The Bill of Rights: Celebrating the Semiquincentennial, Part VI

We’re reaching the halfway point—and approaching the actual July 4^th birthday—in our celebration of the 250^th birthday of our nation. So far we’ve celebrated by walking through our founding documents: the Declaration of Independence, and the Preamble and first three Articles of the Constitution, covering the legislative, executive, and judicial branches.

If we were simply walking straight through, we’d get to Article IV on through VII of the Constitution. Maybe we’ll come back to these in more detail, but for now let’s just summarize those articles:

Article 4 covers interstate rules, and guarantees for citizens going state to state. There are four sections, including information about how new states may be admitted, and how the federal government guarantees protection to each of the states.

Article 5 offers ways to amend the Constitution: amendments can be proposed by either two-thirds of both Houses, or two-thirds of the state legislatures can propose an amendment. This option has been talked of more in the past few years; 20 states so far have voted to go ahead (including my state of Texas), out of a needed 34.

Article 6 talks about paying debts incurred by the national government, and that the federal government shall be the supreme law of the land.

Article 7 talks about ratification of the Constitution, and signatures from representatives of the states at the Constitutional Convention, where the document was written and revised.

Next come the Amendments. There are 27. The first 10 are what we call the Bill of Rights. And that’s the topic for today’s post. Even so, we might not cover all 10. I’m going to go through a little history and background and at least cover the First Amendment. And since there could be books and books written on the First Amendment, we’ll mostly just get to the first right in the First Amendment.

To read the full article, FOLLOW LINK TO SUBSTACK.

Just to Be Clear

I plan to make this short today. There’s something I want to spell out, as clearly as I can manage. I’ll say it slowly and carefully, so it doesn’t go over the heads of—someone like California Governor Newsom, who proposed a 28^th Amendment to the US Constitution yesterday, to nullify the 2^nd Amendment.

Governor Gavin Newsom, image found here

His announcement says they’re not really touching actual gun rights; they’re just—well, here’s what it says: 

While leaving the 2nd Amendment unchanged and respecting America’s gun-owning tradition, the Governor’s proposal guarantees common sense constitutional protections and gun safety measures that Democrats, Republicans, independent voters, and gun owners overwhelmingly support – including universal background checks, raising the firearm purchase age to 21, instituting a firearm purchase waiting period, and barring the civilian purchase of assault weapons.

The federal government is limited; they cannot do any federal gun laws. To refresh your memory on the 2^nd Amendment, it says, “the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”

Shall is a legal term. It is absolute. Infringing on the right to keep and bear arms is something the federal government cannot do.

There’s this other little clue, near the end of Newsom’s paragraph, telling us they’re not serious about protecting our rights: “barring the civilian purchase of assault weapons.” How are they defining that? Because we know from long experience that “assault weapon” is not an actual category; it is a catchall for “any gun we think is scary looking enough that we can convince people to think it’s an automatic military-grade weapon,” even when it’s just a simple rifle, such as an AR-15, which is a brand name, meaning Armalite Rifle. It is not an automatic rifle, which has been illegal for decades; it is a fairly basic semi-automatic rifle. It was not developed for the military, although some versions have been adopted by the military, because of its light weight and ease of use.

an AR-15 rifle
image from here

If a threatening bad guy has a gun, the threat can best be stopped by a good guy with a gun—and most efficiently by the person being threatened, because it’s immediate, instead of after damage is done. Government doesn’t get to set the terms, or decide on the tools, or determine the safe and lawful use of those tools.

There is plenty more we could say about weapons, and the anti-gun crowd’s harangues against all guns held by law-abiding citizens. But we’re keeping this simple, for their sakes, and in slightly larger print.

The right to self-defense isn’t granted by government; the right belonged to the people before any US government was formed. The right to defend oneself is inherent in all human beings.

We have the right to self-defense, as human beings, because we got that right from God. Even if you don’t believe in God, you don’t stop having the right to self-defense. It’s inalienable.

We don’t get the right to self-defense from the Constitution; the Constitution declares the right, to make sure no tyrannical government oversteps its lawful limits and attempts to infringe on that right. That’s true of all the rights in the Bill of Rights—the first 10 Amendments. And it’s true of other rights not stated (as summarized in the 9^th and 10th Amendments). These other rights include, for example, the right to the care and upbringing of our children, or the right to choose how we attempt to make a living, or the right to make medical decisions for our own bodies. Government doesn’t get to dictate our choices, unless our choices directly prevent another person from experiencing their God-given rights.

