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Two months ago, kaisershatner's edits changed the date of introduction of the Bill of Rights from 1789 to 1791. As it stands now, the article claims New Jersey and several other states ratified the amendments before they were introduced. I'd fix it, but this article is currently protected. 66.32.212.4 ( talk) 21:59, 24 May 2019 (UTC)
also this is clearly wrong
January 10, 1791 - Vermont becomes 14th state to ratify the Constitution - except that it's not a state until March 4, 1791.
November 3, 1791 - Vermont is 10th state to ratify the Bill of Rights. December 15, 1791 - Virginia is 11th state to ratify the Bill of Rights, and Bill of Rights goes into effect. March 2, 1939 - Massachusetts is 12th state to ratify the Bill of Rights. March 18, 1939 - Georgia is 13th state to ratify the Bill of Rights. April 19, 1939 - Connecticut is 14th state to ratify the Bill of Rights. ( Subarusvx ( talk) 01:05, 1 March 2010 (UTC)) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Subarusvx ( talk • contribs) 01:00, 1 March 2010 (UTC)
<section by banned editor removed. {{user|James dalton bell}} is banned, and any edits he makes are subject to reversion on sight. The IPs 97.120.255.244 and 97.120.252.231 are IP sockpuppets of his, and as per above, all edits by them will be reverted. If Mr. Bell wishes to appeal his ban, he must do so through proper channels. Ban evasion is not tolerated.— Dæ dαlus Contribs 11:29, 12 March 2010 (UTC)>
As noted above, edits by a banned editor were removed. These edits are not to be restored for any reason, as that would be editing for a banned editor, and therefore, a violation of
WP:BAN.—
Dæ
dαlus
Contribs 11:48, 12 March 2010 (UTC)
great article-- 74.184.3.10 ( talk) 21:43, 18 March 2008 (UTC)
Too bad NO ONE CARES ABOUT THE BILL OF RIGHTS ANYMORE. "The People" does not include you or me (Barron v. Mayor & City Council of Baltimore. 32 U.S. 243). Furthermore, the Bill of Rights and Constitution do not apply to the State laws based on the same Barron v. City of Baltimore descision. http://supreme.justia.com/us/32/243/case.html
If you think GWB is the source of all of our problems, you don't even know the tip of the iceberg. The same people who got us in to get subway got us in to Iraq twice and they WILL NUKE THE US before 2010! Too bad all of you sheep are too drunk from the wine of the whore of Babylon to notice anything. I know exactly what anyone reading this will think of me..."he's nuts" or "he should be put into a secret concentration camp". Well, soon enough, that will come to pass. Thanks to the Patriot Act, which completely irradicates the Bill of Rights and most of the constitution, we now have "Thought Crimes". I'm almost happy to know that the judgement of God will soon be upon America and criminals like Cheney, Clinton, the Rockefellers, Rothschilds, Feds, Obama, Al Gore and Bush. They will be paid back in full for all of the millions of murders they are causing around the world. Many more are yet to come. More than a million Americans will die due to their efforts before 2010.
The text featured at the point "Text of the Bill of Rights" contains only 10 Articles, the first two - I know they were not ratified by the required number of states by December 1791 but still - are missing. The original does infact have those 2 articles and so they should not be left out! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.168.84.183 ( talk) 21:23, 20 January 2008 (UTC)
I hear the Bill of Rights or the first 10 ammmendments were adaptations from the Vermont Republic's Constitution when it was the first state to join the union (i.e., the 14th state). Perhaps I am lazy but can anyone verify this for me? Teetotaler 2 April 2007
Note:According to the Maryland State Archives-the Bill of Rights appearing on Wikipedia is the Maryland Copy —Preceding unsigned comment added by 134.53.145.93 ( talk) 15:01, 31 October 2008 (UTC)
there are now over 40 amendments —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.183.254.142 ( talk) 21:49, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
I know the character that looks like an f is an s, but I think it would be a good idea to briefly discuss this or link to the Long s Wikipedia article. Although it is slight, you are basically translating from an old script to modern English. I know I'm not the only one who wanted to know why they spelled Congress as Congrefs. Thanks. Peace. Truthunmasked ( talk) 12:43, 9 April 2009 (UTC)
My edit about an illiberal democracy belongs in this article for one major reason: An encyclopedia is an educational tool, and what better way to educate people than refer them to other articles? Just the same as Encyclopedia Brown or Britannica would refer the readers to other articles elsewhere in the book, I think my edit about illiberal democracy would do the same thing here. So, please, don't remove it. 70.178.75.61 ( talk) 06:02, 13 May 2009 (UTC)
Madison drafted the Bill of Rights in response to demands from the majority of the original 13 states, which instead of ratifying the new Constitution "as is", demanded a Bill of Rights to go with it. Many states ratified with the proviso that the vote was invalid until such time as a Bill of Rights was added, and a number of other states flatly refused to even consider a vote to ratify without a Bill of Rights. Even states that voted in favor of the Constitution "as is" also proposed amendments. Delaware, the very first state to ratify, for instance set up a commission which proposed 15 Amendments which had overwhelming support. http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?ammem/hlaw:@field(DOCID+@lit(ed0029)): see page 550-552.
The statement currently appearing "Madison proposed a Bill of Rights" should be changed to "Madison drafted a Bill of Rights in response to demands from the majority of the original 13 states.
It is probably more accurate to say that he was "forced to write a Bill of Rights or see the Constitution go down the drain, or even that he was dragged "kicking and screaming" into the camp of those who demanded a Bill of Rights, but such is unlikely to get past wiki self appointed censors. 98.118.19.104 ( talk) 17:39, 3 November 2009 (UTC)
hell ya —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.1.207.245 ( talk) 20:13, 9 December 2009 (UTC)
Admendments] is something you can do to change the [Constituion] , you change it be adding amendments . —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.210.69.134 ( talk) 20:00, 9 January 2010 (UTC)
""Congress of the United States begun and held at the City of New-York, on Wednesday the fourth of March, one thousand seven hundred and eighty nine THE Conventions of a number of the States, having at the time of their adopting the Constitution, expressed a desire, in order to prevent misconstruction or abuse of its powers, that further declaratory and restrictive clauses should be added: And as extending the ground of public confidence in the Government, will best ensure the beneficent starts of its institution. RESOLVED by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America, in Congress assembled, two thirds of both Houses concurring, that the following Articles be proposed to the Legislatures of the several States, as amendments to the Constitution of the United States, all, or any of which Articles, when ratified by three fourths of the said Legislatures, to be valid to all intents and purposes, as part of the said Constitution; viz. ARTICLES in addition to, and Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America, proposed by Congress, and ratified by the Legislatures of the several States, pursuant to the fifth Article of the original Constitution.[5] ""
THE PREAMBLE OF THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA BEGINS WITH "WE THE PEOPLE" NOT CONGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. PLEASE DO NOT DISTRIBUTE THIS FARSE YOU HAVE POSTED ON WIKI. PEOPLE, NOT ELECTED OFFICIALS, not senators, not representatives, not politicians "WE THE PEOPLE" this version wiki has posted is a blatant lie of the beuracratic machine most of us have become enslaved by. Please do not let your children be brought up by this disgusting lie. Teach them that thier rights are also thier duties, ALL OF THEM. THE FIRST THE SECOND AND THE FIFTH ESPECIALY, THE TIGER MUST HAVE TEETH. otherwise we are nothing more than oppressed communists or at best 1939 germany. TAKE UP ARMS, SPEAK YOUR MIND, DENY ENTRY TO FEDERAL AGENTS, WHY HAS "WE THE PEOPLE" BEEN OMMITED. DO NOT ALLOW THE SYSTEMATIC ELIMINATION OF OUR RIGHTS AND DUTIES BE SHITCANNED BY THE ONES WHO PROVIDE OUR LAWS OR THOSE WHO PROVIDE OUR SO CALLED ENCYCLOPEDIC INFORMATION. THIS CATEGORY HAS BEEN GROSSLY MANIPULATED TO THE POINT OF RAPE "YOU AND I AND YOUR CHILDREN ARE THE VICTIMS" —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.136.6.221 ( talk) 08:33, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
Caption under Madison's note (photo) should be changed from 1791 to 1789 as it appears in long hand on the document, itself.
Link to Document: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/5/50/Madison.notes.06081789.jpg Hsaive ( talk) 16:53, 7 June 2010 (UTC)
3rd Amendment doesn't protect against quartering of troops, it protects PRIVACY. Freedom from government snooping. To say it protects from "quartering of troops" is to take it so literally it is useless. The founders didn't foresee electronics, video cameras, FLIR, or other modern bugging and surveillance devices. The political goal, however, remains the same: to close off the area of private existence from the eyes of the otherwise totalitarian state. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.47.225.140 ( talk) 08:42, 24 May 2011 (UTC)
Please remove the link to the FMK 9C1, an entirely unrelated link put on the page by the creator of that article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.100.6.20 ( talk) 02:29, 23 February 2011 (UTC)
Done-- JayJasper ( talk) 03:28, 23 February 2011 (UTC)
The freedom of religious practice and expression is conspicuously absent from the discussion on this page. Despite it being the first freedom recognized by the First Amendment, it receives no mention in the introduction explaining what the Bill of Rights is all about-- and is only mentioned in the text of the Amendment itself, and in passing, in the discussion of the Virginia Declaration of Rights.
This right is arguably the foundation upon which the Constitution and Bill of Rights was built, and its absence here is difficult to understand, at best. Therefore I'm going to edit the article to include it. R0nin Two ( talk) 15:33, 29 March 2011 (UTC)
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i would like to add the Aendments
208.47.128.148 ( talk) 17:14, 7 April 2011 (UTC)
Support:
Comments:
Great choice for an article...but I haven't the faintest idea about the topic so would not know where to start. I have made an FA recipe on my user page, and this is the first task... Casliber ( talk · contribs) 10:10, 7 June 2011 (UTC)
As a parting though the Page ratings for this article are actually quite high so that is a good marker IMO to see if our efforts pay off.
I am starting to work on expanding the article by expanding the various sections. It will take some time to get the content built up so if it looks like things are a little erratic andn disorganized for a couple days thats why. I will continue to refine and expand as I go along. Feel free to comment, make changes, fix my punctuation and grammer (which I have been told is less than flawless :-)). With any luck over the next couple weeks the article will be substantially improved over its current state. -- Kumioko ( talk) 15:55, 21 June 2011 (UTC)
I have posted an initial assessment of the article by a National Archives staff member from the legislative archives at /NARA. He is actually in the middle of changing jobs soon, but I am working on other contacts as well. If you have any responses to it, I'll make sure he gets them. Dominic· t 14:56, 21 June 2011 (UTC)
Am I right that this article includes the text of the preamble and of later amendments, but not the text of the actual Bill of Rights itself?-- 109.149.34.134 ( talk) 17:02, 17 July 2011 (UTC)
I would like to announce the first featured article contest for the National Archives project. The National Archives has graciously provided us with prizes to give out to winners, including National Archives publications, tote bags, and other swag. The first contest is a challenge to get any of the articles on the three documents on display in the National Archives building's rotunda—the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights—featured (in any language).
Please read more about how to participate here. Good luck! Dominic· t 20:47, 18 July 2011 (UTC)
Did Rhode Island reject article II of the Constitution (as it is written here) or article II of the Bill of Rights? Jan.Kamenicek ( talk) 10:01, 28 July 2011 (UTC)
The statement "Originally, the Bill of Rights included legal protection for white men only" isn't what is said in the given source, which begins by pointing out that the issue is one of assumptions of the context in which the BOR is to be interpreted, rather than the BOR itself. The WP statement doesn't qualify this, and as it stands is nonfactual:
The language of the Bill of Rights is almost entirely gender neutral and its provisions have always applied to some women. 1 But free white men of property designed the Bill of Rights in a political process from which they excluded most Americans and all women. Not surprisingly, the Bill of Rights served and serves the interests of such men better than the interests of others.
TEDickey ( talk) 13:02, 20 August 2011 (UTC)
In 1918 women got to vote, but in many instances, women had very little legal protection under the US Constitution until they challenged existing laws in the Supreme Court (and continue to this day). In some cases, African Americans had legal rights many years before women, especially married women in the US. One example is the 14th amendment where African Americans were included in 1954, and women were included in 1971.
In 1971, US Supreme Court ruled in Reed v. Reed [1] that the 14th amendment applies to women, [2]. Until then, women were not considered as "people" according to the US Constitution. I'm not kidding and I'm not exaggerating, see Timeline of Personhood. [3] I added this information in the 14th amendment article, but it reads like an afterthought because there is no other mention of women anywhere in the article. For some reason the article is written from the view point of African Americans only and how it applies to them.
Even today, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia claims that women do not have equal protection under the 14th amendment [4] because men's rights are guaranteed by specific language in the Constitution, but women's rights are not mentioned. [5] So yes, it's up to interpretation of the courts, which has not been in favor of women even today – 2011, so it's still not resolved to this day. USchick ( talk) 15:03, 20 August 2011 (UTC)
The entire paragraph in question is POV and misrepresents both the Bill of Rights and the TWO sources that it cites. The sources themselves are simply opinion pieces. And even if you accept the viewpoint presented, this argument has nothing to do with the Bill of Rights itself, but with the history of American jurisprudence, so it doesn't belong here. There is NOTHING in the BoR that supports the statement that it applied only to white men or excluded "most Americans and all women". There were also no later changes to the Bill of Rights to cause its protections to be extended to non-whites or females.
The Bill of Rights itself is gender neutral. The argument that the Constitution guaranteed men's rights but not women's rights is based upon reading the current usage of language into the usage of over two centuries ago. When the Constitution was written, "men" meant "mankind", and was not intended to exclude women.
