| OCR Text |
Show The Bill of Rights, the Chief Bulwark I Of Americans' Liberties, Was Adopted By Congress 150 Years Ago This Month By RAYMOND PITCAIRN (Released by Western Newspaper Union.) IN CERTAIN lands across the sea: Men and women may be jailed, tortured, exiled or slain because of their form of worship . . . Families may be shorn of their homes, their livelihood, their liberty, and sometimes their lives, because of political politi-cal beliefs . . . Citizens may be seized and executed without knowledge of the charges against them, or opportunity to defend themselves . . . In such lands no newspaper is free to print the facts if government disapproves, no home is immune from midnight mid-night invasion by soldiers or police, no voice permitted to 'criticize the party or the politician poli-tician in power. But all that is across the seas. It doesn't occur here. And this, largely, is due to something which happened' just a century and a half ago this fall. It was the adoption by congress and the submission to the states of the first ten amendments to our federal Constitution now known collectively as the American Ameri-can Bill of Rights. And this year, on September 25, we celebrate throughout America the 150th anniversary of that notable no-table action by congress which established the rights, the liberties liber-ties and the dignity of the average aver-age man, and forbade the national nation-al legislature ever to enact any laws which violate them. For the Bill of Rights was not part of the original Constitution framed by the founders who met in Independence hall, Philadelphia, Philadel-phia, back in the summer of 1787. It was an addition, demanded by the states and the people as part of the essential fabric of our basic law. It was urged by Thomas Jefferson, as a set of "fetters against doing evil which no honr est government should decline"; it was offered in congress by James Madison, as an "effective provision against encroachment on particular rights"; it was approved ap-proved swiftly by Congress, and, later, by most of the states then in the Union, as a safeguard against any usurpation of authority author-ity by the new federal government. govern-ment. Its inclusion in the Constitution was a strong contributing factor to the adoption of the most famous fa-mous charter of free government on earth today. Model to Other Nations. Like the Constitution, the Bill of Rights has served as a model to nation after nation escaping from the prison-house of despotism despot-ism to the free air of liberty. Like the Constitution, it preserves pre-serves for posterity a true and graphic picture of the strength, the character and the innate personal per-sonal dignity of the type of man and citizen that created our nation. na-tion. The Constitution portrayed him as a man determined to hold the reins of government firmly in his own work-hardened and capable hands. The Bill of Rights portrayed him as a man who further insisted insist-ed upon: Freedom of religion, freedom of lawful speech, freedom of the press, freedom of peaceable assembly as-sembly . . . The right to be secure against ' unreasonable search and seizure, to be immune from despotic governmental gov-ernmental inquisition, to trial by jury in all civil as well as criminal crimi-nal cases . . . The firm guarantee that he should never be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law, and that he should be protected in all these and other oth-er rights, even against government govern-ment itself. Time and history have proved the strength of this shield of protection pro-tection forged by the founders to guard them and their descendants descend-ants from the sword of tyranny. Again and again, that shield has been raised by citizens, whether great or humble, against attempts to violate their rights. Acting on the authority of the Bill of Rights, the courts have frustrated frustrat-ed efforts to gag the press; to try prisoners twice for the same offense, of-fense, or without indictment by a grand jury, or without being confronted with witnesses; to confiscate con-fiscate private papers or property proper-ty without due process of law, and to ignore other safeguards. Today i(. becomes increasingly evident that the early patriots who established our freedom looked into the future, as well as at the past, when they insisted upon the guarantees of personal rights and immunities which constitute con-stitute the first ten amendments. f x . , - nv w'v sx;'! 5fJr3r, , DRAFTING THE CONSTITUTION One of the series, of historical his-torical panels in the capitol of the state of Nebraska. Designed by Lee Lowrie. Accustomed as we are today to this shield of protection, it is difficult dif-ficult to believe that efforts to include in-clude it in our fundamental law should ever have been opposed. Yet for a while such opposition existed, based principally on the idea that the body of the Constitution Constitu-tion as originally drafted provided provid-ed or implied the necessary safeguards. safe-guards. But so determined were the majority of the states and the people that essential human rights should be protected specifically and in detail that the amendments amend-ments were among the earliest measures brought , before the First United States congress. Both natural and inevitable was this wide-spread demand. In the veins of the