There. Just three paragraphs. If read slowly enough, that should be clear now.

We need a reminder, then, as John Adams put it:

“Our Constitution was made only for a religious and moral people. It is wholly inadequate for the government of any other."

There’s a paragraph on the Spherical Model website, where I say why we need a belief in God:

Why Every Civilized Society Must Be a Religious Society

If rights are God-given to every human being, then there must be a God from whom they come. Without God granting the rights, then “rights” would be totally dependent on whoever or whatever entity currently wields power over human beings. So, freedom from tyranny is only possible if we acknowledge God as the right-giver, and then we set up governmental systems for the specific purpose of protecting those rights—limiting governmental power to protecting rights rather than taking or granting them.

I was reminded of this in a recent interview with Robert P. George, in which he says, 

Robert P. George
image from here

But we are a country founded on the principle of ethical monotheism, the idea that there is a more-than-merely-human source of meaning and value—a Creator, a God who cares about us, who endows us with rights, and to whom we are ultimately answerable for how we conduct ourselves. So it’s not a merely human source of rights and obligations. It’s a divine source. And since our basic rights did not come from presidents or kings or parliaments or congresses, or any merely human power, those rights can’t be taken away legitimately by any merely human power.

So faith in God plays a very important role in the American constitutional order, a very important role, historically, in our self-understanding as Americans. And when faith in God, trust in God, and fidelity to God begin to wane, there are real social and political consequences. Our sense of our responsibilities begins to weaken, including our responsibility to honor and protect and never violate the rights of others.

Our “rights can’t be taken away legitimately by any merely human power.” That does not prevent tyrants and would-be dictators from attempting to take them away. Such despots lie, cheat, and steal—and sometimes harass and prosecute—to override any protections we have from what they see as that pesky piece of parchment people keep bringing out, that old Constitution we revere for some reason. They’ve been attempting this override with impunity. And they only get stopped when enough of us, referred to as We the People, take a stand and say, “No! You can’t do that.”

So, to be crystal clear—No, you can’t create a 28^th Amendment that allows you to take away a God-given right, one that is spelled out in bright letters in the Constitution by prescient writers who foresaw people like you who would try to do this very thing. No. You can’t tyrannize us without our consent. And, like our forefathers, we do not consent to tyranny.

Divinely Inspired Constitutional Principles

Of the 195 countries in the world today (depending on how you count), all but three have a written constitution. All of these derive from the existence of the Constitution of the United States of America, which is the oldest, most longstanding of them all. Many states, as in the United States, in Mexico, and other places, may also have their own written constitutions. Texas does.

In our worldwide conference yesterday, President Dallin H. Oaks,[i] of the First Presidency of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, talked with us about the US Constitution and the divinely inspired principles of freedom it embodies. Why was that brought up in a worldwide religious meeting?

President Dallin H. Oaks, of the First Presidency of 
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints,
speaking at Sunday afternoon's General Worldwide Conference
screenshot from here

 

As Pres. Oaks said,

The United States Constitution is the oldest written constitution still in force today. Though originally adopted by only a small number of colonies, it soon became a model worldwide.

And,

The United States Constitution is unique, because God revealed that He established it for the rights and protection of all flesh.

We believe our US Constitution was divinely inspired at a time and place that made the restoration of the gospel—the founding of our Church—possible, just three decades after it was written. But it’s not just for Church members; it’s for the benefit of all mankind.

US Constitution
image from Wikipedia

While there were other places and people in the world that spoke about human rights and equality—as opposed to a stratified society, which was the norm and had been historically—the United States Constitution was the first to put that into law. There was no place else in the world at that time that would have been receptive to Christ’s restored religion in which God is no respecter of persons but invites all to come unto Christ.

Pres. Oaks has the qualifications to speak on the matter:

·         He clerked for the Chief Justice of the United States.

·         He taught law for 15 years.

·         He served on the Utah Supreme Court for 3 years.

·         He has served as an apostle for our Church for 37 years.

