The Right to Counsel
Television courtroom dramas have made the assistance of counsel during criminal proceedings one of the most recognizable of all rights guaranteed by the Constitution. We witness countless scenes of defendants refusing to cooperate without the presence of an attorney and of defense lawyers jousting in court with prosecutors to win an acquittal for their client.
Chapter 18: The Right to Trial by Jury
Among all abuses of governmental power, we may fear the secret trial most. Trial by jury guards against this practice, and for this reason juries have long occupied an important place in our understanding of individual rights.
Chapter 17: The Privilege Against Self-Incrimination
The privilege against self-incrimination goes back to the fourth century, but its most dramatic early expression can be found in medieval controversies between the English king and the church. Royal courts used a system of justice that employed public accusations and jury trials.
Fourteenth Amendment (1868)
Although it was created primarily to deal with the civil rights issues that followed the abolition of slavery, the Fourteenth Amendment has affected a broad range of American life, from business regulation to civil liberties to the rights of criminal defendants.
Thirteenth Amendment (1865)
In 1863, President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation based on his war powers. It freed the slaves held within the Southern states that were in rebellion against the United States.
Chapter 16: The Right to Protection against Double Jeopardy
No rule of criminal procedure is older than the one forbidding the government to try defendants twice for the same offense. It was considered so fundamental to due process that its appearance in the Bill of Rights is not surprising.
Chapter 15: The Right to Protection against Illegal Search and Seizure
The framers of the Bill of Rights intended the Fourth Amendment to ensure that their new government could not resort to the abuses of power they had experienced as colonists.
Twelfth Amendment (1804)
As the Electoral College was originally constituted, the candidate who received the most electoral votes became President and the runner-up became Vice President. With the rise of a two-party system, this meant that the President and Vice President might be chosen from different parties.
Chapter 14: The Right to Habeas Corpus
The refusal to grant habeas corpus was a grievance during the decades before independence, so the revolutionary generation wrote guarantees of the right into both state and federal constitutions.
Chapter 13: The Right to Due Process
In the Magna Carta (1215), the great charter of English liberty, noblemen forced King John to abide by the “law of the land” in his dealings with them. Under this agreement, the king accepted the idea that his power was not absolute.
Eleventh Amendment (1795)
After the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1793 that two South Carolina men could sue and collect debts from the state of Georgia, states’-rights advocates in Congress proposed what became the Eleventh Amendment. This amendment specifically prohibits federal courts from hearing cases in which a state is sued by individuals from another state or country.
Ninth & Tenth Amendments (1791)
The Ninth Amendment offers a constitutional safety net, intended to make it clear that Americans have other fundamental rights beyond those listed in the Bill of Rights.
Seventh & Eighth Amendments (1791)
The Seventh and Eighth Amendments add to the Constitution’s protections for individuals in the judicial system.
Chapter 12: The Right to a Fair Trial
The image is an old one in Western history: accuser versus accused, each summoning witnesses publicly in front of a judge to present their different versions of the truth. If the contest is equal and the judge impartial, then we deem the outcome fair and the verdict just, one that speaks the truth.
Chapter 11: The Right to Vote
We cannot imagine a modern democracy without adult citizens having the right to vote freely. It is a basic right of citizenship in a democratic society. Yet nowhere in the Constitution is the right to vote granted explicitly.