The Bill of Rights

Background information:

- based on an important debate in America concerning the political nature of the newly-         

founded nation

- a new nation was formed with a centralized government to coordinate national and

foreign policy

- 1787 state delegates drew up the Constitution, signed by 39 of the 55 delegates

- George Mason, the author of the Declaration of Rights of Virginia, who refused

to sign the Constitution, stressed the importance of a document protecting the

civil liberties and rights of the individual

- final draft of the Constitution, which was sent to the states for ratification, did not

include a Bill of Rights

- federalists managed to win over the advocates of a Bill of Rights by promising

to support their demands

Massachusetts made an addition of 10 amendments protecting individual liberty,

a condition of its ratification, and other states followed

- 1789, First Congress, the feeling in favour of adopting the amendments was such that

Congress set about drafting them

- 1791 official addiction to the Constitution, after most of the states had ratified them,

and they were given the name "Bill of Rights"

Content:

- is divided into 10 amendments:

1.) - the Congress is not allowed to enact laws, which prohibit the freedom of speech,

or of the press, or the right of the people to assemble peaceably..

2.) - right to keep and bear arms, necessary for the protection of the free state

3.) - the soldiers should never be quartered in people´s houses without the agreement

of the owner

4.) - consent of the owner, people´s property is unviolable

5.) - anyone has the right of a fair trial, no property should be removed without

compensation

6.) - in a trial the judge has to abide by the law, the trial should be in the district, where the

crime has happened, witnesses are needed

7.) - no trial should be re-examined in any other court of the United States

8.) - no cruel or unusual punishments for condemned men

9.) - the certain rights in the Constitution shall not be refused by the people

10.) - the powers are reserved to the state, or to the people

Sources:      

- Britain and America-Tradition and Change 1989 Cornelsen

- American Life and Institutions 1987 Klett-Verlag

- Declaration of Independence 1992 United States Information Agency