I could add that he also happened to be the President of my alma mater, Brigham Young University; his term ended at my graduation. That doesn’t have anything to do with his expertise on the Constitution and how it relates to the Church, but it adds to my respect for him.

He speaks clearly and lays out his points logically. Always. And yet, he tends to stir up the occasional hornets’ nest when he speaks. Maybe because he’s willing to state things at odds with current culture or political correctness.

I suppose in today’s climate, you’re not supposed to say that something one country has is better than what other countries have. But if it weren’t true, we wouldn’t have a border problem. So let’s just admit that there’s something good here in America. And whatever good we have probably stems from the freedom and prosperity we have directly resulting from our Constitution.

Freedom relates to agency—our ability to choose, and therefore to be accountable for, our actions. He said,

The most desirable condition for the exercise of that agency is maximum freedom for men and women to act according to their individual choices. Then… every man may be accountable for his own sins in the day of judgment. Therefore, the Lord revealed, it is not right that any man should be in bondage one to another. This obviously means that human slavery is wrong. And, according to the same principle, it is wrong for citizens to have no voice in the selection of their rulers or the making of their laws.

So individual freedom is the overriding principle. But he further distills what makes the US Constitution such a good pattern for the world into these five principles (but not necessarily limited to only these):

1.       The source of government power is the people.

He adds that,

Sovereign power in the people does not mean that mobs or other groups of people can intervene or intimidate to force government action. The Constitution established a constitutional democratic republic, where the people exercise their power through their elected representatives.

2.       A division of power in which only limited, enumerated powers are granted to the central government, and all other rights are reserved “to the states respectively or to the people.”

3.       The separation of powers among independent executive, legislative and judicial powers. More than a century earlier “the English Parliament pioneered the separation of legislative and executive authority when they wrested certain powers from the king.” But it was an inspired innovation to have all three branches co-equal, so they “could exercise checks upon one another.”

4.       The Bill of Rights, guaranteeing individual rights as well as limits on government authority.

These are not new, as he points out:

Here the inspiration was in the practical implementation of principles pioneered in England, beginning with the Magna Carta. The writers of the Constitution were familiar with these, because some of the colonial charters had such guarantees.

5.       The rule of law, as opposed to ruler’s law.      

He says,

We are to be governed by law, and not by individuals. And our loyalty is to the Constitution and its principles and processes, not to any officeholder.

Here in Texas our state constitution was patterned after the US Constitution, so I thought I’d take a look and see if it held these five principles.

The opening of the Texas Constitution, handwritten 1876
image from Wikipedia

Bill of Rights, check. Instead of amendments, Article I is the Bill of Rights. It starts with Freedom and Sovereignty of the State, saying this:

Texas is a free and independent State, subject only to the Constitution of the United States, and the maintenance of our free institutions and the perpetuity of the Union depend upon the preservation of the right of local self-government, unimpaired to all the States.

This is the basis of the contract between Texas and the United States of America.

Going on, it covers being a republican form of government—representing the voice of the people. That’s the first principle of Pres. Oaks’ list, so check that. Then comes equal rights for all—no special privileges for any. Then comes equality under the law, saying it this way:

Equality under the law shall not be denied or abridged because of sex, race, color, creed, or national origin. 

There are several in a row related to freedom of religion: no religious tests to qualify for office or public trust, provided that a person acknowledges “the existence of a Supreme Being.” Without a Supreme Being, there are no God-given rights to preserve; that would be a problem. Then witnesses cannot be disqualified based on religious belief nor lack thereof; “but all oaths or affirmations shall be administered in the mode most binding upon the conscience, and shall be taken subject to the pains and penalties of perjury.” Next is freedom of worship—and this is longer and more detailed than the First Amendment in the US Constitution. It says,

All men have a natural and indefeasible right to worship Almighty God according to the dictates of their own consciences. No man shall be compelled to attend, erect or support any place of worship, or to maintain any ministry against his consent. No human authority ought, in any case whatever, to control or interfere with the rights of conscience in matters of religion, and no preference shall ever be given by law to any religious society or mode of worship. But it shall be the duty of the Legislature to pass such laws as may be necessary to protect equally every religious denomination in the peaceable enjoyment of its own mode of public worship.

There’s one more related to religion: no appropriations can go to sectarian purposes—that is, to the benefit of a particular religious sect. No financial religious favoritism.