Quite simply, this paragraph was added to further a political viewpoint and agenda, and it cannot stand up to scrutiny. That's why I originally reverted to the original, and that's why it should not be allowed to be added back in. This is the kind of thing that makes a Wiki a poor source of information-- people editing it to reflect their own beliefs rather than the facts. R0nin Two ( talk) 20:06, 20 August 2011 (UTC)
And I repeat the fact that your issues aren't with the Bill of Rights at all, but with your interpretation of the application of legal protections to various groups in later years. Your claims have nothing to do with the Bill of Rights, and don't belong in this article. Citing biased sources (ACLU-- an extremely liberal group-- and a "Women's Studies" article) and then even twisting what they say to fit your purposes is doubly an issue. You need to leave the politically-motivated arguments out of this article, and add them to appropriate articles that discuss those issues. R0nin Two ( talk) 05:42, 21 August 2011 (UTC)
The sentence should go. It is patently false. If the contention was true it would have been legal to quarter troops in women's houses but not mens' and that was not the case even in the earliest days. I think what you are focusing on USchick is voting rights, which deserves to be noted but which was also more of an issue of how states were allowed to legislate voter eligibility not that the bill of rights was restricted to certain groups. LegrisKe ( talk) 07:41, 22 August 2011 (UTC)
For it's time the U.S. Constitution was rather "gender neutral" often using words like "person". To assert that the Bill of Rights which applied at the time of ratification only to the federal government; "protected only white men" distorts history and is inconsistent with Wikipedia's NPOV standards. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.46.227.202 ( talk) 13:47, 16 June 2012 (UTC)
The balance of state and federal power under the incorporation doctrine is still an open question and continues to be fought separately for each right in the federal courts. This statement seems odd and unbelievable and is not sourced. Can we please get a reliable source behind it? 97.85.163.245 ( talk) 09:05, 15 September 2011 (UTC)
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i think it would be nice to put the names of the editors
67.161.172.216 ( talk) 00:19, 6 October 2011 (UTC)
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May we PLEASE move the actual TEXT of the BILL of RIGHTS to the first part of this page - BEFORE the discussion of it?
Hasn't it persisted long enough to deserve reading prior to critique?
75.108.141.17 ( talk) 02:25, 21 January 2012 (UTC) Ken Soderstrom soderstromk@hotmail.com
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In the text box "Ratification of the Constitution," the date for Pennsylvania should be December 12, not December 11. The date for Maryland should be April 28 not April 26.
Look just below the box in the section called Ratification process to see that the dates conflict with one another.
PlanetBoyer ( talk) 23:46, 4 April 2012 (UTC)
Not done: please provide reliable sources that support the change you want to be made. Thanks, Celestra ( talk) 20:45, 5 April 2012 (UTC)
Done ~ Adjwilley ( talk) 23:29, 2 May 2012 (UTC)
BOR Only Ratified March 1939 | ||
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The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it. | ||
Second AmendmentSecond amendmebnt reads: "..keep and bear Arms.." not weapons. Entirely different legal definition. The wording needs be changed. 70.162.46.94 ( talk) 22:26, 5 September 2011 (UTC)
Georgia, Mass., Conn.Section 2.4 states that these states ratified the bill of rights in 1792. Section 3.2 says they did so in 1939. 76.116.6.147 ( talk) 13:47, 28 June 2012 (UTC)Georgia and Massachusetts "ceremonially" ratified for the sesquicentennial of the Bill of Rights. Connecticut actually ratified the Bill of Rights in 1789, and their ratification may be viewed in their archives or on NationalTruth.org in the "Final Brief and Addendums" of "LaVergne v. Bryson, et al" 76.116.6.147 ( talk) 13:47, 28 June 2012 (UTC)
Apnorton ( talk) 18:19, 11 June 2012 (UTC): This still needs updating. The correct dates for Georgia, Mass., and Conn. are in 1939. Further backup here: http://scholarship.law.wm.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1553&context=wmborj http://www.jstor.org/stable/844251 The reason for this apparent discrepancy is simple. (See my 1939 comment below). At the time the BOR was voted on in the Federal Congress for ratification, there were only 11 states in the Union. Only 8 of those states had ratified the BOR at the time of its presumed ratification, which would not have been sufficient if only those states that had been states at the time of the proposal were allowed to count. The admission of other states, and counting their votes in the state-legislature stage of the ratification process, was employed to conclude that the ratification had been complete. A careful study of the matter, in 1939, apparently revealed that only 8 of 11 original states had actually ratified the BOR. At that point, only one of the three as-yet-unratifying states (Georgia, Massachusetts, and Connecticut) would have been sufficient to properly ratify the BOR: One more vote would bring the tally from 8 ratifying states up to 9, which was greater than 3/4's of those 11 original states. In the end, each of those states...and ONLY those states...contributed its ratification vote. Nearly 150 years later. The "celebration" story, was obviously a ruse, designed to conceal the fact that the BOR had remained unratified for 148 years after being thought ratified. Else, why didn't dozens of other states ratify, as well? Jamesdbell8 ( talk) 20:58, 26 July 2012 (UTC) Edit request on 27 July 2012
This paragraph is NOT to be included but is to explain these two changes. Rights such as gun ownership and a speedy trial are not natural rights. They are legal rights which protect natural rights. As Madison's words from the speech he delivered introducing the Bill of Rights as recorded in The Annals of Congress, House of Representatives, First Congress, 1st Session, starting on page 454. "Trial by jury cannot be considered as a natural right, but a right resulting from a social compact which regulates the action of the community, but is as essential to secure the liberty of the people as any one of the pre-existent rights of nature." CHANGES START HERE "These limitations serve to protect the natural rights of liberty and property." should be changed to: "These legal rights serve to protect the natural rights of liberty and property." AND the sentence: "The Bill of Rights is a series of limitations on the power of the U.S. federal government, protecting the natural rights of liberty and property including freedom of religion, freedom of speech, a free press, free assembly, and free association, as well as the right to keep and bear arms." should be changed to:
BOR Only Ratified March 1939Three years ago, I discovered from studying the ratification process that the Bill of Rights (first ten amendments) were actually only ratified March 1939. Read on! The process for ratification requires 2/3s vote in House and Senate, and 3/4's ratification by all state assemblies. Simple, right? But there is a hidden question: "Is it 3/4's of the state legislatures at the time of the 2/3's House/Senate vote, or is it 3/4's vote of state legislatures at the time of the purported ratification?" We don't consider the difference today because the last two states were admitted in 1958 or 1959, and prior to that there was Arizona in about 1913, I think. But I think the correct rule is, 3/4's of those states' legislatures at the time of Congress's 2/3 vote. The reason for that may be that during the late 1790's and early 1800's, states were being admitted so rapidly, and if a newly-proposed state's potential vote on an already-proposed amendment were to 'count', that state's entrance in to the Union would be potentially a problem, and they didn't want that. Notice that three states ratified the BOR in March and April 1939, and none had done so much after the 1790's or after 1939. What happened is this: Three states did not want to ratify the Constitution because it had no Bill of Rights. So, only 11 states ratified it the Constitution, and the BOR was proposed. 3/4's of 11 states is 8.25 states being required to ratify, so they had to round-up to 9 states. But, a few states had been admitted to the Union shortly afterwards. Their U.S. Senate/House legislators had not voted on the BOR adoption, so (arguably, and I argue) their votes did not count on the state-legislatures' ratification step. The supposed 'ratification' of the BOR was apparently done with the assumption that their State-legislature votes to ratify were effective, even the states that hadn't been states at the time of the proposal of the Bill of Rights. As I recall from my analysis, only 8 states (of those that were states at the time of the Senate/House vote on the BOR proposal) ever ratified the BOR. Ooops! Cut to 1939. Apparently, realizing their mistake, they knew that they needed at least ONE new ratification (of the states that had been states at the time of the proposal of the BOR, but hadn't ratified it by state legislature). Between March and April 1939, those three states were finally heard from, and so all 11 states (of the states that had been states when the BOR was proposed) finally ratified the BOR. If this analysis isn't correct, tell me why. Why would 3 states ratify the BOR, almost 150 years after that supposed 'ratification' had already occurred, and ONLY those three states? Like I said, it was an 'Ooops!' moment. Jamesdbell8 ( talk) 19:36, 25 July 2012 (UTC)
Dear James: I'm not here to "disprove" your argument or to persuade you that your argument is incorrect. I'm here to explain what the law is, and I'm here to explain the Wikipedia concepts. Yes, you do remember a court case where the court noted that the documents in various states regarding the amendment had minor variations in spelling and punctuation. You are correct about what the court concluded. You then incorrectly imply that there must somehow be a "plausible" argument to support your position. That is incorrect. The very case you cited -- if anything -- contradicts your argument. Again, look for reliable, previously published third party sources, and go with what they say. Famspear ( talk) 05:45, 27 July 2012 (UTC) By the way, whether something is "disputable" or not is not material. In a court of law, everything is "disputable." However, there are many things that you can "dispute" in a court of law that will get you in trouble, because the court will impose penalties on you for engaging in a frivolous argument. If you go into court and argue that the Bill of Rights was not ratified until 1939, the other side will dispute that, and they will win -- because you're wrong. Likewise, whether something is "disputable" is not the test we use in Wikipedia. Famspear ( talk) 05:49, 27 July 2012 (UTC)
For purposes of creating a record, the article that Jamesdbell8 linked is: Jol A. Silversmith, The "Missing Thirteenth Amendment": Constitutional Nonsense and Titles of Nobility, 8 Southern California Interdisciplinary Law Journal 577 (April 1999). The publication is apparently affiliated with the University of Southern California. Again, I didn't realize that Jamesdbell8 had cited this source before now. Maybe I just missed it. I haven't had a chance to read the article, which is lengthy. As editor Tom (North Shoreman) has noted, there is still (or may still be) a problem with the issue of prohibited original research. Even if the source is considered reliable, we would need to ascertain that what James wants to say is actually supported by the source. Famspear ( talk) 18:24, 27 July 2012 (UTC)
One problem in our discussion is the use of the word "dispute." If everyone else in the world says that Baton Rouge is the capital of Louisiana and I claim that Moscow is the capital of Louisiana, there certainly is a "dispute." The problem is that my claim that Moscow is the capital of Louisiana is a fringe position; no reputable source agrees with me. So, merely saying that a "dispute" exists is not really important for purpose of Wikipedia. There is no serious dispute about the capital of Louisiana. Another point: In law, some of the most well-settled points of law can be the ones that are litigated quite often. This may of course seem counter-intuitive for a non-lawyer. After all, if a certain point is so well-settled, why do people re-litigate it over and over? The answer is that it really doesn't matter "why" they do so; some people do very stupid things. I study the phenomenon of frivolous litigation, and I often see cases where people lose in court on the same point over and over, and have literally tens of thousands of dollars in fines imposed on them for creating frivolous litigation, and yet they continue to litigate and lose. A frivolous position in a court of law can be an assertion that is litigated quite often - it's just that the assertion has absolutely no merit and the assertion never wins. Stated another way: The mere fact that ten or twenty or fifty or even ten thousand people claim that Moscow is the capital of Louisiana would not mean that there is a serious dispute about it. Why? Because if you try to argue that Moscow is the capital of Louisiana, you will lose every single time. It's a frivolous position. There is a difference between a "dispute" and a "serious dispute." Famspear ( talk) 18:38, 27 July 2012 (UTC)
Dear James: Editor BD2412 didn't say anything about a "crime." You did. In your post. You're the one who raised the issue of whether a crime was committed. And you yourself are the one suggesting that a conspiracy occurred. Read your own post:
--(bolding added). You yourself used the words "they" and "we" -- that denotes two or more persons. (You can't have a conspiracy involving only one person.) I believe that editor BD2412 was using the term "conspiracy" in the more general denotative sense to refer to part of your theory about what "they" were secretly agreeing to do. Your allegation implies the very essence of a secret agreement among two or more persons to accomplish a legal or illegal act. conspire (verb): "to join in a secret agreement to do an unlawful or wrongful act or to use such means to accomplish a lawful end." Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary, p. 243 (G. & C. Merriam Company, 8th ed. 1976) (bolding added). conspiracy (noun): "the act of conspiring together...an agreement among conspirators...." Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary, p. 243 (G. & C. Merriam Company, 8th ed. 1976). Yours, Famspear ( talk) 03:07, 29 July 2012 (UTC)
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The third paragraph of the opening summary is an attempt to besmirch a sacred American document with a tenuous citation as defense.
Why not put the amendments paragraph as the second paragraph instead of down near the bottom? Nitpyck ( talk) 21:56, 2 December 2012 (UTC)
The last sentence of the last paragraph of 'Early sentiments favoring expanding the Bill of Rights' refers to the votes counted on a motion - it is unclear what motion is being referenced here. 71.241.196.71 ( talk) 17:18, 6 January 2011 (UTC)
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The Introduction of your article on The United States Bill of Rights, second paragraph, states "While twelve amendments were passed by Congress, only ten were originally passed by the states." Both words "passed" are used incorrectly. This sentence should properly read, "While twelve amendments were proposed by Congress, only ten were originally ratified by the states." The process of amending the U.S. Constitution involves proposing, then ratifying/rejecting. Sources: (1) Article Five of the U.S. Constitution, and (2) Wikipedia's article on the United States Constitution, Section 4.1. 216.36.10.198 ( talk) 00:23, 16 December 2012 (UTC)
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The United States Constitutional Convention[24] (also known as the Philadelphia Convention,[24] and various other names) took place from May 14 to September 17, 1787, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and although the Convention was purportedly intended only to revise the Articles of Confederation, the intention from the outset of many of its proponents, chief among them James Madison and Alexander Hamilton, was to create a new government rather than fix the existing one. I believe a edit should be made for clarity in the line "...in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and although the Convention was purportedly intended only to revise the Articles of Confederation," by changing it to: In Philadelphia and Pennsylvania, although the Convention was purportedly intended only to revise the Articles of Confederation. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ramenspazz ( talk • contribs) 16:59, 18 December 2012 (UTC)
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small change in grammar. the third paragraph down which reads:
Originally, the Bill of Rights implicitly legally protected only white men,[3] excluding American Indians, people considered to be "black"[3] (now described as African Americans), and women.[4][5][6] These exclusions were not explicit in the Bill of Rights' text, but were well understood and applied.[3]
Should the last sentence read 'but were well understood and IMPLIED' instead of APPLIED? Frankieolives ( talk) 05:59, 21 December 2012 (UTC)
The word defense is misspelled as defence in the beginning of this article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.190.72.184 ( talk) 02:09, 15 March 2013 (UTC)
The article refers that the following tenet was adopted or extended from the English Bill of Rights into the US Bill of Rights.
