The Thirteenth Amendment - Road to Freedom

Section 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction. Section 2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

After a long pause in amendments, we finally passed one that is unquestionable good. It is clear and should have been there from the beginning. The Union had won, and the Abolitionist movement had finally succeeded in their goals

What this means is that from that day on, we could have a lot more pride in our country not being comprised of hypocrites. Christians shouldn't have ever been able to tolerate slavery. Secular "free thinkers" should have never been about to tolerate slavery. It never should have happened. Although it was a long road to try to get us to true racial harmony, the thirteenth amendment was the greatest step in that direction.

The Twelth Amendment - Common Sense

The Electors shall meet in their respective states, and vote by ballot for President and Vice-President, one of whom, at least, shall not be an inhabitant of the same state with themselves; they shall name in their ballots the person voted for as President, and in distinct ballots the person voted for as Vice-President, and they shall make distinct lists of all persons voted for as President, and all persons voted for as Vice-President and of the number of votes for each, which lists they shall sign and certify, and transmit sealed to the seat of the government of the United States, directed to the President of the Senate.
The President of the Senate shall, in the presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the certificates and the votes shall then be counted.
The person having the greatest Number of votes for President, shall be the President, if such number be a majority of the whole number of Electors appointed; and if no person have such majority, then from the persons having the highest numbers not exceeding three on the list of those voted for as President, the House of Representatives shall choose immediately, by ballot, the President. But in choosing the President, the votes shall be taken by states, the representation from each state having one vote; a quorum for this purpose shall consist of a member or members from two-thirds of the states, and a majority of all the states shall be necessary to a choice. And if the House of Representatives shall not choose a President whenever the right of choice shall devolve upon them, before the fourth day of March next following, then the Vice-President shall act as President, as in the case of the death or other constitutional disability of the President.
The person having the greatest number of votes as Vice-President, shall be the Vice-President, if such number be a majority of the whole number of Electors appointed, and if no person have a majority, then from the two highest numbers on the list, the Senate shall choose the Vice-President; a quorum for the purpose shall consist of two-thirds of the whole number of Senators, and a majority of the whole number shall be necessary to a choice. But no person constitutionally ineligible to the office of President shall be eligible to that of Vice-President of the United States.

In a long story short the president and the vice-president run in the election together. This followed a nasty election in 1796 where the president and vice-president were from two different parties.

If we had stayed under the old system, we would probably have a country that had gone through a lot of violent transitions between president and vice-president, because the vice-president was still first in line to replace the president.

The Eleventh Amendment - Sounds Good

The Judicial power of the United States shall not be construed to extend to any suit in law or equity, commenced or prosecuted against one of the United States by Citizens of another State, or by Citizens or Subjects of any Foreign State.

This all kind of flows together with the 10th Amendment, the level and power of state governments is very important to holding things together, and challenges to state laws should be scrutinized. 

Along with my prop 8 rant, I think this amendment has been overrun as well. I mean, if you are suing the governor of a state, how is that different than suing the state. The case that overturned prop 8 was Perry v. Schwarzenegger, but Schwarzenegger didn't even want to defend himself in the suit and praised Walker's decision against him.

The person they were really suing were the people of California, if you have a problem with the people of California move to Nevada.

The Tenth Amendment - Home Rule Overrun

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.

This is my favorite amendment, and its probably the one that is the most ignored and abused.

It is kind of interesting that it comes right after the 9th, that says the people have rights by default, the 10th essentially says the federal government has its hand's tied by default. But that is not the way we see things played out

California's proposition 8 was probably one of the most famous state referendums in the nation in 2008. After heated protests and demonstrations the people of California vote to amend their constitution to ban gay marriage. The will of the people right? This is a state issue isn't it? After all, the people of California and all the other states where gay marriage bans have been on the ballot, deserve to have a say in their laws right? Not so fast. Proposition 8 was overturned by a lone federal judge, who, after his retirement, told the press he was gay and in a long term relationship.

In Judge Walker's decision, he even said, "An initiative measure adopted by the voters deserves great respect. The considered views and opinions of even the most highly qualified scholars and experts seldom outweigh the determinations of the voters. When challenged, however, the voters’ determinations must find at least some support in evidence." However, in the end, instead of saying he didn't have the power to overturn their decision based on what was obviously his personal opinion, instead of saying the constitution has never addressed gay marriage, instead of deciding to recuse himself, he overturned the will of the people.