Next comes freedom of speech and press. Then no illegal searches or seizures. Then rights of the accused, which look similar to in the US. Listed separately are rights of bail, and denial of bail after multiple felonies, which is somewhat long and detailed, with a couple of sub-sections.

Then is the writ of habeas corpus, which shall never be suspended. And that is followed by an inclusive one with no excessive bail or fines; no cruel or unusual punishment; courts must be open; and there must be a remedy by due course of law. Then comes no double jeopardy, and the right to trial by jury.

Things are getting detailed. I’ll add that there are specific limits to imminent domain, including a definition of “public use” to prevent taking property for economic development purposes—which was an amendment in 2009.

There is no deprivation of life, liberty, or property except by due course of the law. There are a couple of others related to law and life. And then a definition of treason against the state:

Treason against the State shall consist only in levying war against it, or adhering to its enemies, giving them aid and comfort; and no person shall be convicted of treason except on the testimony of two witnesses to the same overt act, or on confession in open court.

We can’t leave out the right to keep and bear arms. Then military is subordinate to civil authority, and there’s no quartering of soldiers in houses.

Let me add this one, added in 2005: “Marriage in this state shall consist only of the union of one man and one woman.” And “This state or a political subdivision of this state may not create or recognize any legal status identical or similar to marriage.” The US Supreme Court is currently at odds with the Texas Constitution.

President Oaks, by the way, mentions this, saying:

Despite the divinely inspired principles of the United States Constitution, when exercised by imperfect mortals, their intended effects have not always been achieved. Important subjects of lawmaking, such as some laws governing family relationships, have been taken from the states by the federal government.

He also mentions other infringements such as "The First Amendment guarantee of free speech has sometimes been diluted by suppression of unpopular speech," and some messiness concerning the separation of powers. People definitely make divine inspiration go awry when they don't follow it. 

Nevertheless, these principles, Pres. Oaks says, make it so all individuals are equal before the law. That is the goal. Unfortunately, that is not always the outcome.

The Texas Constitution has a total of 34 rights in that Article I, all coming ahead of the code of laws.

So are all five principles covered in Texas? Yes. We have rule by the people. We have rights of state government that have not been granted to the federal government. We have the separation of powers: executive, two-chamber legislative, and judicial (divided into civil and criminal state supreme courts). We have the Bill of Rights, which we’ve detailed. And we abide by the rule of law, rather than ruler’s law.

Hurray for Texas!

So what do we do about this love of the principles of the Constitution?

We use the moral agency God has given us to make the best decisions we can and use our influence for good. Pres. Oaks suggests some things good citizens can do:

In the United States and in other democracies, political influence is exercised by running for office—which we encourage—by voting, by financial support, by membership and service in political parties, and by ongoing communications to officials, parties, and candidates.

It’s a fine line, and he’ll be getting flack just for trying to carefully walk it. But he suggests both being politically involved and not criticizing others in how they are politically involved, or in the choices they make. As he says,

There are many political issues. And no party, platform, or individual candidate can satisfy all personal preferences. Each citizen must therefore decide which issues are most important to him or her at any particular time. Then, members should seek inspiration on how to exercise their influence according to their individual priorities.

You don’t know the thought processes another person has gone through, or what their particular priorities are—or even what they may or may not be aware of. So you shouldn’t decide someone is an unworthy church member simply because their political opinions may differ from your own. In a church where the membership heavily leans conservative, I guess that needed to be said.

Often when I hear Pres. Oaks speak, I am wondering which people is he speaking to concerning a particular point. In October 2020 he reminded us that our process is to accept the result of an election, and if disappointed work toward the next election. This was before the election was stolen, but I still took it to heart, since I saw election fraud as likely because of all the mail-in votes and other challenges to basic election integrity. But I couldn’t picture Latter-day Saints going out and protesting. This time he said,

Being subject to presidents or rulers of course poses no obstacle to our opposing individual laws or policies. It does require that we exercise our influence civilly and peacefully, within the framework of our constitutions and applicable laws. On contested issues we should seek to moderate and unify.

I of course agree. But did we members of our Church really need reminding that we influence only civilly and peacefully, within the law? That seems like a given. Or maybe I’m unaware of some rabble-rousing Latter-day Saints somewhere?