"freedom [for Protestants] to bear arms for their defence, as allowed by law"
It is unclear to me, as a layperson reader, whether the specification of Protestants was in the English version and dropped in the US version, was in the English version and ported to the US version, or was not in the English version but newly included in the US version. As far as I know there is no mention of or restriction to protestants in the US Bill of Rights, so unless there's something more going on here this statement is incorrect. It's not sourced anywhere in the article, and should probably be removed. 128.252.20.193 ( talk) 21:45, 8 January 2013 (UTC)
The third sentence of this article is inaccurate. It reads:
They guarantee a number of personal freedoms, limit the government's power in judicial and other proceedings, and reserve some powers to the states and the public.
The use of the word "some" completely reverses the intention of the Bill of Rights 180 degrees. Its purpose was to reserve ALL powers not specifically enumerated to the Federal Government to the States or to the people. It should read something like this:
They further limited the Federal Government's power in judicial and other proceedings and reinforced the widely-held understanding of its drafters, signers, and the American people at the time that all natural rights not inherently infringed upon by the specific, enumerated powers granted to the Federal Government in the U.S. Constitution belong to the States or to the people.
Without going into the lengthy details that are widely available, the anti-Federalists refused to ratify the U.S. Constitution without a bill of rights. The Federalists, led by Alexander Hamilton, argued that a bill of rights would be unnecessary and even dangerous in that powers not specifically enumerated to the Federal Government were not legitimate Federal powers anyway. (See Federalist #84) In short, even those who opposed a bill of rights believed that the Constitution's purpose was to reign in Federal powers by specifying exactly what powers it has. This would (they hoped) maintain a small national government while preserving the natural, inalienable rights possessed by individuals and their States. The anti-Federalists simply insisted on reinforcing this notion with a list of "untouchables" in the form of a bill of rights, capping them off with the 9th and 10th Amendments which reiterate that all other powers not granted specifically to the Federal Government was not a Federal power either. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Matt Fitzgibbons ( talk • contribs) 16:36, 25 March 2013 (UTC)
I think this is a rather crucial aspect. I was taught that it is entrenched (can not be changed, emended, repealed, etc.) but I cannot find any sourcing for this. -- Bertrc ( talk) 18:58, 17 December 2012 (UTC)
Originally, the Bill of Rights implicitly legally protected only white men,[3] excluding American Indians, people considered to be "black"[3] (now described as African Americans), and women.[4][5][6] These exclusions were not explicit in the Bill of Rights' text, but were well understood and applied.[3]
While this is the way that people today like to interpret this, it is factually incorrect. The document itself (the U.S. Constitution) in no place mentions "slavery", "blacks", "African-Americans", "Americans of African Descent", "Negros", or any other term of that nature. It use the term "free persons" when discussing apportionment ("Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons.") and "all other Persons" to describe those not free (i.e., slaves). However this does not directly translate into "blacks" or "African-Americans" as many would like to assume today. Free blacks were accorded all the rights of citizens, including being counted for purposes of apportionment. The fact that there may not have been many of those compared to those held in slavery does not obviate the reality that they were indeed counted, and that the constitution did not categorically exclude people of color from legal protection under the Bill of Rights.
As Madison recorded in his notes concerning the convention, the delegates "thought it wrong to admit in the Constitution the idea that there could be property in men." The Constitution was designed as an Ideal, the fact that the country at the time failed to live up to the Ideal in no manner invalidates the attempt; the groundwork for eventual emancipation was set.
Frederick Douglas believed that the Federal Government "was never, in its essence,anything but an anti-slavery government." In 1864 he wrote "Abolish slavery tomorrow, and not a sentence or syllable of the Constitution need be altered. It was purposely so framed as to give no claim, no sanction to the claim, of property in man. If in its origin slavery had any relation to the government, it was only as the scaffolding to the magnificent structure, to be removed as soon as the building was completed."
I am not sure the statement is entirely accurate with regard to women or American Indians either. I know that women were not accorded the right to vote, but I am less sure that the intent of the constitution was to exclude them from having any basic human rights of any sort. As far as Indians are concerned, the apportionment clause cited above seems to indicate that only "untaxed" Indians were excluded for purposes of apportionment. Not sure exactly what that means, but it seems to indicate that they were considered. Surely, women count when it comes to "free persons."
I believe that the statement should be stricken in its entirety. It is inflammatory in nature, inaccurate and does not convey any additional benefit by its appearance. If I have erred in how I have structured this comment, I apologize; it is the first time I have ever done this.
I cite this paper as a reference because it presents a very long and detailed treatise on the subject. [1] RandomInTexas ( talk) 13:51, 4 January 2013 (UTC)
I've removed most of the language regarding exclusions from the Bill of Rights. I've left in a reference to the Dred Scott decision, and clarified it a bit (it previously implied that non-citizens have no protections under the Bill or Rights, which is incorrect). We could add to this something explaining the complicated issue of Tribal sovereignty, but it is inaccurate to just state the the Bill of Rights excluded Native Americans. Other than being factually incorrect - the Bill of Rights is written entirely neutrally and was, in fact, historically applied to women, landless white men and free blacks (until the Dred Scott decision in 1857) - the assertions I deleted are not found in the given sources. Here is a more detailed accounting of each source:
Most of the sources do not make the argument that women, Native Americans, non-propertied white men and free blacks were excluded from the Bill of Rights. The only source that mentions exclusion of women, the ACLU's brief history of the Bill of Rights, notes that the amendments were written in neutral language, but seems to suggest that in practice, some groups were not accorded full rights. The sources simply do not provide a basis for making the authoritative claim that the Bill of Rights excluded everyone but propertied white men. - Thucydides411 ( talk) 06:56, 12 February 2013 (UTC)
Thucydides411, your original comment is that you think this information is inflammatory. That's your personal opinion that needs a source. What makes you think it's inflammatory? What makes it a "contentious view"? Historians agree that lots of people were excluded from participating in a democracy. That's a historical fact and it's supported by sources.
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The text of the second ammendment in this article is written in a way to imply that the second ammendment applies to a militia or a state. History, as well as a reading of the Federalist Papers clearly outlines that these rights are to protect the rights of individual citizens. 98.15.235.227 ( talk) 22:50, 22 April 2013 (UTC)
This is my first contribution of thoughts to a wiki article, if there is a better way to do this please let me know.
The article summary is vague about the one amendment submitted in the bill of rights that never got ratified. I consider the article could use a small inclusion, changing the line from:
"Of the remaining two, one was adopted 203 years later as the Twenty-seventh Amendment and the other technically remains pending before the states." could be:
"Of the remaining two, one was adopted 203 years later as the Twenty-seventh Amendment and the other, containing guidelines that specify how many constituents a House member could represent based on the US Census counts, technically remains pending before the states." — Preceding unsigned comment added by Rtaylor352 ( talk • contribs) 23:10, 24 April 2013 (UTC)
I'm hoping in the coming months to bring this article up to Good Article status. It may be a few weeks still before I really dig in, but I thought I'd get the ball rolling by asking what other editors thought might need to be done to meet the GA requirements or improve the article generally. Any suggestions? Thanks to everybody who's already worked on this one... -- Khazar2 ( talk) 05:22, 27 June 2013 (UTC)
I reorganizing the history part of the article just now to try to give this a more chronological order. [44] I think it was unnecessarily confusing to explain the Anti-Federalists before discussing the Constitutional Conv, for example, or to describe Madison's proposal of the BoR and Congress's passing of it before the events of Constitutional Ratification. (I'm honestly a bit baffled as to why the article was ever in this order). The history sections still seem to be rather rough and repetitive, but I hope to smooth these out some and add sourcing throughout the day today. The one exception to chronological order I've made here is to gather the influences on Madison's draft into one place--these were previously scattered throughout the article. If you disagree, just let me know, and we can figure out the best system. I think this is an improvement for now, though. Cheers, -- Khazar2 ( talk) 11:55, 11 July 2013 (UTC)
Okay, I've done another round of rewrites today. Here are the main changes I made:
As always, just let me know if you question any of these changes and I'll be glad to discuss. Cheers to all, -- Khazar2 ( talk) 13:32, 16 July 2013 (UTC)
GA toolbox |
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Reviewing |
Reviewer: Adam Cuerden ( talk · contribs) 17:46, 19 July 2013 (UTC)
Just claiming this before I begin. Complicated articles are not ones you want another reviewer to claim half-way through. =) Adam Cuerden ( talk) 17:46, 19 July 2013 (UTC)
Well, having written a GAN of my own in the time it took to get to this, I think it's clear I need to get my arse in gear. Let's begin
The Anti-Federalists:
Ratification and the Massachusetts Compromise
The First Congress
Application
References
That should be everything. Adam Cuerden ( talk) 13:27, 29 July 2013 (UTC)
I've nominated Freedom for the Thought That We Hate for Main Page discussion.
The date is relevant to freedom of speech, as September 25 was the date the 1st United States Congress passed the Bill of Rights and the First Amendment.
Please feel free to comment at Wikipedia:Today's_featured_article/requests#September_25.
— Cirt ( talk) 19:24, 28 August 2013 (UTC)
There's no specific source for the majority of the first paragraph of the Second Amendment section, which seems to be copy-pasted from the main Second Amendment page:
"The right to bear arms predates the Bill of Rights; the Second Amendment was based partially on the right to bear arms in English common law, and was influenced by the English Bill of Rights of 1689. This right was described by Sir William Blackstone as an auxiliary right, supporting the natural rights of self-defense, resistance to oppression, and the civic duty to act in concert in defense of the state."
Weren't several of the Amendments based partially on preexisting English common law and influenced by the English Bill of Rights? It seems like these statements and unsourced paraphrasing of an English judge about English law might be original research without a well sourced explanation of its importance to this Amendment's history. AveVeritas ( talk) 08:15, 17 December 2013 (UTC)
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please change "The Third Amendment restricts the quartering of soldiers in private homes, in response to Quartering Acts passed by the British parliament during the Revolutionary War. The amendment is one of the least controversial of the Constitution, and, as of 2009, has never been the primary basis of a Supreme Court decision." to The Third Amendment restricts the quartering of soldiers in private homes, in response to Quartering Acts passed by the British parliament during the Revolutionary War. The amendment is one of the least controversial of the Constitution, and, as of 2013, has never been the primary basis of a Supreme Court decision." because the current version is four years out of date 174.16.2.236 ( talk) 13:50, 12 December 2013 (UTC)
In the section titled "Ratification Process" there is the text, "Virginia initially postponed its debate, but after Vermont was admitted to the Union in 1791, the total number of states needed for ratification rose to eleven." This statement is unsupported by reference to law or other reasoning. It contains within it assumptions that 1. The number of states necessary for a ratification increases after new states are admitted to the Union. and. 2. The ratification votes of newly-admitted states (states admitted subsequent to the U.S. Congress' 2/3's ratification vote, and thus were never part of that vote) are counted in favor of the amendment's ratification. If these assumptions are true, they should be documented. Frysay ( talk) 06:55, 8 April 2014 (UTC)
The section on the ninth amendment ends: "between 1992 and 2000, the Court did not refer to the amendment a single time."
That was from a 2000 source, so at the time it was written it was interesting because it implied, "It hasn't been referenced since 1992." There have been more years since 2000 than there were between 1992 and 2000, so today it just feels like an arbitrary date range. Can that be extended, eg "between 1992 and 2012" or can a later reference be added? Thefifthsetpin ( talk) 19:47, 17 April 2014 (UTC)
Not only is that clause out of date, but in fact, the whole sentence is inaccurate. While the Supreme Court did cite the privacy & Roe v. Wade in in its 1992 Planned Parenthood v. Casey ruling, the Court did not use, nor did any justice cite the Ninth Amendment to strike down part of Pennsylvania's abortion pre-notification law. "The high-water mark" for the use of the right to privacy perhaps, but not the HWMfor the use of the Ninth Amendment. For this reason I've removed the sentence and its citation. Drdpw ( talk) 00:45, 12 July 2014 (UTC)
Drdpw ( talk) 15:57, 1 December 2014 (UTC)
George Mason has been called the Father of the Bill of Rights by scholars (see his page for references), the co-father of the Bill of Rights by those who want to split the difference, and was the man who thought up most of it, stood up for its inclusion, and convinced - or probably more accurately, made a deal with - James Madison to support the concept after Madison adamantly and vocally opposed it. Does his template belong on the page? I think so, and it makes no sense to me not to include it, but then I think The Newsroom is the best thing since sliced bread (and who thought that milestone up?) and so am partial to giving credit to those who deserve it. Mason is one of the most important whothat?s in American history, pretty much unknown and unsung, but he did have a major hand in making sure the Bill of Rights happened and happened on his watch. So he only has one high school named after him, and a small statue out-back of Jefferson's. Not to mention an 18-cent stamp and a university. On a scale of one-to-ten, they should have made room for him on Rushmore. Randy Kryn 3:44 1 December, 2014 (UTC)
If you are going to quote the English Bill of Rights of 1689 as an early precedent for the right to keep and bear arms you should keep it in context (see the latter article) where only “Protestant subjects may have arms for their defence as suitable to their class and as allowed by law”. Otherwise leave out the whole reference, not least because the ‘right to bear arms’ has long been abandoned in the UK. 05:34, 11 February 2015 (UTC)
Existing link to reference note 102 is broken. It should be: http://exhibits.archives.ncdcr.gov/bill_of_rights/bill_of_rights1.htm it is currently listed as (Incorrect): http://www.ah.dcr.state.nc.us/archives/news/bill_of_rights1.htm
Most US government websites have started moving away from the .us domain to the .gov.
Kyderr ( talk) 02:40, 3 July 2015 (UTC)
"Several sought to protect individual personal rights by limiting various Constitutional the powers of Congress" (under "Crafting amendments") makes no sense.
