Why Each Amendment Flashcards
Amendment 2
During the revolutionary war, people were able to protect themselves because of firearms
Amendment 3
Ppl quartered soldiers bc the British forced them to and we didn’t like that.
Amendment 4
British searched us and seized us without any limits in the past and we didn’t like that.
Amendment 5
Bc we don’t want to redo jail or attempt new jail time like them British would make ppl do
Amendment 6
protecting the rights of people against possible violations by the criminal justice system. We must have lawyers and help to not outright fail.
Amendment 7
With the Seventh Amendment, Madison addressed two Anti-Federalist concerns: that the document failed to require jury trials for civil (non-criminal) cases, and that it gave the Supreme Court the power to overturn the factual findings of juries in lower courts.
Amendment 8
No over the top things in jail.
Amendment 9
skeptics argued that by listing such fundamental rights in the Constitution, the framers would be implying that the rights they did not list did not exist. Madison sought to allay these fears with the Ninth Amendment. It ensures that even while certain rights are enumerated in the Constitution, people still retain other non-enumerated rights.
Amendment 10
originally aimed to reassure Anti-Federalists by further defining the balance of power between the national government and those of the individual states.
Amendment 11
was also the first to be framed in direct response to a Supreme Court verdict. In Chisholm v. Georgia (1793), the Court had ruled that the plaintiff, a resident of South Carolina, had the right to sue Georgia for repayment of debts incurred during the Revolutionary War
Amendment 12
Passed in the wake of the chaotic presidential election of 1800, in which Thomas Jefferson and his fellow Democratic-Republican Aaron Burr received the exact same number of votes in the Electoral College, the 12th Amendment provides the method for selecting president and vice president of the United States
Amendment 13
With the United States sectional tensions over slavery, few wanted to provoke a constitutional crisis by proposing a potentially divisive amendment. But after Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, support grew for a constitutional amendment to abolish slavery. Ratified after Lincoln’s assassination, the 13th Amendment finally put an end to the institution that had marred the country since 1619.
Amendment 14
Intended to give Congress the authority to protect the rights of Black citizens in the South, where white-dominated state governments enacted discriminatory “Black codes” immediately following the end of the Civil War. amendment passed during reconstruction and reversed the Supreme Court’s notorious decision in 1857’s Dred Scott v. Sandford by stating that anyone born in the United States is a citizen
Amendment 15
After Congress enfranchised Black male voters in the South by passing the Reconstruction Act of 1867, it sought to protect this right under the Constitution. As the last of the so-called Civil War amendments, all of which sought to ensure equality for African Americans
Amendment 16
Though Americans had paid income taxes in earlier eras (during the Civil War, for example), the Supreme Court ruled in 1894’s Pollock v. Farmer’s Loan and Trust that an income tax imposed by Congress was unconstitutional given Article I’s requirement that such “direct” taxes be apportioned among the states on the basis of population. The decision drew widespread outrage, and led to the passage of the first of four constitutional amendments that would be ratified during the Progressive era.