I was heartened to hear him say, “We should trust in the Lord and be positive about this nation’s future.” I do trust in the Lord. But I haven’t lately been positive about this nation’s future. He says we should all of us, around the world, pray for our leaders. I do that.

It may be that, while I love the US Constitution, as Pres. Oaks clearly does, he knows more about the future than I do. In my assessment, we are at a stage where we could call what we have the Democratic-Socialist Tyranny of America (that appears to be the intention of those currently in power and trying to make their power permanent), as opposed to the Constitutional Republic of the United States of America.

If I continue to support Texit, it will be with an eye toward influencing, where I can, to live where we have the divinely inspired principles of the US Constitution. I want that for my beloved United States as well the nation-state I’m living in. But if I can't get it in both, I'll aim for where I live.

In Daniel Miller’s book on Texit, which I’ve been reading this past week, he points out that other places that have separated, such as Scotland from Great Britain and Catalonia from Spain, when you ask a person where they’re from they don’t say the larger unit they’re affiliated with; they say their home place. But here in Texas—well, we sometimes do say Texas before America, as people in probably no other state would do, but we still pledge allegiance to the US flag just before turning toward the state flag and pledging allegiance to Texas (pp. 174-177). The two didn’t used to seem incompatible. They certainly aren’t incompatible when considering the actual US Constitution. But that’s not really what we’ve been dealing with for quite a while.

So I’m considering President Oaks’ words. I am loving an honoring the US Constitution—and our equally principled Texas Constitution. And I’ll watch and hope for America’s positive future, while also pursuing freedom, prosperity, and civilization where I think I have influence to do so.

_____________

[i] As of today, this link of the full session was available, but later this week each speech should be available separately, along with the transcript, including footnotes.

What Are the Inalienable God-given Rights?

With the kids home from school, maybe this is a good time for a civics lesson—one they probably wouldn’t be getting (but should) if they were in class. Feel free to share this with them. They might understand more than you’d expect.

Why do we refer to God-given rights, as our founders did, as opposed to government-given rights?

If God is the source of a right, then that is final; no earthly power can take away that right. If it’s not innate, given to us by God simply for being born, then it is given by someone earthly who can take it away. If it’s from god, it’s permanent.

Human history tells us, however, that there are plenty of earthly powers that fail to respect those God-given rights, pretend they don’t even exist, and trample over them—trample over the people to whom those rights belong.

That doesn’t stop those rights from existing; it just means those earthly powers are tyrants—whether governments or criminals.

Governments are established to protect the people’s God-given rights. But government, like fire, tends to spread and burn things it wasn’t intended to burn.

That means we, the people, need to be constantly vigilant, to prevent the spread of government beyond its protective purpose.

America’s founders set up our government carefully. They had certain expectations based on centuries of English Common Law. And, because of the distance between the original colonies and Great Britain, they got used to a lot of self-government. That made it easy for them to recognize government overreach, and they pushed back against it.

If you read the list of abuses of power in the Declaration of Independence, you can see many of the things they recognized as tyranny, which were antithetical to a free people. I went through the list of abuses of power in the Declaration, as a thought exercise this week, to identify the right(s) each complaint dealt with. I didn’t always know how to categorize the complaint, but it was enlightening to find multiple complaints related to the same rights. It shows us what they didn’t like, what they saw as tyranny.

So, what are the rights that they showed were being trampled?

One was that they had a right to the rule of law, rather than ruler’s law. Ruler’s law is whatever the ruler says it is, making it capricious, unfair, and tyrannical. The right to the rule of law is what they’d come to expect for half a millennium, since the Magna Carta. They weren’t inventing something new and then complaining that their monarch wasn’t going along; their monarch was bound by the law—so he was clearly violating that law when he ruled by fiat.

The right to self-rule was another big one. The law the people were subject to ought to be something they agreed to; they have a right to representation, to have a voice in what becomes law. They wanted things to be local, to respond to their actual needs. And they wanted a say in what that law was. They rejected having law imposed on them from high up and far away.

They had the right to equal protection before the law—unlike past tyrannies that favored some classes over others, regardless of behavior. They also mention that justice should be swift, and local—instead of forcing them to travel far from home. And records should be available locally—they had a right to government information, the right to transparency of government.