HankW512 ( talk) 04:48, 22 July 2015 (UTC)
In the last sentence of the "Massachusetts compromise" subsection of the "Background" section, the phrase "began operations" is a poor choice of words since it could easily be interpreted to mean that the federal legislature commenced doing what legislatures do, when in fact neither the House of Representatives nor the Senate had the quorum required to conduct business until the beginning of April 1789. Since there would be no judiciary before the President made judicial appointments, and since there would be no President before the official counting of the votes of the electors, and since there would be no counting of the votes before a quorum was present, the statement clearly but falsely asserts that it was the legislature that began operations on the 4th of March 1789. HankW512 ( talk) 00:12, 22 July 2015 (UTC)
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Change links to amendments in the sidebar to their en.wikipedia.org page instead of the wikisource page. 2602:306:3026:6F40:A179:85CF:2A3B:50F2 ( talk) 02:02, 4 September 2015 (UTC)
The Preamble and Articles, The Amendments, The Unratified Amendments and the History all direct to the en.wikipedia articles.
The only section linked to wikisource is the "Full text of the Constitution and Amendments" which is where "original" documents should be -
Arjayay (
talk) 08:35, 4 September 2015 (UTC)
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In the 5th Paragraph is the following sentence asking for clarification "The Bill of Rights had little judicial impact for the first 150 years of its existence,[clarification needed] but was the basis for many Supreme Court decisions of the 20th and 21st centuries. "
I suggest the sentence be changed as follows: "The Bill of Rights had very limited impact during the first century and a half of its existence, because it was initially interpreted to apply only to the Federal government, with state and local governments having no obligation to comply.[1]
[SUGGESTED NEW SECTION]: Period of limited Application
Initially the Bill of Rights was assumed to be binding only on the Federal government of the United States alone. In the 1833 Barron v. Baltimore decision, John Marshall wrote the unanimous opinion which established a precedent that the United States Bill of Rights could not be applied to state governments.[2] Many decades later, this idea was replaced with an Incorporation Doctrine which established that at least some of the provisions of the Bill of Rights also apply to the state and local governments. Incorporation started in 1897 with a takings case, Burlington & Quincy Railway Co. v. Chicago, continued with Gitlow v. New York (1925), which was a First Amendment case, and accelerated in the 1940s and 1950s. Justice Hugo Black famously favored a complete and total incorporation of the entire Bill of Rights. Justice Felix Frankfurter felt that the federal courts should only apply those sections of the Bill of Rights that were "fundamental to a scheme of ordered liberty." It was the latter course that the Warren Court of the 1960s took, although now, almost all of the Bill of Rights has now been incorporated against the states and local governments.[4]
[1]
http://www.history.com/topics/bill-of-rights [2]
/info/en/?search=Barron_v._Baltimore [3]
/info/en/?search=Due_Process_Clause#Incorporation_of_the_Bill_of_Rights
Zzinzel (
talk) 23:55, 2 December 2015 (UTC)
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Update portion of 3rd amendment that states it hasn't been brought up in court "as of 2012" to "as of 2016" or "2015".
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The last sentence of paragraph 3 in the "Crafting Amendments" section reads: "He did not include an amendment that every state had asked for, one that would have made tax assessments voluntary instead of contributions contributions."
I believe that the second "contributions" is a typo and should be removed. 73.215.9.93 ( talk) 19:11, 16 February 2016 (UTC)
Another user continues to add text underneath the heading of "Second Amendment" that is not in the text of the Second Amendment. It is a deliberate attempt to subvert the meaning of the text under the guise of additional "scholarly analysis" to somehow clarify this amendment. Scholarly analysis belongs in an entirely separate section of the article as there is real intention to manipulate the meaning of the text itself and by showing another quote underneath to imply that there is further text in the Second Amendment that gives a false background on the amendment and implies that it is "a public allowance under due restrictions" when the "sanctions of society and laws are found insufficient to restrain the violence of oppression." This quote from an 18th century English judge is entirely out of keeping with Wikipedia's own rules to present unbiased facts. By including this quote, the purpose of the 2nd Amendment is immediately under attack. If we should have a debate section for the article, you could include this quote as well as quotes from the NRA leaders and Constitutional scholars to debate the meaning and purpose of the amendment. This is one of the most important rights of American citizens and to have it twisted by some 18th century scholar in the next paragraph reeks of a fraudulent attempt to undermine the authority vested in the people to arm themselves against the possibility of a future tyrannical government. Here is what Rjensen keeps putting in to the text below the text of the Second Amendment in a clear attempt to subvert the 2nd most important right, the right of the American people to defend themselves (a right which "shall not be infringed"):
The concept of a right to keep and bear arms existed within English common law long before the enactment of the Bill of Rights.(McAffee, Thomas B.; Michael J. Quinlan (March 1997). "Bringing Forward The Right To Keep And Bear Arms: Do Text, History, Or Precedent Stand In The Way?". North Carolina Law Review: 781.) Eighteenth century English jurist and judge Sir William Blackstone described this right as:
a public allowance under due restrictions, of the natural right of resistance and self-preservation, when the sanctions of society and laws are found insufficient to restrain the violence of oppression.(Blackstone, William (1765–1769). Commentaries on the Laws of England: Book the First, of the Rights of Persons. Oxford: the Clarendon Press. pp. 143–144.)
Here are some examples of text from the "Ratification Process" section: "Having been approved by the requisite three–fourths of the several states, there being 14 States in the Union at the time (as Vermont had been admitted into the Union on March 4, 1791),[61]..." "As they had not yet been approved by 11 of the 14 states, the ratification of Article One (ratified by 10) and Article Two (ratified by 6) remained incomplete. The ratification plateau they needed to reach soon rose to 12 of 15 states when Kentucky joined the Union (June 1, 1792). On June 27, 1792, the Kentucky General Assembly ratified all 12 amendments, however this action did not come to light until 1997." "Article One, came within one state of the number needed to become adopted into the Constitution on two occasions between 1789 and 1803. Despite coming close to ratification early on, it has never received the approval of enough states to become part of the Constitution.[62] As Congress did not attach a ratification time limit to the article, it is still technically pending before the states. Since no state has approved it since 1792, ratification by an additional 27 states would now be necessary for the article to be adopted."
These texts repeatedly adopt and contain the idea that as the number of states in the Union rose, the number of states necessary for the ratification of Constitutional Amendments (specifically, those that had previously been voted on by the United States Congress) rose as well. The Constitution speaks of 2/3s of both houses of Congress voting to propose an Amendment, and subsequently 3/4s of the state legislatures voting to approve the Amendment. Unstated is the question of whether the addition of new states (after the 2/3s vote) raises the number of ratification legislatures' votes. Clearly, the author of this text assumes that it does. But there is another point of view. The problem is that this text is presented in a way which is not cited: The readers will simply assume it is unchallengeably correct.
"Article Two, initially ratified by seven states through 1792 (including Kentucky), was not ratified by another state for eighty years. The Ohio General Assembly ratified it on May 6, 1873 in protest of an unpopular Congressional pay raise.[67] A century later, on March 6, 1978, the Wyoming Legislature also ratified the article.[68] Gregory Watson, a University of Texas at Austin undergraduate student, started a new push for the article's ratification with a letter-writing campaign to state legislatures.[67] As a result, by May 1992, enough states had approved Article Two (38 of the 50 states in the Union) for it to become the Twenty-seventh Amendment to the United States Constitution. The amendment's adoption was certified by Archivist of the United States Don W. Wilson and subsequently affirmed by a vote of Congress on May 20, 1992.[69]"
Again, this text assumes that the number of state legislatures' ratifications that were needed rose to 38. (37.5, but round up)
"Three states did not complete action on the twelve articles of amendment when they were initially put before the states. Connecticut and Georgia found a Bill of Rights unnecessary and so refused to ratify. Both chambers of the Massachusetts General Court ratified a number of the amendments (the Senate adopted 10 of 12 and the House 9 of 12), but failed to reconcile their two lists or to send official notice to the Secretary of State of the ones they did agree upon.[70][61] All three later ratified the Constitutional amendments originally known as Articles 3–12 as part of the 1939 commemoration of the Bill of Rights' sesquicentennial: Massachusetts on March 2, Georgia on March 18, and Connecticut on April 19.[61] Connecticut and Georgia would also later ratify Article Two, on May 13, 1987 and February 2, 1988 respectively. "
The three ratifications in 1939 were a clue, which this author ignores: Each of those states, individually, could have ratified the "Bill of Rights" during 1789 or 1790, and it would have become a valid, ratified Amendment. They were the three states which had failed to ratify. I think it was discovered in 1939 that the BOR wasn't actually ratified in 1790-1791, because subsequent states should not have been counted. The assumption that the BOR was actually fully ratified was entirely dependent on the idea that the addition of Vermont (and its subsequent ratification of the BOR) "counted" towards ratifying the BOR. If it didn't, only the ratifications of Massachusetts, Georgia, or Connecticut would have been sufficient to do the job. This of course is the dispute. There will be people who don't agree. There is nothing wrong with not agreeing: But there is a great deal wrong with pretending that their point of view is unchallengeably valid. The article needs to be re-written to support (with specific cites) the idea that the subsequent addition of states after the 2/3s Congressional votes raised the bar for the 3/4s ratification vote total. 67.5.192.83 ( talk) 21:42, 24 March 2016 (UTC)
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This lines here is worded incorrectly, I will put the poor wording parentheses.
The Ninth Amendment declares that fundamental rights exist that are not expressly enumerated in the Constitution, and that "the rights which are do not constitute" an explicit and exhaustive listing of all individual rights possessed by the people.
I would write something like this: The Ninth Amendment declares there are more fundamental rights that exist outside the Constitution. The rights in the the Constitution are not an exhaustive list of individual rights. TroyRoot ( talk) 17:39, 17 June 2016 (UTC)
Do you think these images of the Conference committee report that finalized the proposed Bill of Rights amendments can be added to the article or do you think they might clutter it up? Libertybison ( talk) 22:38, 15 September 2016 (UTC)
I'd like to recommend adding a brief mention in the article of the failed 1789 attempt to ratify the Bill of Rights in Virginia before their success in doing so in 1791. There's a 1991 article about it here. Libertybison ( talk) 08:05, 16 September 2016 (UTC)
I just wanted a listing of the Bill of Rights. It is only 482 words long. How hard can it be? Why come anywhere close? 99.173.132.199 ( talk) 22:33, 24 March 2016 (UTC)
I was looking for all of the Ammendments, and when I searched 'the Ammendments', this article came up. Where is the 11th Ammendment? The 12th? The 13th? I think this article should be expanded. PitbullAJWarriorsSurvivorsLover ( talk) 16:43, 25 January 2017 (UTC)
Supposedly, there is a June 3, 1790 letter from Connecticut Lt. Gov. Oliver Wolcott to his son, Oliver Wolcott Jr. where he says the Connecticut General Assembly's upper house wouldn't agree to its lower house bill to ratify Articles 3-12 during the May 1790 legislative session because they thought that Article 2 was just as important as those ten. The letter itself probably wouldn't be important enough to mention in this article but it might shed more light on Connecticut's actions. Unfortunately, the book I read about it only quotes a few words of a sentence and lacks context. I haven't been able to find another mention of it. Does anybody know a source that mentions it or know an online source that has transcriptions of Wolcott letters? Libertybison ( talk) 23:17, 25 January 2017 (UTC)
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The Fourth Amendment has been the basis of many majour court decisions in the history of the United States and such precedent should be stated and explained to elaborate on the modern interpretation and court determination of the exact definition and confines of its protection. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.6.197.41 ( talk) 09:30, 9 November 2017 (UTC)
The fifth amendment explanation of the article must include the right of a man to refuse to testify against his wife. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.6.197.41 ( talk) 09:33, 9 November 2017 (UTC)
The eighth amendment "The Eighth Amendment forbids the imposition of excessive bails or fines, though it leaves the term "excessive" open to interpretation" but the word excessive has a definition in the English dictionary, how could one leave a word which has a definition up for interpretation? Excessive means that which is more than necessary. What is necessary is objective, not subjective. A fine or bail should then be used to cover costs of resources required for the scenario in question. There is nothing open to interpretation about it. Great article though otherwise 50.125.82.185 ( talk) 17:51, 18 November 2017 (UTC)
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Change "The Supreme Court overturned English common law precedent to increase the burden of proof for defamation and libel suits, most notably in New York Times Co. v. Sullivan (1964)." to remove the word libel. Libel is a form of defamation so having the word libel is redundant and unnecessary. Thank you. 2600:1017:B11B:F83C:B1FB:F6DD:9919:5939 ( talk) 02:13, 12 December 2017 (UTC)
Under the Crafting Amendments subsection, the proposed amendments to the U.S. Constitution James Madison authored are show to modify Article II in many places where it was indeed Article I. When the source for this information is opened (currently footnote 49), the text on that webpage clearly shows that the ones in question were intended for Article I of the Constitution. The current link to that webpage is [46]. I believe this was just an honest mistake during transcribing. Considering this article is classified as a "good article," I thought this honest mistake should be corrected to preserve that integrity. Thank you so much for taking this into consideration. 168.215.102.210 ( talk) 14:12, 9 August 2018 (UTC)
At the top of the article it says that the Bill of Rights are the first ten amendments to the constitution. I noticed that nowhere at the beginning of the article that the 27th amendment was part of the Bill of Rights but was not ratified until 1992. Should somone had a clause at the beginning of the article that the 27th amendment is technically part of the Bill of Rights but was not ratified until 1992 along with another amendment relating to the House of Reps still pending amongst the states?
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In the Second Amendment section it says :
"In United States v. Cruikshank (1875), ..."
But in the linked article :
/info/en/?search=United_States_v._Cruikshank
It says the year was 1876.
I've had a look on other sites, and some say 1875 and others 1876. On the linked Wikipedia page here :
/info/en/?search=United_States_v._Cruikshank#cite_note-1
and a bit further down, it even references both dates. I'm guessing that the case probably started in 1875 and was resolved in 1876. Given the prevelance of both dates, it might be useful to clarify the fact that both dates are used. Maccaday ( talk) 20:59, 24 August 2018 (UTC)
https://www.loc.gov/item/usrep092542/
It seems it was argued in 1875, decided in 1876, and the decision is what's important Cannolis ( talk) 17:31, 2 September 2018 (UTC)
This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 1 | Archive 2 | Archive 3 |
Two months ago, kaisershatner's edits changed the date of introduction of the Bill of Rights from 1789 to 1791. As it stands now, the article claims New Jersey and several other states ratified the amendments before they were introduced. I'd fix it, but this article is currently protected. 66.32.212.4 ( talk) 21:59, 24 May 2019 (UTC)
also this is clearly wrong
January 10, 1791 - Vermont becomes 14th state to ratify the Constitution - except that it's not a state until March 4, 1791.
