Talk:United States Bill of Rights

Chicago, IL,

3rd Amendment doesn't protect against quartering of troops, it protects PRIVACY. Freedom from government snooping. To say it protects from "quartering of troops" is to take it so literally it is useless. The founders didn't foresee electronics, video cameras, FLIR, or other modern bugging and surveillance devices. The political goal, however, remains the same: to close off the area of private existence from the eyes of the otherwise totalitarian state. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.47.225.140 (talk) 08:42, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

What it explicitly prevents is the quartering of troops. jorgenev 15:07, 22 August 2011 (UTC)

Georgia, Mass., Conn.

Section 2.4 states that these states ratified the bill of rights in 1792. Section 3.2 says they did so in 1939.

Footnote 1 of http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/data/constitution/amendments.html does not list the 1792 dates. I believe they should be omitted until further documentation/explanation of those dates is forthcoming. C. Scott Ananian (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 13:59, 12 April 2011 (UTC).

Unclear meaning in 'Early sentiments favoring...'

The last sentence of the last paragraph of 'Early sentiments favoring expanding the Bill of Rights' refers to the votes counted on a motion - it is unclear what motion is being referenced here. 71.241.196.71 (talk)

Extraneous link

Please remove the link to the FMK 9C1, an entirely unrelated link put on the page by the creator of that article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.100.6.20 (talk) 02:29, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

 Done--JayJasper (talk) 03:28, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

Freedom of Religion

The freedom of religious practice and expression is conspicuously absent from the discussion on this page. Despite it being the first freedom recognized by the First Amendment, it receives no mention in the introduction explaining what the Bill of Rights is all about-- and is only mentioned in the text of the Amendment itself, and in passing, in the discussion of the Virginia Declaration of Rights.

This right is arguably the foundation upon which the Constitution and Bill of Rights was built, and its absence here is difficult to understand, at best. Therefore I'm going to edit the article to include it.R0nin Two (talk) 15:33, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

Edit request from 208.47.128.148, 7 April 2011

i would like to add the Aendments

208.47.128.148 (talk) 17:14, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

The full texts of the amendments are already given in the article. - BilCat (talk) 17:48, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

Article selected as United States Wikipedians' Collaboration of the Month for June 2011

United States Bill of Rights (4 votes, stays until 31 May 2011)

Nominated 16:12, 30 March 2011 (UTC); needs 3 votes by 30 April 2011 (minimum 3 votes per month)

Support:

1. Kumioko (talk) 16:12, 30 March 2011 (UTC)
2. JayJasper (talk) 18:07, 1 April 2011 (UTC)
3. Renimar (talk) 23:26, 25 April 2011 (UTC)
4. Mabeenot (talk) 20:08, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

Comments:

• I think this article is an extremely important topic in American history, it has a very high hit count according to the popular pages listing and it needs a lot of help. It says its a B class but I think that is generous given the state of the article and I think it needs work to even get to B class again. Kumioko (talk) 16:12, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

• Per Kumioko, vitally important article with obvious historical significance, in need of cleanup. One concern is the number of statements lacking sources or at least inline citations. This may cast doubts for readers of the article as to the reliability and accuracy of the content.--JayJasper (talk) 18:38, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

• With Wikipedia a convenient and well-known resource for "first stop" information shopping, articles on topics that are both well-known and complex deserve the very best Wikipedia has to offer. The Bill of Rights is frequently invoked in today's political environment. Journalists, students, voters -- they all should be able to get a good introduction about this important topic from Wikipedia. --Renimar (talk) 23:26, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

• Maybe shoot for having this article at GA status in time for July 4th? -Mabeenot (talk) 20:08, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

References

• For Know-It-Alls (January 2008). The United States Bill of Rights for Know-It-Alls. Filiquarian Publishing, LLC. ISBN 9781599862255. Retrieved 3 June 2011.
• David J. Bodenhamer; James W. Ely (May 2008). The Bill of Rights in modern America. Indiana University Press. ISBN 9780253219916.
• Bernard Schwartz (1 January 1992). The great rights of mankind: a history of the American Bill of Rights. Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN 9780945612285.
• Rich Smith (2 July 2007). The Bill of Rights: Defining Our Freedoms. ABDO. ISBN 9781599289137.
• Nancy L. Stair (January 2003). The Bill of Rights: a primary source investigation into the first ten amendments of the Constitution. The Rosen Publishing Group. p. 53. ISBN 9780823938001.
• David Andrew Schultz (May 2009). Encyclopedia of the United States Constitution. Infobase Publishing. p. 59. ISBN 9780816067633.
• Charles E. Pederson (1 January 2010). The U.S. Constitution & Bill of Rights. ABDO. p. 57. ISBN 9781604539486.