They had the right to property, and to what is often called the “bundle of sticks” that comprise property rights:  

image from here

·         Right to determine how your property is used—right to control and use property.

·         Right to benefit from the use of your property (as you’d benefit from using the milk from a cow you own).

·         Right to transfer your property to another—by selling or giving.

·         Right to destroy/dispose of your property.

·         Right to exclude others from using, benefiting from, or destroying your property.

image from here

Let’s add to these the Bill of Rights—which are not rights given to us in our Constitution, but our Constitution protects us from having government abridge these rights. All of them come under the broader categories of the rights of life, liberty, and property.

These are five in the First Amendment.

·         Freedom of religion—government can neither establish a state-favored religion nor prohibit from freely exercising their religion.

·         Freedom of speech—government cannot get in the way of people freely speaking their opinions, beliefs, facts that they know.

·         Freedom of the press—government cannot prevent the printing of news and media, sometimes extended to freedom of expression.

·         Freedom of assembly—government cannot prevent people from peaceably assembling, or gathering together with whomever they choose.

·         Right of redress of grievances—government is subject to being petitioned, or sued, when citizens perceive that government has harmed them.

The Second Amendment is the right to self-protection. Here’s a basic difference between a free society and subjects to a ruler. Free people have the right to protect themselves from attack—even using weapons, even causing death in cases in which their life or the life of another is threatened. A subject to a ruler who has abridged this right is dependent on the benevolence of the ruler to provide protection of not. And the ruler might abridge this right particularly to prevent an uprising among the subjects. The founders wanted to make sure that right to self-protection would not be abridged.

The Third Amendment may seem foreign to us today. But in the founders’ time—and this is mentioned in the Declaration—is freedom from having a standing army living among us, including quartered in our homes. Think of it as being drafted into donating your housing space to a military, and in their case a military that was set up not to protect them, but to protect the faraway government’s interests from the people.

The Fourth through Eighth Amendments relate to judicial fairness issues.

The Fourth Amendment is the right to be secure—our persons, houses, papers, and effects—from unreasonable searches and seizures. You yourself, and what you own, are not the government’s possessions for the taking. There has to be a lawful reason for depriving a person of these natural rights.

The Fifth Amendment relates to judicial fairness. It prevents a person from being forced to testify against himself in capital or otherwise serious crime. Also, it prevents a person from being put in jeopardy more than once—a second trial after being found not guilty. It prevents a corrupt government from preventing a person from going about his life by continually putting him in court over the same issue.

 The Sixth Amendment is also about judicial fairness: the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury in a local jurisdiction. Also, the accused must be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation, to be able to face witness against him, to have a process compelling witnesses in his favor, and to have defense counsel.

The Seventh Amendment is the right to a trial by jury in controversies over a certain minimal amount, and the jury’s decision shall not be overthrown. Also, the rules of common law must be followed.

The Eighth Amendment prevents excessive bail from being required, excessive fines from being imposed, and no cruel and unusual punishments afflicted.

The Ninth and Tenth Amendments are the miscellaneous everything else.

The Ninth Amendment makes it clear that mention of rights in the Constitution does not mean those are all the rights there are. Other rights cannot be denied. The people retain those.

The Tenth Amendment make it clear that any duty not delegated in the Constitution to the United States are duties and rights still held by the States and the people.

The rights that are included in the Bill of Rights reveal ways the founders had experienced tyrants trying to take their rights away, so they thought they needed to be spelled out most clearly—even though they were self-evident and inalienable.

But those last two show they understood that there are more rights, none of which can be taken from individuals except as the just punishment for a crime.

One of those not mentioned is parental rights: to see to the care and upbringing of their children. Another might be making your own healthcare choices.

But, in short, how do you know it’s a God-given inalienable right? It has to be something you’re born with. You deserve it because you’re human. Beyond parents obliged to caring for their child, it must be something others don’t have to be put into servitude to provide for you.

Constitution Quiz

image from here

A couple of days ago, September 17, we marked 232 years since we got our US Constitution.

In honor of that, I thought we might do a pop quiz. This is open book. You can use your pocket Constitution, or a printed copy, or an online copy. The answers will follow, below.