American people still ran the blood of men who had forced on Old world despotism the Magna Charta, the English Bill of Rights, the Habeas Corpus Cor-pus act, and other guarantees of personal liberty. Their own colonial co-lonial history had contributed new 1 1' tfp c Yjp PATRICK HENRY chapters to the age-old struggle for freedom. The early New York Charter of Liberties, the Stamp Act congress, the First Continental congress, the Virginia Virgin-ia Bill of Rights and the famous Declaration of Independence all had voiced stirring protests against curtailment of individual liberties. In every community were men who had fought for those rights against the trained troops of Britain; Brit-ain; families that mourned the death of fathers, brothers and sons fallen on the ramparts of Freedom. A strong abhorrence of tyranny in any form, a deep passion for personal independence, independ-ence, burned fiercely in the national na-tional breast. All this was apparent long before be-fore . the first Federal congress met in 1789 and adopted the Bill of Rights. Many of its safeguards had been written into the early state constitutions. America's greatest orators and legislative leaders urged its inclusion in the national charter by voice and pen. James Madison pledged himself to fight for its passage. State convention after state convention, con-vention, meeting to consider adoption of the new Federal Constitution, Con-stitution, proposed its provisions as an accompaniment to ratification. ratifi-cation. States Submit Amendments. A number of the larger states had indeed written out the specific spe-cific amendments they wished to see enacted. From New York came 32; from Maryland, 28; from Virginia, 20; from Pennsylvania, Pennsyl-vania, 14; from New Hampshire, 12; from South Carolina, 4. These were apart from separate and complete Bills of Rights proposed pro-posed by Virginia and New York. The actual total of proposals was, of course, smaller than such a compilation suggests, since many had been duplicated in proposals from the different states. As could be expected, the most eloquent pleas for a Bill of Rights came from Patrick Henry, whose stirring cry, "Give me Liberty, or give me Death," had inspired the colonists in the dark days before the Revolution. Only, in fact, after Madison promised to introduce the necessary amendments amend-ments in the federal legislature could this New world Demosthenes Demosthe-nes be persuaded to consider ratification rat-ification of the Constitution. Patrick Henry's fiery demands were voiced at the Virginia con vention assembled to discuss the national charter. Identifying himself him-self as a sentinel of freedom, he warned the people: "You ought to be extremely cautious, watchful, jealous of your liberty; for, instead of securing your rights, you may lose them forever." "Show me," he cried later in the debate, "that age and country coun-try where the rights and liberties of the people were placed on the sole chance of their rulers being good men, without a consequent loss of liberty. I say that the loss of that dearest privilege has ever followed with absolute certainty, cer-tainty, every such mad attempt." But Madison's calm promise had its effect. Finally Patrick Henry agreed: "If you will, in the language of freemen, stipulate that there are rights which no man under heaven can take from you, you shall have me going along with you, and not otherwise." Proposed by Madison. Soon Madison seized the opportunity oppor-tunity to make good his pledge. On June 8, 1789, at the first session ses-sion of the First congress of the United States, he rose in the house of representatives and proposed pro-posed 21 Constitutional amendments amend-ments containing "those safeguards safe-guards which the people have been long accustomed to have interposed between them and the magistrate who exercises the sovereign sov-ereign power." Again there was some measure of resistance. Certain members opposed all amendments until the Constitution had been longer established es-tablished and the federal government govern-ment more fully organized; others oth-ers felt that even stronger safeguards safe-guards were essential. But these objections were overcome, and Madison's proposals referred to a committee composed of one member mem-ber from each state. Here they were reduced to 17 amendments and agreed to by the house. Then they went to the senate which compressed them into 12 separate sepa-rate amendments. And on that memorable twenty-fifth twenty-fifth of September, 1789, the Bill of Rights was passed by congress and submitted to the states and the people, to whose courage, spirit and aspirations it gave such eloquent expression. Within a little more than two years it was ratified in its present form by the required number of states. 