First task - Comprehensiveness

Great choice for an article...but I haven't the faintest idea about the topic so would not know where to start. I have made an FA recipe on my user page, and this is the first task...Casliber (talk · contribs) 10:10, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

I agree and I am in the same boat. Here are a few of the things that I think would improve the article:

1. Move the large chunk of text from the lede and move it down into a proper section at the top of the article above Text of the Bill of Rights

Done - I also expanded the history section a bit but it needs more improvement. --Kumioko (talk) 20:23, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

2. Create a proper summerization of the article for the lead

Mostly done - I summerized the important parts I think but as we get the article further developed well need to refine it IMO. --Kumioko (talk) 20:23, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

3. The info in the article jumps around quite a bit and we should restructure it to be in more of a chronological order

I started restructuring this a bit and combine a couple of redundant sections. Still need to make some adjustments. --Kumioko (talk) 20:23, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

4. Create a section for History and talk about some of the history of it and how it came to be. This should include moving some of the info found further into the article up into the history section.

Started doing this. Still some more info that needs to be covered though. --Kumioko (talk) 20:23, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

5. We should also probably discuss each of the parts of the Bill of Rights better rather than just cut and pasted copies of the verbiage

6. We have a lot of quotes and copied text in various sections that I think needs to be trimmed down.

7. some of the sections like The Anti-Federalists don't seem to tie directly to the Bill of Rights itself and should either be removed, trimmed down or clarified as to how they pertain to the article

8. I think we might want to consider breaking the Ratification timeline into a seperate list article. If we put it into a table and then group it by year we can better explain the important details about why it took 5 years to get every one to sign it. Also, adding these details to the existing Bill of Rights article would not relate toe the Bill of Rights article itself and would be off topic IMO.

9. I do not think we need the bulletized list of copies in the Copies section. I recommend we restructure that into a more prose format.

Done --Kumioko (talk) 20:23, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

10. The Bill of Rights as an institutional document and because of the framework of its design has been emulated in many ways by many organizations and people. Some of these are in the see also section. I think we can wrap up the article by adding a paragraph at the end discussing how it has been used as a guide for these other Bills of Rights.

Note 1. - There is an overload of documentation out there so it is going to be very easy to overwhelm this article with refs. I think we need to be careful to use only the most reliable and trusted sources whenever possible. I realize that may be hard to do.

Note2. - As we are rewriting this we should think about how the National Archives can help. They have offered to assist but I am not sure what they have or what to ask for so that is something we should think about as we develop this article.

As a parting though the Page ratings for this article are actually quite high so that is a good marker IMO to see if our efforts pay off.

Any thoughts? --Kumioko (talk) 18:14, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

great 7 - anti-federalists go in history section (their critique, brought promise of bill of rights in ratification debate)

process timeline, split this? do we have other split candidates?Slowking4 (talk) 20:08, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

Not that I see yet. This one just kinda jumped out at me. It seems long enough that it could be its own list article and alow us to expand a little more on the individual arguments each state had for and against it without delving deep into the weeds on this article. --Kumioko (talk) 20:33, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

Great thanks, here are some more items that need attention:

1. Lots of citations needed
2. The existing citations need cleaning up
3. We are using different citation formats, I think we need to pick one and stick to it

Note 3. - I have solicited the help of WikiProject NARA and the National Archives for this one. They are a wealth of information that should be very helpful in this such as better quality images and researcher advice.

Note 4. - The article was previously featured and there are notes about that here, here and here. --Kumioko (talk) 20:23, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

I am starting to work on expanding the article by expanding the various sections. It will take some time to get the content built up so if it looks like things are a little erratic andn disorganized for a couple days thats why. I will continue to refine and expand as I go along. Feel free to comment, make changes, fix my punctuation and grammer (which I have been told is less than flawless :-)). With any luck over the next couple weeks the article will be substantially improved over its current state. --Kumioko (talk) 15:55, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

NARA feedback

I have posted an initial assessment of the article by a National Archives staff member from the legislative archives at /NARA. He is actually in the middle of changing jobs soon, but I am working on other contacts as well. If you have any responses to it, I'll make sure he gets them. Dominic·t 14:56, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

Thank you. Those are all good points as far as I am concerned and I will work on addressing them. Please let me know if you see anything else. --Kumioko (talk) 15:02, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

Text

Am I right that this article includes the text of the preamble and of later amendments, but not the text of the actual Bill of Rights itself?--109.149.34.134 (talk) 17:02, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

National Archives featured article contest

The Charters of Freedom on display at the National Archives' rotunda.

I would like to announce the first featured article contest for the National Archives project. The National Archives has graciously provided us with prizes to give out to winners, including National Archives publications, tote bags, and other swag. The first contest is a challenge to get any of the articles on the three documents on display in the National Archives building's rotunda—the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights—featured (in any language).

Please read more about how to participate here. Good luck! Dominic·t 20:47, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

Ratification by Rhode Island

Did Rhode Island reject article II of the Constitution (as it is written here) or article II of the Bill of Rights? Jan.Kamenicek (talk) 10:01, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

misrepresentation of source

The statement "Originally, the Bill of Rights included legal protection for white men only" isn't what is said in the given source, which begins by pointing out that the issue is one of assumptions of the context in which the BOR is to be interpreted, rather than the BOR itself. The WP statement doesn't qualify this, and as it stands is nonfactual:

The language of the Bill of Rights is almost entirely gender neutral and its provisions have always applied to
some women. 1 But free white men of property designed the Bill of Rights in a political process from which they
excluded most Americans and all women. Not surprisingly, the Bill of Rights served and serves the interests of
such men better than the interests of others.

