The Bill of Rights: Every Amendment, Why it's important, and How it limits the government

the making of the constitution involved many compromises considering the vast differences in culture religion and businesses it's understandable that not everyone in the 13 original states was completely happy with the finished product the balancing act became making enough states satisfied with the constitution in order to ratify the document and one of these major compromises was on adding a bill of rights to the constitution as you may know the federalists were confident the new federal government would not take away the rights of the people because you know separation of powers checks and balances and the fact that there is nothing in the constitution that states the government can take rights from the people you're worrying about nothing now the anti-federalists weren't so sure this was enough they wanted guaranteed rights or states like massachusetts maryland south carolina new hampshire would not ratify the document on the other hand delaware did not care about guaranteed rights they ratified the document immediately once they pinky promised the constitution was ratified and everyone was happy except they weren't done they had to add guaranteed rights for all in a bill of rights and before we go any further i want to thank pete goldman and pamela benham for suggesting this video on the bill of rights if you have any suggestions for a civics review video leave me a comment below okie dokie let's get to the bill of rights which are the first 10 changes to the constitution and we're gonna start with amendment one the first amendment guarantees five rights which almost certainly appear on your end of course test off the top of your head you could probably list some or all of them go ahead and try right now [Music] [Applause] [Music] did you get them in order to ensure we remember them all we use the acronym wraps and that's r-a-p-p-s acronyms are super helpful for remembering what these letters stand for observe the acronym nasa stands for national astronauts space i that it didn't work not even close i've tried every available combination of letters to spell something cooler than raps but it doesn't exist prasp see it doesn't work anyways r-a-p-p-s stands for religion assembly petition press and speech now when we say religion we're talking about two things the government will not establish any religion meaning you can't have a religion forced upon you by law and secondly you are free to have any religion or no religion assembly refers to our right to gather in groups usually to protest and sometimes we assemble together in a flash mob because we just want to dance petition gives us the right to appeal or complain to the government press refers to media of any form newspapers news channels social media and it gives us the right to report on stories and news that's happening and of course we have the freedom of speech meaning we have the right to our opinions and to express ourselves whether people agree with us or not disclaimer these rights and freedoms are not unlimited an excellent rule of thumb is if you're breaking a law if you're doing something that will endanger others you may not have the right to do these things so let's take a closer look at limitations to our rights by going over the freedom to assemble which is found in the first amendment this guarantees our right to assemble in groups in a public place when thinking about somewhere private like say your room it is no longer acceptable to say i have the right to assemble with my friends inside of your home this is trespassing and trespassing is a crime for a full explanation of why you have limitations to your constitutional rights you can click here and check this video out now in 1791 as they are writing the bill of rights the revolutionary war is fresh in the back of everyone's brain and under british rule the colonists lost many rights and wanted to make sure that they'd never lose them again so after the american dance dance revolution which by the way we won with our mad skills it was time to make sure a government would never attempt to take away these rights from the people so the first few amendments in the bill of rights are responses to british rule in the past so the second amendment guarantees us the right to bear arms and this of course means to own a firearm or gun right i knew you knew what that meant and probably not the other thing that you might have been thinking of now this is a pretty big deal because the british try to take the colonists weapons away most notably in the raids at lexington and concord while this can be a contentious issue in today's time right do we have the right to own a gun or should we have the right to own some kind of firearm the supreme court has been pretty clear on its interpretation of the second amendment the people do have the right to bear arms the third amendment is the odd one out it reads no soldier shall and time of peace be quartered in any house without the consent of the owner to the modern citizen it is the most useless of the 10 amendments in the bill of rights i mean really how often does a soldier come knocking on your door saying i need a place to stay please let me in this doesn't really happen but back in the time of the colonies where we were under british rule this was a law we had to allow soldiers into our house feed them and give them a place to stay the next couple of amendments are called the rights of the accused and those include amendments four five six and eight amendment four prohibits unreasonable search and seizures and you're gonna need to know this term for your test seizure of course referring to the action to seize which means to take or repossess and so basically the police cannot go through your stuff or your house unless they have a warrant to do so that is issued by a judge or if they have probable cause the fifth amendment has a lot of goodies for those accused of a crime and it's going to establish the due process of law so if you are being accused by someone for some kind of crime that might put you behind bars we are owed the fairness of law and that's known as due process this includes a number of things and first on the docket is the right to a grand jury in a federal crime meaning if someone's going to put you behind bars they better make sure that they're doing things the right way by having an impartial jury of your peers listen to your story and make sure you're really guilty of the crime another right of the accused given in the fifth amendment is what we call double jeopardy and this is the right to not be tried for the same crime twice this one's a little confusing but if a courtroom finds that you are innocent of a crime they can't come back