'Again in the process it was shortened from 12 amendments amend-ments to 10. Two articles, relating relat-ing to the compensation and apportionment ap-portionment of congress, failed of approval, but were later enacted in statutory law. To assure ratification, the assent as-sent of 11 states was needed, since Vermont had recently joined the Union. Swiftly this Was given. New Jersey, Maryland and North Carolina all approved before the end of 1789. South Carolina, New Hampshire, Delaware, Dela-ware, Pennsylvania, New York and Rhode Island ratified in 1790. In 1791, Vermont and Virginia added their assent, and on December De-cember 15 of that year the Bill of Rights went formally into effect ef-fect as a part of our federal Constitution. Con-stitution. Since then every state in the Union has approved this shield of protection. It is interesting to note that within the past year three of the original Thirteen States Massachusetts, Georgia and Connecticut which had failed to ratify, have added their belated approval. The growth of dictatorships abroad and a revivified re-vivified appreciation of what the Bill of Rights means to America undoubtedly prompted their significantly sig-nificantly patriotic action. Today, as in the past, those 10 amendments carry their message of hope to the oppressed of all lands. Still they stand as the scourge and the negation of tyranny. tyr-anny. Still they assure the strength, the human dignity and the happiness inherent in free government. Out of the courage and the determination of the early ear-ly American people they were born. By those same qualities of the American people today they must be preserved. For they constitute con-stitute not only our Bill of Rights. They constitute the American Spirit. On March 4 of this year 150 years after congress assembled in New York city to consider the first 12 amendments to the Constitution Con-stitution Dr. A. S. W. Rosen-bach, Rosen-bach, noted collector of rare books and manuscripts, placed on display in Philadelphia the original origi-nal manuscript of the Bill of Rights which he had recently acquired ac-quired from a source which he declined to make public. This manuscript reads as follows: "CONGRESS OF THE . UNITED STATES begun and held at the City of New York, on Wednesday, the fourth of March, one thousand thou-sand seven hundred and eighty-nine. "THE Conventions of a number of the states having, at the time of their adopting the Constitution, expressed a desire, in order to prevent misconstruction or abuse of its powers, that further declaratory de-claratory and restrictive clauses should be added; And as extending extend-ing the ground of public confidence confi-dence in the Government will best insure the beneficient ends of its institutions, "RESOLVED, by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United' States of America in Congress assembled, two thirds of both Houses concurring, that the following Articles be proposed to the Legislatures of the several States, as Amendments to the I Constitution of the United States; all or any of which articles when ratified by three-fourths of the said Legislatures, to be valid to i all intents and purposes, as part of the said Constitution, viz:" Of the 12 articles which were listed after this statement, the first two concerned the number of members in the House of Representatives Repre-sentatives and the manner in which their salaries could be altered, al-tered, i These two articles were rejected reject-ed so that "Article the third," became the First Amendment, and so on down the list to "Article "Arti-cle the twelfth" which became the Tenth Amendment, these 10 constituting what the world had since known as the Bill of Rights, This Bill of Rights now reads as follows: AMENDMENT I Congress shall make no law respecting re-specting an establishment of religion, re-ligion, or prohibiting the free exercise ex-ercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble and to petition pe-tition the Government for a redress re-dress of grievances. AMENDMENT II A well-regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. AMENDMENT III No soldier shall, in time of peace, be quartered in any house without the consent of the owner, nor in time of war but in a manner man-ner to be prescribed by law. AMENDMENT IV The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable un-reasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants war-rants shall issue but upon probable proba-ble cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing de-scribing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized. AMENDMENT V No person shall be held to answer an-swer for. a capital or other infamous infa-mous crime unless on a presentment present-ment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the militia, when in actual service, in time of war or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal crimi-nal case to be witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use without just compensation. AMENDMENT VI In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously previous-ly ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted confront-ed with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, fa-vor, and to have the assistance of counsel for his defense. AMENDMENT VII In suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed ex-ceed 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 com-mon law. . AMENDMENT VIII Excessive bail shall not be required, re-quired, nor excessive fine3 imposed, im-posed, nor cruel and unusual punishments pun-ishments inflicted. AMENDMENT IX The enumeration in the Constitution Consti-tution of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage dispar-age others retained by the people. peo-ple. AMENDMENT X The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, Constitu-tion, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people. |
