Amendment VII
In suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise reexamined in any court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law.
Amendment VIII
Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.
Amendment IX
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
Amendment X
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.
James Madison wrote the Bill of Rights and was inspired, in part, by the Virginia Declaration of Rights, written by George Mason.
George Mason became a strong voice of dissent against the ratification of the Constitution, today he would be labeled as unpatriotic. Why did Mason oppose the Constitution because "It has no declaration of rights." James Madison relied heavily upon the Virginia Declaration of Rights penned by Mason in creating our Bill of Rights.
If George Mason would have accepted the Constitution at face value we would not have the liberty we are fighting to maintain today. Thomas Jefferson also relied upon Mason's Virginia Declaration of Rights for the opening paragraphs of the Declaration of Independence.
From Virginia Declaration of Rights:
Section 1. That all men are by nature equally free and independent and have certain inherent rights, of which, when they enter into a state of society, they cannot, by any compact, deprive or divest their posterity; namely, the enjoyment of life and liberty, with the means of acquiring and possessing property, and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety.
The University of Chicago Press and the Liberty Fund have joined forces to bring the Founder's Constitution containing primary documents concerning arguments on both sides of the issues pertaining to our Constitution and Bill of Rights. Using these documents I will attempt to illustrate the need we have for the Bill of Rights and why we should continue to fight for them to be upheld.
Amendment I:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
Religion
In Maryland a person could expect death for speaking against the tenements of the Christian Religion, 1649. In Salem, Massachusetts many were slaughtered under the accusation of witchcraft legal under the laws of the time.
John Locke provided an excellent argument that remains truthtelling today:
"The care of souls cannot belong to the civil magistrate, because his power consists only in outward force; but true and saving religion consists in the inward persuasion of the mind, without which nothing can be acceptable to God. And such is the nature of the understanding, that it cannot be compelled to the belief of anything by outward force. Confiscation of estate, imprisonment, torments, nothing of that nature can have any such efficacy as to make men change the inward judgment that they have framed of things."
Speech and Press
Thomas Jefferson's Inaugural Address
"We are all Republicans, we are all Federalists. If there be any among us who would wish to dissolve this Union or to change its republican form, let them stand undisturbed as monuments of the safety with which error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it."
James Burgh, Political Disquisitions
"But it may be said, there is no necessity for a private writer to be indulged the liberty of attacking the conduct of those who take upon themselves to govern the state. The answer is easy, viz. That all history shews the necessity, in order to the preservation of liberty, of every subject's having a watchful eye on the conduct of Kings, Ministers, and Parliament, and of every subject's being not only secured, but encouraged in alarming his fellow-subjects on occasion of every attempt upon public liberty, and that private, independent subjects only are likely to give fair warning of such attempts; their betters (as to rank and fortune) being more likely to conceal, than detect the abuses committed by those in power. If, therefore, private writers are to be intimidated in shewing their fidelity to their country, the principal security of liberty is taken away."
Petition and Assembly
The Magna Carta written in 1215 specifically installed the right to assemble and present grievances to the monarchy but limited this right to barons excluding the common people.
The Articles of the Confederation, the first step toward gaining Independence from England was indeed a petition and without such declaration would we, Americans, be today, citizens of Britain?
As I was preparing this post, I got out my history books, I am a History major and realized that some key points slipped my understanding completely.