November 3, 1791 - Vermont is 10th state to ratify the Bill of Rights. December 15, 1791 - Virginia is 11th state to ratify the Bill of Rights, and Bill of Rights goes into effect. March 2, 1939 - Massachusetts is 12th state to ratify the Bill of Rights. March 18, 1939 - Georgia is 13th state to ratify the Bill of Rights. April 19, 1939 - Connecticut is 14th state to ratify the Bill of Rights. ( Subarusvx ( talk) 01:05, 1 March 2010 (UTC)) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Subarusvx ( talk • contribs) 01:00, 1 March 2010 (UTC)
<section by banned editor removed. {{user|James dalton bell}} is banned, and any edits he makes are subject to reversion on sight. The IPs 97.120.255.244 and 97.120.252.231 are IP sockpuppets of his, and as per above, all edits by them will be reverted. If Mr. Bell wishes to appeal his ban, he must do so through proper channels. Ban evasion is not tolerated.— Dæ dαlus Contribs 11:29, 12 March 2010 (UTC)>
As noted above, edits by a banned editor were removed. These edits are not to be restored for any reason, as that would be editing for a banned editor, and therefore, a violation of
WP:BAN.—
Dæ
dαlus
Contribs 11:48, 12 March 2010 (UTC)
great article-- 74.184.3.10 ( talk) 21:43, 18 March 2008 (UTC)
Too bad NO ONE CARES ABOUT THE BILL OF RIGHTS ANYMORE. "The People" does not include you or me (Barron v. Mayor & City Council of Baltimore. 32 U.S. 243). Furthermore, the Bill of Rights and Constitution do not apply to the State laws based on the same Barron v. City of Baltimore descision. http://supreme.justia.com/us/32/243/case.html
If you think GWB is the source of all of our problems, you don't even know the tip of the iceberg. The same people who got us in to get subway got us in to Iraq twice and they WILL NUKE THE US before 2010! Too bad all of you sheep are too drunk from the wine of the whore of Babylon to notice anything. I know exactly what anyone reading this will think of me..."he's nuts" or "he should be put into a secret concentration camp". Well, soon enough, that will come to pass. Thanks to the Patriot Act, which completely irradicates the Bill of Rights and most of the constitution, we now have "Thought Crimes". I'm almost happy to know that the judgement of God will soon be upon America and criminals like Cheney, Clinton, the Rockefellers, Rothschilds, Feds, Obama, Al Gore and Bush. They will be paid back in full for all of the millions of murders they are causing around the world. Many more are yet to come. More than a million Americans will die due to their efforts before 2010.
The text featured at the point "Text of the Bill of Rights" contains only 10 Articles, the first two - I know they were not ratified by the required number of states by December 1791 but still - are missing. The original does infact have those 2 articles and so they should not be left out! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.168.84.183 ( talk) 21:23, 20 January 2008 (UTC)
I hear the Bill of Rights or the first 10 ammmendments were adaptations from the Vermont Republic's Constitution when it was the first state to join the union (i.e., the 14th state). Perhaps I am lazy but can anyone verify this for me? Teetotaler 2 April 2007
Note:According to the Maryland State Archives-the Bill of Rights appearing on Wikipedia is the Maryland Copy —Preceding unsigned comment added by 134.53.145.93 ( talk) 15:01, 31 October 2008 (UTC)
there are now over 40 amendments —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.183.254.142 ( talk) 21:49, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
I know the character that looks like an f is an s, but I think it would be a good idea to briefly discuss this or link to the Long s Wikipedia article. Although it is slight, you are basically translating from an old script to modern English. I know I'm not the only one who wanted to know why they spelled Congress as Congrefs. Thanks. Peace. Truthunmasked ( talk) 12:43, 9 April 2009 (UTC)
My edit about an illiberal democracy belongs in this article for one major reason: An encyclopedia is an educational tool, and what better way to educate people than refer them to other articles? Just the same as Encyclopedia Brown or Britannica would refer the readers to other articles elsewhere in the book, I think my edit about illiberal democracy would do the same thing here. So, please, don't remove it. 70.178.75.61 ( talk) 06:02, 13 May 2009 (UTC)
Madison drafted the Bill of Rights in response to demands from the majority of the original 13 states, which instead of ratifying the new Constitution "as is", demanded a Bill of Rights to go with it. Many states ratified with the proviso that the vote was invalid until such time as a Bill of Rights was added, and a number of other states flatly refused to even consider a vote to ratify without a Bill of Rights. Even states that voted in favor of the Constitution "as is" also proposed amendments. Delaware, the very first state to ratify, for instance set up a commission which proposed 15 Amendments which had overwhelming support. http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?ammem/hlaw:@field(DOCID+@lit(ed0029)): see page 550-552.
The statement currently appearing "Madison proposed a Bill of Rights" should be changed to "Madison drafted a Bill of Rights in response to demands from the majority of the original 13 states.
It is probably more accurate to say that he was "forced to write a Bill of Rights or see the Constitution go down the drain, or even that he was dragged "kicking and screaming" into the camp of those who demanded a Bill of Rights, but such is unlikely to get past wiki self appointed censors. 98.118.19.104 ( talk) 17:39, 3 November 2009 (UTC)
hell ya —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.1.207.245 ( talk) 20:13, 9 December 2009 (UTC)
Admendments] is something you can do to change the [Constituion] , you change it be adding amendments . —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.210.69.134 ( talk) 20:00, 9 January 2010 (UTC)
""Congress of the United States begun and held at the City of New-York, on Wednesday the fourth of March, one thousand seven hundred and eighty nine THE Conventions of a number of the States, having at the time of their adopting the Constitution, expressed a desire, in order to prevent misconstruction or abuse of its powers, that further declaratory and restrictive clauses should be added: And as extending the ground of public confidence in the Government, will best ensure the beneficent starts of its institution. RESOLVED by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America, in Congress assembled, two thirds of both Houses concurring, that the following Articles be proposed to the Legislatures of the several States, as amendments to the Constitution of the United States, all, or any of which Articles, when ratified by three fourths of the said Legislatures, to be valid to all intents and purposes, as part of the said Constitution; viz. ARTICLES in addition to, and Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America, proposed by Congress, and ratified by the Legislatures of the several States, pursuant to the fifth Article of the original Constitution.[5] ""
THE PREAMBLE OF THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA BEGINS WITH "WE THE PEOPLE" NOT CONGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. PLEASE DO NOT DISTRIBUTE THIS FARSE YOU HAVE POSTED ON WIKI. PEOPLE, NOT ELECTED OFFICIALS, not senators, not representatives, not politicians "WE THE PEOPLE" this version wiki has posted is a blatant lie of the beuracratic machine most of us have become enslaved by. Please do not let your children be brought up by this disgusting lie. Teach them that thier rights are also thier duties, ALL OF THEM. THE FIRST THE SECOND AND THE FIFTH ESPECIALY, THE TIGER MUST HAVE TEETH. otherwise we are nothing more than oppressed communists or at best 1939 germany. TAKE UP ARMS, SPEAK YOUR MIND, DENY ENTRY TO FEDERAL AGENTS, WHY HAS "WE THE PEOPLE" BEEN OMMITED. DO NOT ALLOW THE SYSTEMATIC ELIMINATION OF OUR RIGHTS AND DUTIES BE SHITCANNED BY THE ONES WHO PROVIDE OUR LAWS OR THOSE WHO PROVIDE OUR SO CALLED ENCYCLOPEDIC INFORMATION. THIS CATEGORY HAS BEEN GROSSLY MANIPULATED TO THE POINT OF RAPE "YOU AND I AND YOUR CHILDREN ARE THE VICTIMS" —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.136.6.221 ( talk) 08:33, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
Caption under Madison's note (photo) should be changed from 1791 to 1789 as it appears in long hand on the document, itself.
Link to Document: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/5/50/Madison.notes.06081789.jpg Hsaive ( talk) 16:53, 7 June 2010 (UTC)
3rd Amendment doesn't protect against quartering of troops, it protects PRIVACY. Freedom from government snooping. To say it protects from "quartering of troops" is to take it so literally it is useless. The founders didn't foresee electronics, video cameras, FLIR, or other modern bugging and surveillance devices. The political goal, however, remains the same: to close off the area of private existence from the eyes of the otherwise totalitarian state. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.47.225.140 ( talk) 08:42, 24 May 2011 (UTC)
Please remove the link to the FMK 9C1, an entirely unrelated link put on the page by the creator of that article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.100.6.20 ( talk) 02:29, 23 February 2011 (UTC)
Done-- JayJasper ( talk) 03:28, 23 February 2011 (UTC)
The freedom of religious practice and expression is conspicuously absent from the discussion on this page. Despite it being the first freedom recognized by the First Amendment, it receives no mention in the introduction explaining what the Bill of Rights is all about-- and is only mentioned in the text of the Amendment itself, and in passing, in the discussion of the Virginia Declaration of Rights.
This right is arguably the foundation upon which the Constitution and Bill of Rights was built, and its absence here is difficult to understand, at best. Therefore I'm going to edit the article to include it. R0nin Two ( talk) 15:33, 29 March 2011 (UTC)
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i would like to add the Aendments
208.47.128.148 ( talk) 17:14, 7 April 2011 (UTC)
Support:
Comments:
Great choice for an article...but I haven't the faintest idea about the topic so would not know where to start. I have made an FA recipe on my user page, and this is the first task... Casliber ( talk · contribs) 10:10, 7 June 2011 (UTC)
As a parting though the Page ratings for this article are actually quite high so that is a good marker IMO to see if our efforts pay off.
I am starting to work on expanding the article by expanding the various sections. It will take some time to get the content built up so if it looks like things are a little erratic andn disorganized for a couple days thats why. I will continue to refine and expand as I go along. Feel free to comment, make changes, fix my punctuation and grammer (which I have been told is less than flawless :-)). With any luck over the next couple weeks the article will be substantially improved over its current state. -- Kumioko ( talk) 15:55, 21 June 2011 (UTC)
I have posted an initial assessment of the article by a National Archives staff member from the legislative archives at /NARA. He is actually in the middle of changing jobs soon, but I am working on other contacts as well. If you have any responses to it, I'll make sure he gets them. Dominic· t 14:56, 21 June 2011 (UTC)
Am I right that this article includes the text of the preamble and of later amendments, but not the text of the actual Bill of Rights itself?-- 109.149.34.134 ( talk) 17:02, 17 July 2011 (UTC)
I would like to announce the first featured article contest for the National Archives project. The National Archives has graciously provided us with prizes to give out to winners, including National Archives publications, tote bags, and other swag. The first contest is a challenge to get any of the articles on the three documents on display in the National Archives building's rotunda—the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights—featured (in any language).
Please read more about how to participate here. Good luck! Dominic· t 20:47, 18 July 2011 (UTC)
Did Rhode Island reject article II of the Constitution (as it is written here) or article II of the Bill of Rights? Jan.Kamenicek ( talk) 10:01, 28 July 2011 (UTC)
The statement "Originally, the Bill of Rights included legal protection for white men only" isn't what is said in the given source, which begins by pointing out that the issue is one of assumptions of the context in which the BOR is to be interpreted, rather than the BOR itself. The WP statement doesn't qualify this, and as it stands is nonfactual:
The language of the Bill of Rights is almost entirely gender neutral and its provisions have always applied to some women. 1 But free white men of property designed the Bill of Rights in a political process from which they excluded most Americans and all women. Not surprisingly, the Bill of Rights served and serves the interests of such men better than the interests of others.
TEDickey ( talk) 13:02, 20 August 2011 (UTC)
In 1918 women got to vote, but in many instances, women had very little legal protection under the US Constitution until they challenged existing laws in the Supreme Court (and continue to this day). In some cases, African Americans had legal rights many years before women, especially married women in the US. One example is the 14th amendment where African Americans were included in 1954, and women were included in 1971.
In 1971, US Supreme Court ruled in Reed v. Reed [1] that the 14th amendment applies to women, [2]. Until then, women were not considered as "people" according to the US Constitution. I'm not kidding and I'm not exaggerating, see Timeline of Personhood. [3] I added this information in the 14th amendment article, but it reads like an afterthought because there is no other mention of women anywhere in the article. For some reason the article is written from the view point of African Americans only and how it applies to them.
Even today, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia claims that women do not have equal protection under the 14th amendment [4] because men's rights are guaranteed by specific language in the Constitution, but women's rights are not mentioned. [5] So yes, it's up to interpretation of the courts, which has not been in favor of women even today – 2011, so it's still not resolved to this day. USchick ( talk) 15:03, 20 August 2011 (UTC)
The entire paragraph in question is POV and misrepresents both the Bill of Rights and the TWO sources that it cites. The sources themselves are simply opinion pieces. And even if you accept the viewpoint presented, this argument has nothing to do with the Bill of Rights itself, but with the history of American jurisprudence, so it doesn't belong here. There is NOTHING in the BoR that supports the statement that it applied only to white men or excluded "most Americans and all women". There were also no later changes to the Bill of Rights to cause its protections to be extended to non-whites or females.
The Bill of Rights itself is gender neutral. The argument that the Constitution guaranteed men's rights but not women's rights is based upon reading the current usage of language into the usage of over two centuries ago. When the Constitution was written, "men" meant "mankind", and was not intended to exclude women.
