Transcript Chapter 13 Section 1

Constitutional Rights
Key Terms
human rights, incorporation
Find Out
• How did the Supreme Court extend many rights
mentioned in the first 10 amendments to the
Constitution?
• Why is the Constitution of the United States
considered to be a living document?
Constitutional Rights
Understanding Concepts
Civic Participation What general assumptions
about its citizens does a democratic
government make?
Section Objective
Discuss constitutional rights and the importance of
the nationalization of the Bill of Rights.
The Fourteenth Amendment, which grants
citizenship and fundamental rights to African
Americans, was intended to protect the rights
of freed African Americans in the South. The
amendment was passed in June 1866, but
was not ratified by the states until July 1868.
The ratification process took so long because
many southern states were against equal
rights for African Americans. The federal
government encouraged ratification of the
Fourteenth Amendment by making it a
requirement for southern states that wanted to
be readmitted into the Union.
I. Constitutional Rights (pages 355–357)
A. The Constitution guarantees the basic rights
of United States citizens in the Bill of Rights.
B. Today, the Bill of Rights protects the rights of
individuals not only from actions of the
federal government but also from actions of
state and local governments.
C. The Bill of Rights was intended to protect
against the actions of the federal
government.
I. Constitutional Rights (pages 355–357)
D. A process called incorporation extended
the Bill of Rights to all levels of
government.
E. The Fourteenth Amendment, added in 1868,
paved the way for a major expansion of
individual rights by the due process clause,
which Supreme Court rulings have interpreted
as applying to all levels of government.
I. Constitutional Rights (pages 355–357)
F. The Supreme Court’s interpretation of the
Fourteenth Amendment nationalized the Bill
of Rights, thus giving citizens in every part of
the United States the same basic rights.
G. The incorporation of the Bill of Rights has
meant that, in practice, citizens who believe
state and local governments have denied
them their constitutional rights can take their
cases to federal courts, including the
Supreme Court.
I. Constitutional Rights (pages 355–357)
How was the Bill of Rights expanded so
that citizens in all parts of the United
States now enjoy the same basic rights?
By a process called incorporation.
Checking for Understanding
1. Main Idea Use a graphic organizer like the one
below to show the effects of incorporation on
the scope of the Bill of Rights.
Effect: The Bill of Rights grew to protect
citizens on the state as well as federal level.
Checking for Understanding
2. Define human rights, incorporation.
Human rights are fundamental freedoms.
Incorporation is a process that extended the
protections of the Bill of Rights against the
actions of state and local governments; the
process of setting up a legal community
under state law.
Checking for Understanding
3. Identify Bill of Rights, Fourteenth Amendment.
The Bill of Rights are the first ten amendments
of the Constitution that guarantee basic rights.
The Fourteenth Amendment defined
citizenship and laid the groundwork for making
individual rights national.
Checking for Understanding
4. Analyze the impact of the incorporation of the
Bill of Rights.
Incorporation extended the Bill of Rights to
protect citizens from all levels of government in
the United States.
Checking for Understanding
5. Cite the branch of government that has been
primarily responsible for the incorporation of the
Bill of Rights.
the judicial branch (the Supreme Court)
Critical Thinking
6. Making Inferences When it came time to
submit the new Constitution to the states for
ratification, why do you think state leaders
insisted on a national Bill of Rights?
They feared the potential power and abuses of
the national government.
Civic Participation Some people have
argued that all Americans should be
required to perform some type of
compulsory service. Write an editorial for a
newspaper either supporting or opposing
the idea of compulsory service.