The tenth amendment is really what makes our country great, we don't all have to agree %100, %100 of the time. When we are able to turn to Jefferson City or Topeka to petition, protest, lobby, or run for office you will find yourself with a much much louder voice then you have going through Washington DC. So don't you want the most decisions possible to come from your own state government? If you really think about the functions of the federal government laid out in the Constitution, it was really only limited to the things the states simply can't. Imagine if Hawaii had to raise its own navy to fight off Japan. Imagine if we had customs offices between the borders of every state, Kansas City would look a little different for sure.

Do you know what you can do if you don't like the state laws in Kansas? You can move to Missouri! However what happens when the federal government starts taking more power and making every decision. Where do you go to get away from that?

We were designed to be a country that can disagree a little, but still come together to defend the nation and maintain a running free economy. If we continue on the path of sacrificing states rights everyone is going to lose. Imagine if we had George Bush deciding every part of the nations social policies just to have it all changed by Obama? At one point or another everyone isn't getting what they want.

The Ninth Amendment - True Limitation on Federal Power

The enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

Ah, the good 'ol Ninth... not one of my favorites in the way it has been used, but it's purpose is still pretty important. I personally don't want every single thing I'm allowed to do to have to be spelled out on ANY government paper. So yes, technically when I say "you have no right to privacy." or something like that a strong case can be made against me based on the Ninth...

The question is... Where does it end??? People seem to think the Ninth means, "You have all the preceding rights, plus whatever rights you want to claim." Does that mean you have a constitutionally protected right to an abortion? pornography? prostitution? Do you have the right to access marijuana based on the ninth? I don't think so.

The founding fathers were concerned the fact that they listed out rights would be used to curtail the rights people already had. Its like a mother telling her child "you can have some desert, watch some TV, and play a game before you go to bed." And the kid runs off understand he's not allowed to do his homework... I disagree with that. I think the ninth means the kid still has the right to eat his dinner.

I think people should pay close attention to the final words of the amendment "or disparage others retained by the people," That means they didn't intend to disparage the rights that the people CURRENTLY had. Anything that was illegal around the ratification of the Constitution can not be called unconstitutional now on account of the ninth. If the founding fathers observed such a conflict, they would have addressed it.

The Eighth Amendment - Freedom from Humanity

Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted."

 You do not need to look far back into history to find reasons why we need the eighth amendment. There is no end to the cruelty people have inflicted on others. Even our own country has not always done the right thing with methods of execution, fines, and jail conditions.

This is a picture of a Saddam era prison. Just ten years ago this was a place where you would expect to see people tortured for political information, or just as punishment.

I'm very proud to come from a country that doesn't light people on fire or drill through their kneecaps.


The Eighth Amendment should promise me and every American, that even if you break the law and are convicted, you will not be tortured and abused... but it not always done so.

Of course this scene is dramatized... I'll admit that, however there is one known case of someone's head catching fire during an execution. How did this (does this) get by the Eight's Amendment's cruel and unusual punishment clause. It is obviously cruel. If you were suffering on your death bead and wanted to be put out of your misery would you be headed for a bottle of cyanide or the power outlet? Electrocution is obviously more painful than hanging or firing squad, and I'm pretty sure the founding fathers would find the idea of it pretty unusual.

Maybe people just got too caught up on the new technology, hopefully we won't ever discover how to make micro black holes. Maybe if we did someone would conclude that ripping people apart with a black hole is a humane method of execution.

The Seventh Amendment - No Judicial Tryanny

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 re-examined in any Court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law.

This is another one of those amendments that isn't taken seriously at face value, but we wouldn't want to live in a world without it. Judges in courts are in effect agents of the government, but most of us don't' see them that way because they are not politicians. But if the judges and politicians ever banded together to hurt individuals, they could do a lot of damage. Whats the point of the previous amendments, if you took the government to court over financial losses and the judge just dismissed your case?

http://www.comedycentral.com/videos/index.jhtml?videoId=168611&title=asylum-sentence

I think this video kind of shows how easily someone could get ripped off by an aristocratic judge that doesn't care about the people. Thankfully the 7th amendment promises us we will be judged BY the people not only in criminal cases, but significant financial cases too.