Quite simply, this paragraph was added to further a political viewpoint and agenda, and it cannot stand up to scrutiny. That's why I originally reverted to the original, and that's why it should not be allowed to be added back in. This is the kind of thing that makes a Wiki a poor source of information-- people editing it to reflect their own beliefs rather than the facts. R0nin Two ( talk) 20:06, 20 August 2011 (UTC)
And I repeat the fact that your issues aren't with the Bill of Rights at all, but with your interpretation of the application of legal protections to various groups in later years. Your claims have nothing to do with the Bill of Rights, and don't belong in this article. Citing biased sources (ACLU-- an extremely liberal group-- and a "Women's Studies" article) and then even twisting what they say to fit your purposes is doubly an issue. You need to leave the politically-motivated arguments out of this article, and add them to appropriate articles that discuss those issues. R0nin Two ( talk) 05:42, 21 August 2011 (UTC)
The sentence should go. It is patently false. If the contention was true it would have been legal to quarter troops in women's houses but not mens' and that was not the case even in the earliest days. I think what you are focusing on USchick is voting rights, which deserves to be noted but which was also more of an issue of how states were allowed to legislate voter eligibility not that the bill of rights was restricted to certain groups. LegrisKe ( talk) 07:41, 22 August 2011 (UTC)
For it's time the U.S. Constitution was rather "gender neutral" often using words like "person". To assert that the Bill of Rights which applied at the time of ratification only to the federal government; "protected only white men" distorts history and is inconsistent with Wikipedia's NPOV standards. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.46.227.202 ( talk) 13:47, 16 June 2012 (UTC)
The balance of state and federal power under the incorporation doctrine is still an open question and continues to be fought separately for each right in the federal courts. This statement seems odd and unbelievable and is not sourced. Can we please get a reliable source behind it? 97.85.163.245 ( talk) 09:05, 15 September 2011 (UTC)
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i think it would be nice to put the names of the editors
67.161.172.216 ( talk) 00:19, 6 October 2011 (UTC)
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May we PLEASE move the actual TEXT of the BILL of RIGHTS to the first part of this page - BEFORE the discussion of it?
Hasn't it persisted long enough to deserve reading prior to critique?
75.108.141.17 ( talk) 02:25, 21 January 2012 (UTC) Ken Soderstrom soderstromk@hotmail.com
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In the text box "Ratification of the Constitution," the date for Pennsylvania should be December 12, not December 11. The date for Maryland should be April 28 not April 26.
Look just below the box in the section called Ratification process to see that the dates conflict with one another.
PlanetBoyer ( talk) 23:46, 4 April 2012 (UTC)
Not done: please provide reliable sources that support the change you want to be made. Thanks, Celestra ( talk) 20:45, 5 April 2012 (UTC)
Done ~ Adjwilley ( talk) 23:29, 2 May 2012 (UTC)
BOR Only Ratified March 1939 | ||
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The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it. | ||
Second AmendmentSecond amendmebnt reads: "..keep and bear Arms.." not weapons. Entirely different legal definition. The wording needs be changed. 70.162.46.94 ( talk) 22:26, 5 September 2011 (UTC)
Georgia, Mass., Conn.Section 2.4 states that these states ratified the bill of rights in 1792. Section 3.2 says they did so in 1939. 76.116.6.147 ( talk) 13:47, 28 June 2012 (UTC)Georgia and Massachusetts "ceremonially" ratified for the sesquicentennial of the Bill of Rights. Connecticut actually ratified the Bill of Rights in 1789, and their ratification may be viewed in their archives or on NationalTruth.org in the "Final Brief and Addendums" of "LaVergne v. Bryson, et al" 76.116.6.147 ( talk) 13:47, 28 June 2012 (UTC)
Apnorton ( talk) 18:19, 11 June 2012 (UTC): This still needs updating. The correct dates for Georgia, Mass., and Conn. are in 1939. Further backup here: http://scholarship.law.wm.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1553&context=wmborj http://www.jstor.org/stable/844251 The reason for this apparent discrepancy is simple. (See my 1939 comment below). At the time the BOR was voted on in the Federal Congress for ratification, there were only 11 states in the Union. Only 8 of those states had ratified the BOR at the time of its presumed ratification, which would not have been sufficient if only those states that had been states at the time of the proposal were allowed to count. The admission of other states, and counting their votes in the state-legislature stage of the ratification process, was employed to conclude that the ratification had been complete. A careful study of the matter, in 1939, apparently revealed that only 8 of 11 original states had actually ratified the BOR. At that point, only one of the three as-yet-unratifying states (Georgia, Massachusetts, and Connecticut) would have been sufficient to properly ratify the BOR: One more vote would bring the tally from 8 ratifying states up to 9, which was greater than 3/4's of those 11 original states. In the end, each of those states...and ONLY those states...contributed its ratification vote. Nearly 150 years later. The "celebration" story, was obviously a ruse, designed to conceal the fact that the BOR had remained unratified for 148 years after being thought ratified. Else, why didn't dozens of other states ratify, as well? Jamesdbell8 ( talk) 20:58, 26 July 2012 (UTC) Edit request on 27 July 2012
This paragraph is NOT to be included but is to explain these two changes. Rights such as gun ownership and a speedy trial are not natural rights. They are legal rights which protect natural rights. As Madison's words from the speech he delivered introducing the Bill of Rights as recorded in The Annals of Congress, House of Representatives, First Congress, 1st Session, starting on page 454. "Trial by jury cannot be considered as a natural right, but a right resulting from a social compact which regulates the action of the community, but is as essential to secure the liberty of the people as any one of the pre-existent rights of nature." CHANGES START HERE "These limitations serve to protect the natural rights of liberty and property." should be changed to: "These legal rights serve to protect the natural rights of liberty and property." AND the sentence: "The Bill of Rights is a series of limitations on the power of the U.S. federal government, protecting the natural rights of liberty and property including freedom of religion, freedom of speech, a free press, free assembly, and free association, as well as the right to keep and bear arms." should be changed to:
BOR Only Ratified March 1939Three years ago, I discovered from studying the ratification process that the Bill of Rights (first ten amendments) were actually only ratified March 1939. Read on! The process for ratification requires 2/3s vote in House and Senate, and 3/4's ratification by all state assemblies. Simple, right? But there is a hidden question: "Is it 3/4's of the state legislatures at the time of the 2/3's House/Senate vote, or is it 3/4's vote of state legislatures at the time of the purported ratification?" We don't consider the difference today because the last two states were admitted in 1958 or 1959, and prior to that there was Arizona in about 1913, I think. But I think the correct rule is, 3/4's of those states' legislatures at the time of Congress's 2/3 vote. The reason for that may be that during the late 1790's and early 1800's, states were being admitted so rapidly, and if a newly-proposed state's potential vote on an already-proposed amendment were to 'count', that state's entrance in to the Union would be potentially a problem, and they didn't want that. Notice that three states ratified the BOR in March and April 1939, and none had done so much after the 1790's or after 1939. What happened is this: Three states did not want to ratify the Constitution because it had no Bill of Rights. So, only 11 states ratified it the Constitution, and the BOR was proposed. 3/4's of 11 states is 8.25 states being required to ratify, so they had to round-up to 9 states. But, a few states had been admitted to the Union shortly afterwards. Their U.S. Senate/House legislators had not voted on the BOR adoption, so (arguably, and I argue) their votes did not count on the state-legislatures' ratification step. The supposed 'ratification' of the BOR was apparently done with the assumption that their State-legislature votes to ratify were effective, even the states that hadn't been states at the time of the proposal of the Bill of Rights. As I recall from my analysis, only 8 states (of those that were states at the time of the Senate/House vote on the BOR proposal) ever ratified the BOR. Ooops! Cut to 1939. Apparently, realizing their mistake, they knew that they needed at least ONE new ratification (of the states that had been states at the time of the proposal of the BOR, but hadn't ratified it by state legislature). Between March and April 1939, those three states were finally heard from, and so all 11 states (of the states that had been states when the BOR was proposed) finally ratified the BOR. If this analysis isn't correct, tell me why. Why would 3 states ratify the BOR, almost 150 years after that supposed 'ratification' had already occurred, and ONLY those three states? Like I said, it was an 'Ooops!' moment. Jamesdbell8 ( talk) 19:36, 25 July 2012 (UTC)
Dear James: I'm not here to "disprove" your argument or to persuade you that your argument is incorrect. I'm here to explain what the law is, and I'm here to explain the Wikipedia concepts. Yes, you do remember a court case where the court noted that the documents in various states regarding the amendment had minor variations in spelling and punctuation. You are correct about what the court concluded. You then incorrectly imply that there must somehow be a "plausible" argument to support your position. That is incorrect. The very case you cited -- if anything -- contradicts your argument. Again, look for reliable, previously published third party sources, and go with what they say. Famspear ( talk) 05:45, 27 July 2012 (UTC) By the way, whether something is "disputable" or not is not material. In a court of law, everything is "disputable." However, there are many things that you can "dispute" in a court of law that will get you in trouble, because the court will impose penalties on you for engaging in a frivolous argument. If you go into court and argue that the Bill of Rights was not ratified until 1939, the other side will dispute that, and they will win -- because you're wrong. Likewise, whether something is "disputable" is not the test we use in Wikipedia. Famspear ( talk) 05:49, 27 July 2012 (UTC)
For purposes of creating a record, the article that Jamesdbell8 linked is: Jol A. Silversmith, The "Missing Thirteenth Amendment": Constitutional Nonsense and Titles of Nobility, 8 Southern California Interdisciplinary Law Journal 577 (April 1999). The publication is apparently affiliated with the University of Southern California. Again, I didn't realize that Jamesdbell8 had cited this source before now. Maybe I just missed it. I haven't had a chance to read the article, which is lengthy. As editor Tom (North Shoreman) has noted, there is still (or may still be) a problem with the issue of prohibited original research. Even if the source is considered reliable, we would need to ascertain that what James wants to say is actually supported by the source. Famspear ( talk) 18:24, 27 July 2012 (UTC)
One problem in our discussion is the use of the word "dispute." If everyone else in the world says that Baton Rouge is the capital of Louisiana and I claim that Moscow is the capital of Louisiana, there certainly is a "dispute." The problem is that my claim that Moscow is the capital of Louisiana is a fringe position; no reputable source agrees with me. So, merely saying that a "dispute" exists is not really important for purpose of Wikipedia. There is no serious dispute about the capital of Louisiana. Another point: In law, some of the most well-settled points of law can be the ones that are litigated quite often. This may of course seem counter-intuitive for a non-lawyer. After all, if a certain point is so well-settled, why do people re-litigate it over and over? The answer is that it really doesn't matter "why" they do so; some people do very stupid things. I study the phenomenon of frivolous litigation, and I often see cases where people lose in court on the same point over and over, and have literally tens of thousands of dollars in fines imposed on them for creating frivolous litigation, and yet they continue to litigate and lose. A frivolous position in a court of law can be an assertion that is litigated quite often - it's just that the assertion has absolutely no merit and the assertion never wins. Stated another way: The mere fact that ten or twenty or fifty or even ten thousand people claim that Moscow is the capital of Louisiana would not mean that there is a serious dispute about it. Why? Because if you try to argue that Moscow is the capital of Louisiana, you will lose every single time. It's a frivolous position. There is a difference between a "dispute" and a "serious dispute." Famspear ( talk) 18:38, 27 July 2012 (UTC)
Dear James: Editor BD2412 didn't say anything about a "crime." You did. In your post. You're the one who raised the issue of whether a crime was committed. And you yourself are the one suggesting that a conspiracy occurred. Read your own post:
--(bolding added). You yourself used the words "they" and "we" -- that denotes two or more persons. (You can't have a conspiracy involving only one person.) I believe that editor BD2412 was using the term "conspiracy" in the more general denotative sense to refer to part of your theory about what "they" were secretly agreeing to do. Your allegation implies the very essence of a secret agreement among two or more persons to accomplish a legal or illegal act. conspire (verb): "to join in a secret agreement to do an unlawful or wrongful act or to use such means to accomplish a lawful end." Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary, p. 243 (G. & C. Merriam Company, 8th ed. 1976) (bolding added). conspiracy (noun): "the act of conspiring together...an agreement among conspirators...." Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary, p. 243 (G. & C. Merriam Company, 8th ed. 1976). Yours, Famspear ( talk) 03:07, 29 July 2012 (UTC)
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The third paragraph of the opening summary is an attempt to besmirch a sacred American document with a tenuous citation as defense.
Why not put the amendments paragraph as the second paragraph instead of down near the bottom? Nitpyck ( talk) 21:56, 2 December 2012 (UTC)
The last sentence of the last paragraph of 'Early sentiments favoring expanding the Bill of Rights' refers to the votes counted on a motion - it is unclear what motion is being referenced here. 71.241.196.71 ( talk) 17:18, 6 January 2011 (UTC)
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The Introduction of your article on The United States Bill of Rights, second paragraph, states "While twelve amendments were passed by Congress, only ten were originally passed by the states." Both words "passed" are used incorrectly. This sentence should properly read, "While twelve amendments were proposed by Congress, only ten were originally ratified by the states." The process of amending the U.S. Constitution involves proposing, then ratifying/rejecting. Sources: (1) Article Five of the U.S. Constitution, and (2) Wikipedia's article on the United States Constitution, Section 4.1. 216.36.10.198 ( talk) 00:23, 16 December 2012 (UTC)
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The United States Constitutional Convention[24] (also known as the Philadelphia Convention,[24] and various other names) took place from May 14 to September 17, 1787, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and although the Convention was purportedly intended only to revise the Articles of Confederation, the intention from the outset of many of its proponents, chief among them James Madison and Alexander Hamilton, was to create a new government rather than fix the existing one. I believe a edit should be made for clarity in the line "...in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and although the Convention was purportedly intended only to revise the Articles of Confederation," by changing it to: In Philadelphia and Pennsylvania, although the Convention was purportedly intended only to revise the Articles of Confederation. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ramenspazz ( talk • contribs) 16:59, 18 December 2012 (UTC)
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small change in grammar. the third paragraph down which reads:
Originally, the Bill of Rights implicitly legally protected only white men,[3] excluding American Indians, people considered to be "black"[3] (now described as African Americans), and women.[4][5][6] These exclusions were not explicit in the Bill of Rights' text, but were well understood and applied.[3]
Should the last sentence read 'but were well understood and IMPLIED' instead of APPLIED? Frankieolives ( talk) 05:59, 21 December 2012 (UTC)
The word defense is misspelled as defence in the beginning of this article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.190.72.184 ( talk) 02:09, 15 March 2013 (UTC)
The article refers that the following tenet was adopted or extended from the English Bill of Rights into the US Bill of Rights.