Some of the questions are about the history and intent and surrounding information, but much of it will come from the Constitution itself. For questions that ask “where in the Constitution” do you find something, you can answer with Article and Section numbers, or Amendment numbers.

Constitution Quiz

1.     What year was the Declaration of Independence signed?

2.     What year was the US Constitution signed?

3.     What was the purpose of the Declaration of Independence?

4.     What was the purpose of the US Constitution?

5.     What are the three branches of government?

6.     What does bicameral mean, and what does it refer to in our government?

7.     What chamber represents the people by population—that is, a representative for a set number of people?

8.     How many Senators are in the Senate, how were they originally chosen, and how are they chosen now because of which Amendment?

"The Connecticut Compromise,"
by Bradley Stevens, 2006

9.     During the original Constitutional Convention, what is referred to as the Great Compromise, or the Connecticut Compromise?

10.  Does the Constitution grant legislative powers to the executive or judicial branches? Based on your answer, how do you explain the Environmental Protection Agency or Roe v. Wade?

11.   What are the eligibility requirements for being President of the United States; give article and section number for your answer.

12.  Does the President have the power to create the budget? Explain.

13.  What number of justices for the Supreme Court is designated in the Constitution?

14.  What is the Bill of Rights and where is it found?

15.  Where does the phrase “separation of Church and State” appear in the Constitution, and what does that mean?

16.  Where does the Constitution say, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof”? And what does this mean?

17.  What is the purpose of the right to keep and bear Arms?

18.  Explain the compromise surrounding counting slaves as three-fifths of a person, and where is this found? What was it changed to, and where is that found?

19.  What is the Electoral College? What is its purpose? Where is it described in the Constitution?

20.  Where do you find the enumerated powers? For each of the following, indicate whether it is an enumerated power or not:[i]

a.     Lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises.

b.     Govern education.

c.     Fix the standard of weights and measures.

d.     Offer charitable services (welfare).

e.     Raise and support armies and navy.

f.      Require purchase of a service or product (such as health insurance).

g.     Establish post offices and post roads (mail system).

h.     Target industries in accordance with a social agenda (gun manufacturing, automobile manufacturing, nuclear energy, oil and gas, fast food or sugary drinks).

i.       Lay and collect taxes on income.

j.       Favor or disfavor individuals or groups for hiring, educational opportunities, or other purposes based on their race or religion.

There’s plenty more to ask, but if you know—or can learn—the answers to these questions, you might know enough to be a good citizen and an educated voter. And we can always use more of those.

May our Constitution outlast all those enemies within and without who misunderstand, misconstrue, and even purposely thwart her sacred purposes.

Answers

1.     1776

2.     1787

3.     To declare independence from Great Britain.

4.     To form a “more perfect government,” and we could add, as the Preamble does, “establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty” to those founders and their posterity.

5.     The legislative branch, the judicial branch, and the executive branch.

6.     It means two chambers. It refers to the two chambers of our legislature: the House of Representatives, and the Senate.

7.     The House of Representatives, which are apportioned following the census every decade. Since 1910 the number of representatives has been capped at 435, which means that the number represented per Congressman continues to grow. Each state has at least one representative, no matter how low the population. There are also additional non-voting representatives from Washington, DC and several other American territories.[ii] A new representative is apportioned for an average of approximately 700,000 people. [iii]

8.     Two Senators per state, regardless of population size of the state. Originally, they were chose by the respective state legislatures. That changed to popular statewide vote with the Seventeenth Amendment in 1913.

9.     There were those who believed in representation strictly by population—meaning big states would get much more representation than little states. The little states wanted to emphasize their state sovereignty by having representation by state, regardless of size. These smaller states had no incentive to belong to a union that disregarded them. So there had to be a compromise. The bicameral legislature was born out of this dilemma. The upper chamber was the Senate, with equal representation for each state regardless of population; the lower chamber was the House of Representatives, with representation based on population size. So population matters, but state sovereignty also matters.

10.  Legislative powers, or law-making powers, are solely granted to the legislative branch. The EPA is an arm of the executive branch, with regulatory powers, nominally granted by the legislature, but not constitutionally so. Roe v. Wade is often referred to as the “law of the land,” but the judicial branch does not have law-making powers. Hmm.