and say we're going to have a second trial because we found more information we're going to try and make sure you're guilty this time they can't do it a third time and so on and so forth and this is confusing for students because they say okay great if i'm innocent of stealing now i can steal whatever i want because i have the right of double jeopardy well that's not quite how it works if you are found innocent of a crime on a particular date in a particular event then you cannot be tried for that same crime but if you steal something the next day well then you can be tried for that crime because it is a separate instance another right in the fifth amendment is your right to remain silent these are included in your miranda rights you have the right to not testify against yourself [Music] it's up to the prosecution who has the burden of proof to find evidence that proves you are guilty of the crime the final rite in amendment 5 is called eminent domain and this means if the government needs to take your property or your things then they must compensate you for it fairly so if the government needs to take your home or the land that your home is on then they need to give you more than 10 bucks for that land and home they have to give you a fair value and this might surprise a bunch of you you did not know that the government could take your stuff and give you money for it but they can especially if they need it for some kind of greater public good like building a road through a property you own or a bridge or some kind of infrastructure moving on we have amendment six which gives you a couple of things if you're accused of a crime and the first is a speedy and public trial remember if someone's accusing you of a crime you're innocent until proven guilty but if you are arrested on january of 2022 and your trial is set for december 2025 this is considered to be too long to defend your good name and while you're defending your good name you need to have a public trial meaning people can be there and see what's happening and know there's nothing corrupt going on like you paying off the judge or the prosecution not presenting any kind of evidence and still being called guilty for the crime you also have the right under the sixth amendment to an impartial jury and that's a word that we're gonna need to know impartial means fair and balanced not leaning towards any side now the jury is the group that's going to determine your innocence or guilt by listening to the facts and the story and it would be very unfair if the people that were judging you were your buddy or your classmate or your best friend on the other hand it would be equally unfair if the jury was full of people like your ex-boyfriend your angry neighbor or that one science teacher that just really did not like you what's up with science teachers anyways now it is your sixth amendment rights that allows you to know what are you accusing me of and who exactly is accusing me the people who are accusing you cannot be anonymous they must appear before you so you can see them and see their face and say aha it was you finally the sixth amendment gives us the right to legal defense even if we cannot afford a lawyer so if you're incredibly poor you are gonna be given an attorney with amazing anime hair and they're gonna defend you in a court of law and do a goofy dance after they win okay so the eighth amendment is the right to not be cruel and unusually punished now obviously all of the old forms of punishment that involve public humiliation fall into cruel and unusual punishment but it includes other things like excessive fines and excessive bail any form of torture violates the eighth amendment because that is incredibly cruel and of course the punishment must fit the crime if you steal fruit stripe gum which i don't even know why you would bother with you're not gonna get 30 years in prison for that crime that would be excessive and cruel and unusual and now we're gonna go back a ways to the seventh amendment which does not really fall under the rights of the accused you see we're not talking about criminal law where you're stealing something or you could be guilty and go to jail we're talking about civil law which is just generally disagreements between people like when the tattoo parlor messes up your tattoo this is not a crime but you might want to sue them over this disagreement so the seventh amendment guarantees a trial by jury in a civil lawsuit so that you and the tattoo parlor can go to court and have a jury of your peers listen to your horrific tale now the ninth amendment seems tricky but it's not it reads the enumeration in the constitution of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people confusing but essentially it means just because some rights are written down does not mean other rights that aren't written down can be denied for instance there's nothing in the bill of rights that says you have the right to wear tall socks or do bad cosplay but just because it's not written down doesn't mean that these rights can be denied unless congress writes a new law that specifically states you cannot do something we should assume we have the rights to do things even though they're not specifically listed in the bill of rights the tenth and final amendment in the bill of rights states 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 basically meaning if it's not in the u.s constitution that the federal government should be doing this thing then it's saved for the states they can handle it however they want things like education are left up to the states the federal government makes no mention of education within the constitution they say hey man we're going to leave that to you florida it's up to you same thing goes for the driver's license that's why every state has a different driving age or different requirements for operating a motor vehicle it's because the federal government does not want to do this and so they leave it up to the states that's the 10th amendment when we can tell the government we have the right to privacy you cannot search and seize my home without a warrant then it reduces the power of the government and it gives power to the people same thing with getting a lawyer or having a speedy trial or putting the government on the clock and telling them hey you don't have unlimited power we have rights and that's a very cool thing okay that's it for now thanks so much for sticking to the end of my video i hope you enjoyed it i hope you learned something we'll make more videos soon [Music] you

Channel: Civics Review

Views: 188,827

Keywords: Forms of Government, Form of Government, Civics EOC, Civics, Forms and Systems of Government

Id: tBbELqqSyek

Length: 13min 9sec (789 seconds)

Published: Tue Jan 18 2022