"freedom [for Protestants] to bear arms for their defence, as allowed by law"
It is unclear to me, as a layperson reader, whether the specification of Protestants was in the English version and dropped in the US version, was in the English version and ported to the US version, or was not in the English version but newly included in the US version. As far as I know there is no mention of or restriction to protestants in the US Bill of Rights, so unless there's something more going on here this statement is incorrect. It's not sourced anywhere in the article, and should probably be removed. 128.252.20.193 ( talk) 21:45, 8 January 2013 (UTC)
The third sentence of this article is inaccurate. It reads:
They guarantee a number of personal freedoms, limit the government's power in judicial and other proceedings, and reserve some powers to the states and the public.
The use of the word "some" completely reverses the intention of the Bill of Rights 180 degrees. Its purpose was to reserve ALL powers not specifically enumerated to the Federal Government to the States or to the people. It should read something like this:
They further limited the Federal Government's power in judicial and other proceedings and reinforced the widely-held understanding of its drafters, signers, and the American people at the time that all natural rights not inherently infringed upon by the specific, enumerated powers granted to the Federal Government in the U.S. Constitution belong to the States or to the people.
Without going into the lengthy details that are widely available, the anti-Federalists refused to ratify the U.S. Constitution without a bill of rights. The Federalists, led by Alexander Hamilton, argued that a bill of rights would be unnecessary and even dangerous in that powers not specifically enumerated to the Federal Government were not legitimate Federal powers anyway. (See Federalist #84) In short, even those who opposed a bill of rights believed that the Constitution's purpose was to reign in Federal powers by specifying exactly what powers it has. This would (they hoped) maintain a small national government while preserving the natural, inalienable rights possessed by individuals and their States. The anti-Federalists simply insisted on reinforcing this notion with a list of "untouchables" in the form of a bill of rights, capping them off with the 9th and 10th Amendments which reiterate that all other powers not granted specifically to the Federal Government was not a Federal power either. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Matt Fitzgibbons ( talk • contribs) 16:36, 25 March 2013 (UTC)
I think this is a rather crucial aspect. I was taught that it is entrenched (can not be changed, emended, repealed, etc.) but I cannot find any sourcing for this. -- Bertrc ( talk) 18:58, 17 December 2012 (UTC)
Originally, the Bill of Rights implicitly legally protected only white men,[3] excluding American Indians, people considered to be "black"[3] (now described as African Americans), and women.[4][5][6] These exclusions were not explicit in the Bill of Rights' text, but were well understood and applied.[3]
While this is the way that people today like to interpret this, it is factually incorrect. The document itself (the U.S. Constitution) in no place mentions "slavery", "blacks", "African-Americans", "Americans of African Descent", "Negros", or any other term of that nature. It use the term "free persons" when discussing apportionment ("Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons.") and "all other Persons" to describe those not free (i.e., slaves). However this does not directly translate into "blacks" or "African-Americans" as many would like to assume today. Free blacks were accorded all the rights of citizens, including being counted for purposes of apportionment. The fact that there may not have been many of those compared to those held in slavery does not obviate the reality that they were indeed counted, and that the constitution did not categorically exclude people of color from legal protection under the Bill of Rights.
As Madison recorded in his notes concerning the convention, the delegates "thought it wrong to admit in the Constitution the idea that there could be property in men." The Constitution was designed as an Ideal, the fact that the country at the time failed to live up to the Ideal in no manner invalidates the attempt; the groundwork for eventual emancipation was set.
Frederick Douglas believed that the Federal Government "was never, in its essence,anything but an anti-slavery government." In 1864 he wrote "Abolish slavery tomorrow, and not a sentence or syllable of the Constitution need be altered. It was purposely so framed as to give no claim, no sanction to the claim, of property in man. If in its origin slavery had any relation to the government, it was only as the scaffolding to the magnificent structure, to be removed as soon as the building was completed."
I am not sure the statement is entirely accurate with regard to women or American Indians either. I know that women were not accorded the right to vote, but I am less sure that the intent of the constitution was to exclude them from having any basic human rights of any sort. As far as Indians are concerned, the apportionment clause cited above seems to indicate that only "untaxed" Indians were excluded for purposes of apportionment. Not sure exactly what that means, but it seems to indicate that they were considered. Surely, women count when it comes to "free persons."
I believe that the statement should be stricken in its entirety. It is inflammatory in nature, inaccurate and does not convey any additional benefit by its appearance. If I have erred in how I have structured this comment, I apologize; it is the first time I have ever done this.
I cite this paper as a reference because it presents a very long and detailed treatise on the subject. [1] RandomInTexas ( talk) 13:51, 4 January 2013 (UTC)
I've removed most of the language regarding exclusions from the Bill of Rights. I've left in a reference to the Dred Scott decision, and clarified it a bit (it previously implied that non-citizens have no protections under the Bill or Rights, which is incorrect). We could add to this something explaining the complicated issue of Tribal sovereignty, but it is inaccurate to just state the the Bill of Rights excluded Native Americans. Other than being factually incorrect - the Bill of Rights is written entirely neutrally and was, in fact, historically applied to women, landless white men and free blacks (until the Dred Scott decision in 1857) - the assertions I deleted are not found in the given sources. Here is a more detailed accounting of each source:
Most of the sources do not make the argument that women, Native Americans, non-propertied white men and free blacks were excluded from the Bill of Rights. The only source that mentions exclusion of women, the ACLU's brief history of the Bill of Rights, notes that the amendments were written in neutral language, but seems to suggest that in practice, some groups were not accorded full rights. The sources simply do not provide a basis for making the authoritative claim that the Bill of Rights excluded everyone but propertied white men. - Thucydides411 ( talk) 06:56, 12 February 2013 (UTC)
Thucydides411, your original comment is that you think this information is inflammatory. That's your personal opinion that needs a source. What makes you think it's inflammatory? What makes it a "contentious view"? Historians agree that lots of people were excluded from participating in a democracy. That's a historical fact and it's supported by sources.
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The text of the second ammendment in this article is written in a way to imply that the second ammendment applies to a militia or a state. History, as well as a reading of the Federalist Papers clearly outlines that these rights are to protect the rights of individual citizens. 98.15.235.227 ( talk) 22:50, 22 April 2013 (UTC)
This is my first contribution of thoughts to a wiki article, if there is a better way to do this please let me know.
The article summary is vague about the one amendment submitted in the bill of rights that never got ratified. I consider the article could use a small inclusion, changing the line from:
"Of the remaining two, one was adopted 203 years later as the Twenty-seventh Amendment and the other technically remains pending before the states." could be:
"Of the remaining two, one was adopted 203 years later as the Twenty-seventh Amendment and the other, containing guidelines that specify how many constituents a House member could represent based on the US Census counts, technically remains pending before the states." — Preceding unsigned comment added by Rtaylor352 ( talk • contribs) 23:10, 24 April 2013 (UTC)
I'm hoping in the coming months to bring this article up to Good Article status. It may be a few weeks still before I really dig in, but I thought I'd get the ball rolling by asking what other editors thought might need to be done to meet the GA requirements or improve the article generally. Any suggestions? Thanks to everybody who's already worked on this one... -- Khazar2 ( talk) 05:22, 27 June 2013 (UTC)
I reorganizing the history part of the article just now to try to give this a more chronological order. [44] I think it was unnecessarily confusing to explain the Anti-Federalists before discussing the Constitutional Conv, for example, or to describe Madison's proposal of the BoR and Congress's passing of it before the events of Constitutional Ratification. (I'm honestly a bit baffled as to why the article was ever in this order). The history sections still seem to be rather rough and repetitive, but I hope to smooth these out some and add sourcing throughout the day today. The one exception to chronological order I've made here is to gather the influences on Madison's draft into one place--these were previously scattered throughout the article. If you disagree, just let me know, and we can figure out the best system. I think this is an improvement for now, though. Cheers, -- Khazar2 ( talk) 11:55, 11 July 2013 (UTC)
Okay, I've done another round of rewrites today. Here are the main changes I made:
As always, just let me know if you question any of these changes and I'll be glad to discuss. Cheers to all, -- Khazar2 ( talk) 13:32, 16 July 2013 (UTC)
GA toolbox |
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Reviewing |
Reviewer: Adam Cuerden ( talk · contribs) 17:46, 19 July 2013 (UTC)
Just claiming this before I begin. Complicated articles are not ones you want another reviewer to claim half-way through. =) Adam Cuerden ( talk) 17:46, 19 July 2013 (UTC)
Well, having written a GAN of my own in the time it took to get to this, I think it's clear I need to get my arse in gear. Let's begin
The Anti-Federalists:
Ratification and the Massachusetts Compromise
The First Congress
Application
References
That should be everything. Adam Cuerden ( talk) 13:27, 29 July 2013 (UTC)
I've nominated Freedom for the Thought That We Hate for Main Page discussion.
The date is relevant to freedom of speech, as September 25 was the date the 1st United States Congress passed the Bill of Rights and the First Amendment.
Please feel free to comment at Wikipedia:Today's_featured_article/requests#September_25.
— Cirt ( talk) 19:24, 28 August 2013 (UTC)
There's no specific source for the majority of the first paragraph of the Second Amendment section, which seems to be copy-pasted from the main Second Amendment page:
"The right to bear arms predates the Bill of Rights; the Second Amendment was based partially on the right to bear arms in English common law, and was influenced by the English Bill of Rights of 1689. This right was described by Sir William Blackstone as an auxiliary right, supporting the natural rights of self-defense, resistance to oppression, and the civic duty to act in concert in defense of the state."
Weren't several of the Amendments based partially on preexisting English common law and influenced by the English Bill of Rights? It seems like these statements and unsourced paraphrasing of an English judge about English law might be original research without a well sourced explanation of its importance to this Amendment's history. AveVeritas ( talk) 08:15, 17 December 2013 (UTC)
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please change "The Third Amendment restricts the quartering of soldiers in private homes, in response to Quartering Acts passed by the British parliament during the Revolutionary War. The amendment is one of the least controversial of the Constitution, and, as of 2009, has never been the primary basis of a Supreme Court decision." to The Third Amendment restricts the quartering of soldiers in private homes, in response to Quartering Acts passed by the British parliament during the Revolutionary War. The amendment is one of the least controversial of the Constitution, and, as of 2013, has never been the primary basis of a Supreme Court decision." because the current version is four years out of date 174.16.2.236 ( talk) 13:50, 12 December 2013 (UTC)
In the section titled "Ratification Process" there is the text, "Virginia initially postponed its debate, but after Vermont was admitted to the Union in 1791, the total number of states needed for ratification rose to eleven." This statement is unsupported by reference to law or other reasoning. It contains within it assumptions that 1. The number of states necessary for a ratification increases after new states are admitted to the Union. and. 2. The ratification votes of newly-admitted states (states admitted subsequent to the U.S. Congress' 2/3's ratification vote, and thus were never part of that vote) are counted in favor of the amendment's ratification. If these assumptions are true, they should be documented. Frysay ( talk) 06:55, 8 April 2014 (UTC)
The section on the ninth amendment ends: "between 1992 and 2000, the Court did not refer to the amendment a single time."
That was from a 2000 source, so at the time it was written it was interesting because it implied, "It hasn't been referenced since 1992." There have been more years since 2000 than there were between 1992 and 2000, so today it just feels like an arbitrary date range. Can that be extended, eg "between 1992 and 2012" or can a later reference be added? Thefifthsetpin ( talk) 19:47, 17 April 2014 (UTC)
Not only is that clause out of date, but in fact, the whole sentence is inaccurate. While the Supreme Court did cite the privacy & Roe v. Wade in in its 1992 Planned Parenthood v. Casey ruling, the Court did not use, nor did any justice cite the Ninth Amendment to strike down part of Pennsylvania's abortion pre-notification law. "The high-water mark" for the use of the right to privacy perhaps, but not the HWMfor the use of the Ninth Amendment. For this reason I've removed the sentence and its citation. Drdpw ( talk) 00:45, 12 July 2014 (UTC)
Drdpw ( talk) 15:57, 1 December 2014 (UTC)
George Mason has been called the Father of the Bill of Rights by scholars (see his page for references), the co-father of the Bill of Rights by those who want to split the difference, and was the man who thought up most of it, stood up for its inclusion, and convinced - or probably more accurately, made a deal with - James Madison to support the concept after Madison adamantly and vocally opposed it. Does his template belong on the page? I think so, and it makes no sense to me not to include it, but then I think The Newsroom is the best thing since sliced bread (and who thought that milestone up?) and so am partial to giving credit to those who deserve it. Mason is one of the most important whothat?s in American history, pretty much unknown and unsung, but he did have a major hand in making sure the Bill of Rights happened and happened on his watch. So he only has one high school named after him, and a small statue out-back of Jefferson's. Not to mention an 18-cent stamp and a university. On a scale of one-to-ten, they should have made room for him on Rushmore. Randy Kryn 3:44 1 December, 2014 (UTC)
If you are going to quote the English Bill of Rights of 1689 as an early precedent for the right to keep and bear arms you should keep it in context (see the latter article) where only “Protestant subjects may have arms for their defence as suitable to their class and as allowed by law”. Otherwise leave out the whole reference, not least because the ‘right to bear arms’ has long been abandoned in the UK. 05:34, 11 February 2015 (UTC)
Existing link to reference note 102 is broken. It should be: http://exhibits.archives.ncdcr.gov/bill_of_rights/bill_of_rights1.htm it is currently listed as (Incorrect): http://www.ah.dcr.state.nc.us/archives/news/bill_of_rights1.htm
Most US government websites have started moving away from the .us domain to the .gov.
Kyderr ( talk) 02:40, 3 July 2015 (UTC)
"Several sought to protect individual personal rights by limiting various Constitutional the powers of Congress" (under "Crafting amendments") makes no sense.
