Bill+of+Rights

By Sydney Yvette Doway and Rebecca Kathryn Fields United States History 1AC Potter

**What is The Bill of Rights?**

 * After the leaders of the new United States wrote the Constitution, they had to get the thirteen states to agree to it. Some of the states didn't want to agree unless they could add some specific rights for individual people. Then in 1791 the United States added ten new rights known as the first ten amendments to the Constitution. These are called the Bill of Rights.

History Behind The Bill of Rights

 * In the summer of 1787, delegates from the 13 states convened in Philadelphia and drafted a remarkable blueprint for self-government (The Constitution of the United States). The first draft set up a system of checks and balances that included a strong executive branch, a representative legislature and a federal judiciary.
 * The Constitution was remarkable, but deeply flawed. For one thing, it did not include a specific declaration – or bill – of individual rights. It specified what the government could do but did not say what it __**could not do**.__ For another, it did not apply to everyone. The "consent of the governed" meant propertied white men only.
 * The absence of a "bill of rights" turned out to be an obstacle to the Constitution's ratification by the states. It would take four more years of intense debate before the new government's form would be resolved. The Federalists opposed including a bill of rights on the ground that it was unnecessary. The Anti-Federalists, who were afraid of a strong centralized government, refused to support the Constitution without one.
 * On September 25, 1789, the First Congress of the United States therefore proposed to the state legislatures 12 amendments to the Constitution that met arguments most frequently advanced against it. The first two proposed amendments, which concerned the number of constituents for each Representative and the compensation of Congressmen, were not ratified. Articles 3 to 12, however, ratified by three-fourths of the state legislatures, constitute the first 10 amendments of the Constitution, known as the Bill of Rights.

The Actual Bill of Rights:

 * 1) __**Freedom of Speech, Religion, Press, Assembly and Petition:**__ Congress can't make any law about your religion, or stop you from practicing your religion, or keep you from saying whatever you want, or publishing whatever you want to publish, whether it is in a book, magazine or a article. As well as the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for grievances.
 * 2) __**Right to Bear Arms:**__ Congress can't stop people from having and carrying weapons, because we need to be able to defend ourselves.
 * 3) __**Quartering Troops:**__ You don't have to let soldiers live in your house, except if there is a war, and even then only if Congress has passed a law about it.
 * 4) __**Search and Seizure:**__ Nobody can search your body, or your house, or your papers and things, unless they can prove to a judge that they have a good reason to think you have committed a crime.
 * 5) __**The Grand Jury, Due Process, Eminent Domain, The Grand Jury Exception, Self-Incrimination and The Double Jeopardy Clause:**__ You can't be tried for any serious crime without a Grand Jury meeting first to decide whether there's enough evidence for a trial. And if the jury decides you are innocent, the government can't try again with another jury. You don't have to say anything at your trial. You can't be killed, or put in jail, or fined, unless you were convicted of a crime by a jury. And the government can't take your house or your farm or anything that is yours, unless the government pays for it.
 * 6) __**Criminal Prosecutions such as Jury Trial, Right to Confront and to Counsel:**__ If you're arrested, you have a right to have your trial pretty soon, and the government can't keep you in jail without trying you. The trial has to be public, so everyone knows what is happening. The case has to be decided by a jury of ordinary people from your area. You have the right to know what you are accused of, to see and hear the people who are witnesses against you, to have the government help you get witnesses on your side, and you have the right to a lawyer to help you.
 * 7) __**Trial By Jury:**__ You also have the right to a jury when it is a civil case which is a law case between two people rather than between you and the government.
 * 8) __**Cruel and Unusual Punishment:**__ The government can't make you pay more than is reasonable in bail or in fines, and the government can't order you to have cruel or unusual punishments, such as touture; even if you are convicted of a crime.
 * 9) __**Non-Enumerated Rights:**__ Just because these rights are listed in the Constitution doesn't mean that you don't have other rights too.
 * 10) __**Rights Reserved to States:**__ Anything that the Constitution doesn't say that Congress can do should be left up to the states, or to the people.

**Quotes:**
"[A] bill of rights is what the people are entitled to against every government on earth, general or particular, and what no just government should refuse." --- Thomas Jefferson December 20, 1787

media type="youtube" key="qSA8LX0xNLg?fs=1" height="385" width="480"
 * If you have trouble remembering the Bill of Rights, **
 * memorize this rap and it can really help you ace a test! :) **

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