11.  The president must be a natural born Citizen (not a naturalized citizen), at least 35 years of age, and residing within the United States for fourteen years. This is found in Article II, section 1, the fifth paragraph. About the fourteen years: It was not uncommon for people to spend extended time overseas for various reasons, as Thomas Jefferson was doing during the Constitutional Convention, for example. John Adams and Benjamin Franklin also spent years doing diplomatic duties in Europe. This is saying a person can’t spend a whole life abroad and then show up to try to lead America. They were trying to make certain that the President would always have total loyalty to our country.

   

12.  No. Budgets originate in the House and are then passed by the Senate, and finally signed by the President. (See Article 1, Section 7.) The President can, however, outline a budget that would meet his priorities, which the legislature can use or discard as it sees fit. Since 2006, when Democrats regained the majority in the House, budgets have mainly been a series of continuing resolutions, which means something like, “We’ll just keep the same budget priorities as the past budget, with perhaps a percentage increase.” Even during the few years the Republicans regained the majority, threats of stonewalling until there were government shutdowns allowed continuing resolutions to become a habit.

13.  No number is given. Nine is the traditional and current number. There was a time that FDR threatened to “pack the court,” to add as many judges as he wanted to attain his desired political outcomes. The court at that time resisted for a while, but then gave in to his demands rather than subject the court to overt, permanent political partisanship.

14.  The Bill of Rights make up the first Ten Amendments. They weren’t originally included, because they were understood as obvious to the people at the founding. But then some worried that, if they weren’t included, a later people might not recognize these rights. The government does not grant these rights. Rather, government is strictly limited so that it does not infringe on these God-given rights. There are other God-given, or “natural” rights, such as parents’ rights to the care and upbringing of their children. In fact, the Ninth and Tenth Amendments make it clear that government only has those rights enumerated in the Constitution; all other rights are “reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”

15.  Trick question: it does not appear anywhere in the Constitution. It appears in a letter from Thomas Jefferson to the Danbury Baptists, assuring them that no preferential treatment would be given to any other religious sect, thus negatively affecting them. Jefferson meant that government would do nothing to interfere with the various churches; churches were safe from government intrusion. It does not mean that any appearance of sympathy toward religion or religious people is prohibited. Nor is this phrase a part of US law. In fact, at the time of the founding, several states had state religions, which was not prohibited by the Constitution.

16.  This is the beginning of Amendment I to the Constitution. These two parts mean, first, that there will not be a state-endorsed religious sect—as was found in Britain and many European countries (and elsewhere) that the people in America had come from. Second, the federal government is to make no law that interferes, stops, hinders, prevents, or otherwise prohibits the free exercise of religion for people in the United States.

17.  In short, self-defense. You could add that, as the founders spelled out in the Declaration of Independence, a people needs to be able to defend against a tyrannical government.

18.  Article I, Section 2, third paragraph talks about counting population for purposes of representatives and taxes. The states with slaves wanted to count all their slaves as persons for representation, but not allow them to vote. The non-slave states worried that granting this advantage to the slave states would make it impossible to ever eliminate slavery. So they came up with this compromise—not to demean the worth of slaves, but to make it possible to eventually end slavery. Passed in 1868, the Fourteenth Amendment, section 2, eliminates the three-fifths phrase referring to slaves, because slavery had been eliminated through the Civil War and the Emancipation Proclamation. Two years later, in 1870, the Fifteenth Amendment was passed, guaranteeing all citizens the right to vote, “regardless of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.”

19.  The Electoral College is the way in which we elect the President. It allows for the people in their respective states to elect persons who will cast their votes according to the choice of the people in the state. A state’s number of electors equals the number of their Representatives plus their two Senators. The Electoral College procedures are described in Article II, Section 1.

20.  The powers are enumerated mainly in Article I, Section 8, with some additional enumerations added in Amendments 15, 16, 24, and 26.

a.       Yes

b.       No

c.       Yes

d.       No

e.       Yes

f.        No

g.       Yes

h.       No

i.     Yes

j.       No

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[i] I give some help on these answers in a previous post, “The Enumerated Powers.” 

[ii] https://history.house.gov/Institution/Apportionment/Determining-Apportionment/

[iii] Here’s how to do the math: https://www.census.gov/topics/public-sector/congressional-apportionment/about/computing.html