HankW512 ( talk) 04:48, 22 July 2015 (UTC)
In the last sentence of the "Massachusetts compromise" subsection of the "Background" section, the phrase "began operations" is a poor choice of words since it could easily be interpreted to mean that the federal legislature commenced doing what legislatures do, when in fact neither the House of Representatives nor the Senate had the quorum required to conduct business until the beginning of April 1789. Since there would be no judiciary before the President made judicial appointments, and since there would be no President before the official counting of the votes of the electors, and since there would be no counting of the votes before a quorum was present, the statement clearly but falsely asserts that it was the legislature that began operations on the 4th of March 1789. HankW512 ( talk) 00:12, 22 July 2015 (UTC)
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Change links to amendments in the sidebar to their en.wikipedia.org page instead of the wikisource page. 2602:306:3026:6F40:A179:85CF:2A3B:50F2 ( talk) 02:02, 4 September 2015 (UTC)
The Preamble and Articles, The Amendments, The Unratified Amendments and the History all direct to the en.wikipedia articles.
The only section linked to wikisource is the "Full text of the Constitution and Amendments" which is where "original" documents should be -
Arjayay (
talk) 08:35, 4 September 2015 (UTC)
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In the 5th Paragraph is the following sentence asking for clarification "The Bill of Rights had little judicial impact for the first 150 years of its existence,[clarification needed] but was the basis for many Supreme Court decisions of the 20th and 21st centuries. "
I suggest the sentence be changed as follows: "The Bill of Rights had very limited impact during the first century and a half of its existence, because it was initially interpreted to apply only to the Federal government, with state and local governments having no obligation to comply.[1]
[SUGGESTED NEW SECTION]: Period of limited Application
Initially the Bill of Rights was assumed to be binding only on the Federal government of the United States alone. In the 1833 Barron v. Baltimore decision, John Marshall wrote the unanimous opinion which established a precedent that the United States Bill of Rights could not be applied to state governments.[2] Many decades later, this idea was replaced with an Incorporation Doctrine which established that at least some of the provisions of the Bill of Rights also apply to the state and local governments. Incorporation started in 1897 with a takings case, Burlington & Quincy Railway Co. v. Chicago, continued with Gitlow v. New York (1925), which was a First Amendment case, and accelerated in the 1940s and 1950s. Justice Hugo Black famously favored a complete and total incorporation of the entire Bill of Rights. Justice Felix Frankfurter felt that the federal courts should only apply those sections of the Bill of Rights that were "fundamental to a scheme of ordered liberty." It was the latter course that the Warren Court of the 1960s took, although now, almost all of the Bill of Rights has now been incorporated against the states and local governments.[4]
[1]
http://www.history.com/topics/bill-of-rights [2]
/info/en/?search=Barron_v._Baltimore [3]
/info/en/?search=Due_Process_Clause#Incorporation_of_the_Bill_of_Rights
Zzinzel (
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Update portion of 3rd amendment that states it hasn't been brought up in court "as of 2012" to "as of 2016" or "2015".
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The last sentence of paragraph 3 in the "Crafting Amendments" section reads: "He did not include an amendment that every state had asked for, one that would have made tax assessments voluntary instead of contributions contributions."
I believe that the second "contributions" is a typo and should be removed. 73.215.9.93 ( talk) 19:11, 16 February 2016 (UTC)
Another user continues to add text underneath the heading of "Second Amendment" that is not in the text of the Second Amendment. It is a deliberate attempt to subvert the meaning of the text under the guise of additional "scholarly analysis" to somehow clarify this amendment. Scholarly analysis belongs in an entirely separate section of the article as there is real intention to manipulate the meaning of the text itself and by showing another quote underneath to imply that there is further text in the Second Amendment that gives a false background on the amendment and implies that it is "a public allowance under due restrictions" when the "sanctions of society and laws are found insufficient to restrain the violence of oppression." This quote from an 18th century English judge is entirely out of keeping with Wikipedia's own rules to present unbiased facts. By including this quote, the purpose of the 2nd Amendment is immediately under attack. If we should have a debate section for the article, you could include this quote as well as quotes from the NRA leaders and Constitutional scholars to debate the meaning and purpose of the amendment. This is one of the most important rights of American citizens and to have it twisted by some 18th century scholar in the next paragraph reeks of a fraudulent attempt to undermine the authority vested in the people to arm themselves against the possibility of a future tyrannical government. Here is what Rjensen keeps putting in to the text below the text of the Second Amendment in a clear attempt to subvert the 2nd most important right, the right of the American people to defend themselves (a right which "shall not be infringed"):
The concept of a right to keep and bear arms existed within English common law long before the enactment of the Bill of Rights.(McAffee, Thomas B.; Michael J. Quinlan (March 1997). "Bringing Forward The Right To Keep And Bear Arms: Do Text, History, Or Precedent Stand In The Way?". North Carolina Law Review: 781.) Eighteenth century English jurist and judge Sir William Blackstone described this right as:
a public allowance under due restrictions, of the natural right of resistance and self-preservation, when the sanctions of society and laws are found insufficient to restrain the violence of oppression.(Blackstone, William (1765–1769). Commentaries on the Laws of England: Book the First, of the Rights of Persons. Oxford: the Clarendon Press. pp. 143–144.)
Here are some examples of text from the "Ratification Process" section: "Having been approved by the requisite three–fourths of the several states, there being 14 States in the Union at the time (as Vermont had been admitted into the Union on March 4, 1791),[61]..." "As they had not yet been approved by 11 of the 14 states, the ratification of Article One (ratified by 10) and Article Two (ratified by 6) remained incomplete. The ratification plateau they needed to reach soon rose to 12 of 15 states when Kentucky joined the Union (June 1, 1792). On June 27, 1792, the Kentucky General Assembly ratified all 12 amendments, however this action did not come to light until 1997." "Article One, came within one state of the number needed to become adopted into the Constitution on two occasions between 1789 and 1803. Despite coming close to ratification early on, it has never received the approval of enough states to become part of the Constitution.[62] As Congress did not attach a ratification time limit to the article, it is still technically pending before the states. Since no state has approved it since 1792, ratification by an additional 27 states would now be necessary for the article to be adopted."
These texts repeatedly adopt and contain the idea that as the number of states in the Union rose, the number of states necessary for the ratification of Constitutional Amendments (specifically, those that had previously been voted on by the United States Congress) rose as well. The Constitution speaks of 2/3s of both houses of Congress voting to propose an Amendment, and subsequently 3/4s of the state legislatures voting to approve the Amendment. Unstated is the question of whether the addition of new states (after the 2/3s vote) raises the number of ratification legislatures' votes. Clearly, the author of this text assumes that it does. But there is another point of view. The problem is that this text is presented in a way which is not cited: The readers will simply assume it is unchallengeably correct.
"Article Two, initially ratified by seven states through 1792 (including Kentucky), was not ratified by another state for eighty years. The Ohio General Assembly ratified it on May 6, 1873 in protest of an unpopular Congressional pay raise.[67] A century later, on March 6, 1978, the Wyoming Legislature also ratified the article.[68] Gregory Watson, a University of Texas at Austin undergraduate student, started a new push for the article's ratification with a letter-writing campaign to state legislatures.[67] As a result, by May 1992, enough states had approved Article Two (38 of the 50 states in the Union) for it to become the Twenty-seventh Amendment to the United States Constitution. The amendment's adoption was certified by Archivist of the United States Don W. Wilson and subsequently affirmed by a vote of Congress on May 20, 1992.[69]"
Again, this text assumes that the number of state legislatures' ratifications that were needed rose to 38. (37.5, but round up)
"Three states did not complete action on the twelve articles of amendment when they were initially put before the states. Connecticut and Georgia found a Bill of Rights unnecessary and so refused to ratify. Both chambers of the Massachusetts General Court ratified a number of the amendments (the Senate adopted 10 of 12 and the House 9 of 12), but failed to reconcile their two lists or to send official notice to the Secretary of State of the ones they did agree upon.[70][61] All three later ratified the Constitutional amendments originally known as Articles 3–12 as part of the 1939 commemoration of the Bill of Rights' sesquicentennial: Massachusetts on March 2, Georgia on March 18, and Connecticut on April 19.[61] Connecticut and Georgia would also later ratify Article Two, on May 13, 1987 and February 2, 1988 respectively. "
The three ratifications in 1939 were a clue, which this author ignores: Each of those states, individually, could have ratified the "Bill of Rights" during 1789 or 1790, and it would have become a valid, ratified Amendment. They were the three states which had failed to ratify. I think it was discovered in 1939 that the BOR wasn't actually ratified in 1790-1791, because subsequent states should not have been counted. The assumption that the BOR was actually fully ratified was entirely dependent on the idea that the addition of Vermont (and its subsequent ratification of the BOR) "counted" towards ratifying the BOR. If it didn't, only the ratifications of Massachusetts, Georgia, or Connecticut would have been sufficient to do the job. This of course is the dispute. There will be people who don't agree. There is nothing wrong with not agreeing: But there is a great deal wrong with pretending that their point of view is unchallengeably valid. The article needs to be re-written to support (with specific cites) the idea that the subsequent addition of states after the 2/3s Congressional votes raised the bar for the 3/4s ratification vote total. 67.5.192.83 ( talk) 21:42, 24 March 2016 (UTC)
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This lines here is worded incorrectly, I will put the poor wording parentheses.
The Ninth Amendment declares that fundamental rights exist that are not expressly enumerated in the Constitution, and that "the rights which are do not constitute" an explicit and exhaustive listing of all individual rights possessed by the people.
I would write something like this: The Ninth Amendment declares there are more fundamental rights that exist outside the Constitution. The rights in the the Constitution are not an exhaustive list of individual rights. TroyRoot ( talk) 17:39, 17 June 2016 (UTC)
Do you think these images of the Conference committee report that finalized the proposed Bill of Rights amendments can be added to the article or do you think they might clutter it up? Libertybison ( talk) 22:38, 15 September 2016 (UTC)
I'd like to recommend adding a brief mention in the article of the failed 1789 attempt to ratify the Bill of Rights in Virginia before their success in doing so in 1791. There's a 1991 article about it here. Libertybison ( talk) 08:05, 16 September 2016 (UTC)
I just wanted a listing of the Bill of Rights. It is only 482 words long. How hard can it be? Why come anywhere close? 99.173.132.199 ( talk) 22:33, 24 March 2016 (UTC)
I was looking for all of the Ammendments, and when I searched 'the Ammendments', this article came up. Where is the 11th Ammendment? The 12th? The 13th? I think this article should be expanded. PitbullAJWarriorsSurvivorsLover ( talk) 16:43, 25 January 2017 (UTC)
Supposedly, there is a June 3, 1790 letter from Connecticut Lt. Gov. Oliver Wolcott to his son, Oliver Wolcott Jr. where he says the Connecticut General Assembly's upper house wouldn't agree to its lower house bill to ratify Articles 3-12 during the May 1790 legislative session because they thought that Article 2 was just as important as those ten. The letter itself probably wouldn't be important enough to mention in this article but it might shed more light on Connecticut's actions. Unfortunately, the book I read about it only quotes a few words of a sentence and lacks context. I haven't been able to find another mention of it. Does anybody know a source that mentions it or know an online source that has transcriptions of Wolcott letters? Libertybison ( talk) 23:17, 25 January 2017 (UTC)
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The Fourth Amendment has been the basis of many majour court decisions in the history of the United States and such precedent should be stated and explained to elaborate on the modern interpretation and court determination of the exact definition and confines of its protection. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.6.197.41 ( talk) 09:30, 9 November 2017 (UTC)
The fifth amendment explanation of the article must include the right of a man to refuse to testify against his wife. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.6.197.41 ( talk) 09:33, 9 November 2017 (UTC)
The eighth amendment "The Eighth Amendment forbids the imposition of excessive bails or fines, though it leaves the term "excessive" open to interpretation" but the word excessive has a definition in the English dictionary, how could one leave a word which has a definition up for interpretation? Excessive means that which is more than necessary. What is necessary is objective, not subjective. A fine or bail should then be used to cover costs of resources required for the scenario in question. There is nothing open to interpretation about it. Great article though otherwise 50.125.82.185 ( talk) 17:51, 18 November 2017 (UTC)
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Change "The Supreme Court overturned English common law precedent to increase the burden of proof for defamation and libel suits, most notably in New York Times Co. v. Sullivan (1964)." to remove the word libel. Libel is a form of defamation so having the word libel is redundant and unnecessary. Thank you. 2600:1017:B11B:F83C:B1FB:F6DD:9919:5939 ( talk) 02:13, 12 December 2017 (UTC)
Under the Crafting Amendments subsection, the proposed amendments to the U.S. Constitution James Madison authored are show to modify Article II in many places where it was indeed Article I. When the source for this information is opened (currently footnote 49), the text on that webpage clearly shows that the ones in question were intended for Article I of the Constitution. The current link to that webpage is [46]. I believe this was just an honest mistake during transcribing. Considering this article is classified as a "good article," I thought this honest mistake should be corrected to preserve that integrity. Thank you so much for taking this into consideration. 168.215.102.210 ( talk) 14:12, 9 August 2018 (UTC)
At the top of the article it says that the Bill of Rights are the first ten amendments to the constitution. I noticed that nowhere at the beginning of the article that the 27th amendment was part of the Bill of Rights but was not ratified until 1992. Should somone had a clause at the beginning of the article that the 27th amendment is technically part of the Bill of Rights but was not ratified until 1992 along with another amendment relating to the House of Reps still pending amongst the states?
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In the Second Amendment section it says :
"In United States v. Cruikshank (1875), ..."
But in the linked article :
/info/en/?search=United_States_v._Cruikshank
It says the year was 1876.
I've had a look on other sites, and some say 1875 and others 1876. On the linked Wikipedia page here :
/info/en/?search=United_States_v._Cruikshank#cite_note-1
and a bit further down, it even references both dates. I'm guessing that the case probably started in 1875 and was resolved in 1876. Given the prevelance of both dates, it might be useful to clarify the fact that both dates are used. Maccaday ( talk) 20:59, 24 August 2018 (UTC)
https://www.loc.gov/item/usrep092542/
It seems it was argued in 1875, decided in 1876, and the decision is what's important Cannolis ( talk) 17:31, 2 September 2018 (UTC)