14 Module 4: Civil Liberties And Public Policy
Objectives
- Trace the process by which the Bill of Rights has been applied to the states.
- Distinguish the two types of religious rights protected by the 1st Amendment and determine the boundaries of those rights.
- Differentiate the rights of free expression protected by the 1st Amendment and determine the boundaries of those rights.
- Describe the rights to assemble and associate protected by the 1st Amendment and their limitations.
- Describe the right to bear arms protected by the 2nd Amendment and its limitations.
- Characterize defendants’ rights and identify issues that arise in their implementation.
- Outline the evolution of a right to privacy and its application to the issue of abortion.
- Assess how civil liberties affect democratic government and how they both limit and expand the scope of government.
Read
- American Government Chapter 4
- Supplemental Reading: US Constitution, Amendments 1 through 9
Chapter Summary
Civil liberties are individual legal and constitutional protections against the government. While the Constitution did not address a wide array of civil liberties, there were protections including prohibitions of “bill of attainer”, “ex post facto” and “habeas corpus”. A much broader enunciation of Americans’ civil liberties are established in the Bill of Rights, the courts determine what the Constitution actually means through the cases they decide. Disputes about civil liberties are frequent because the issues involved are complex and divisive.
The Bill of Rights — Then and Now
Political scientists have discovered that people are advocates of rights in theory, but their support wavers when it comes time to put those rights into practice. Cases become particularly difficult when liberties are in conflict—such as free press versus a fair trial or free speech versus public order—or where the facts and interpretations are subtle and ambiguous.
The Bill of Rights is fundamental to Americans’ freedom. All of the state constitutions had bills of rights by the time of the 1787 convention, and the issue of adding a bill of rights to the proposed national constitution had become a condition of ratification. The Bill of Rights was passed as a group by the First Congress in 1789; the first ten amendments were ratified and became part of the Constitution in 1791.
The Bill of Rights was written to restrict the powers of the new central government. The 1st Amendment establishes the four great liberties: freedom of the press, of speech, of religion, and of assembly. What happens, however, if a state passes a law violating one of the rights protected by the federal Bill of Rights and the state’s constitution does not prohibit this abridgment of freedom? In Barron v. Baltimore (1833), the Supreme Court ruled that the Bill of Rights restrained only the national government and not states and cities. It was not until 1925 that the Court relied on the 14th Amendment to find that a state governm