TEDickey (talk) 13:02, 20 August 2011 (UTC)

In 1918 women got to vote, but in many instances, women had very little legal protection under the US Constitution until they challenged existing laws in the Supreme Court (and continue to this day). In some cases, African Americans had legal rights many years before women, especially married women in the US. One example is the 14th amendment where African Americans were included in 1954, and women were included in 1971.

In 1971, US Supreme Court ruled in Reed v. Reed [1] that the 14th amendment applies to women, [2]. Until then, women were not considered as "people" according to the US Constitution. I'm not kidding and I'm not exaggerating, see Timeline of Personhood. [3] I added this information in the 14th amendment article, but it reads like an afterthought because there is no other mention of women anywhere in the article. For some reason the article is written from the view point of African Americans only and how it applies to them.

Even today, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia claims that women do not have equal protection under the 14th amendment [4] because men's rights are guaranteed by specific language in the Constitution, but women's rights are not mentioned. [5] So yes, it's up to interpretation of the courts, which has not been in favor of women even today – 2011, so it's still not resolved to this day. USchick (talk) 15:03, 20 August 2011 (UTC)

The entire paragraph in question is POV and misrepresents both the Bill of Rights and the TWO sources that it cites. The sources themselves are simply opinion pieces. And even if you accept the viewpoint presented, this argument has nothing to do with the Bill of Rights itself, but with the history of American jurisprudence, so it doesn't belong here. There is NOTHING in the BoR that supports the statement that it applied only to white men or excluded "most Americans and all women". There were also no later changes to the Bill of Rights to cause its protections to be extended to non-whites or females.

The Bill of Rights itself is gender neutral. The argument that the Constitution guaranteed men's rights but not women's rights is based upon reading the current usage of language into the usage of over two centuries ago. When the Constitution was written, "men" meant "mankind", and was not intended to exclude women.

Quite simply, this paragraph was added to further a political viewpoint and agenda, and it cannot stand up to scrutiny. That's why I originally reverted to the original, and that's why it should not be allowed to be added back in. This is the kind of thing that makes a Wiki a poor source of information-- people editing it to reflect their own beliefs rather than the facts.R0nin Two (talk) 20:06, 20 August 2011 (UTC)

Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution was a later change to the Bill of Rights which in fact extended constitutional protection to non-whites and women. Even that wasn't enough, so in 1954 there was Brown v. Board of Education and in 1971 there was Reed v. Reed, where the supreme court confirmed it. And even that's not enough, so in 2011 we have Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia saying that women do not have equal protection under the 14th amendment [6] because men's rights are guaranteed by specific language in the Constitution, but women's rights are not mentioned. [7] USchick (talk) 21:10, 20 August 2011 (UTC)

The source in question specifically states: "free white men of property designed the Bill of Rights in a political process from which they excluded most Americans and all women" Here's another source from the national archives where Abigail Adams urged her husband, the President of the US to include women and he did not. [8] USchick (talk) 21:25, 20 August 2011 (UTC)

However, the bare statement as given doesn't follow any of your sources. There'a paragraph or two left out in the middle. TEDickey (talk) 21:33, 20 August 2011 (UTC)

The entire article as written does not reflect the history of the United Sates. I can't believe it was nominated as Featured Article! USchick (talk) 21:42, 20 August 2011 (UTC)

As was already noted more than once, that small paragraph isn't reflected in the discussion below. Statements shouldn't appear in the lede unless they're discussed in more detail within the topic itself. TEDickey (talk) 21:45, 20 August 2011 (UTC)

Well then, perhaps you should get busy and expand the article to include relevant historical information, especially if you expect it to be worthy of a Featured Article. I understand that maybe you were not aware of the history, but now that you are, this article is unacceptable as is. USchick (talk) 21:58, 20 August 2011 (UTC)

It's unlikely that I'm going to do anything at your bidding, no matter how rudely you choose to express yourself TEDickey (talk) 22:14, 20 August 2011 (UTC)

I would appreciate if you would focus more on the issue that you question and learn your own history instead of making up excuses of why you think I'm wrong. According to the American Law Library: Equality was primarily extended only to white adult males with property, not to African Americans, women, or the poor. Not until 1868, following the Civil War, was the concept of equality written into constitutional law. Shortly after adoption of the 14th amendment, the Supreme Court began a lengthy period of very narrow interpretations. The Court ruled in 1875 that the federal government could not require states to allow women to vote. As a result, until adoption of the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920, women held less of a voting right than African Americans. [9] USchick (talk) 22:44, 20 August 2011 (UTC)

But again, you're bringing up issues that post-date the Bill of Rights. The idea that later court opinions improperly did not apply Constitutional protections equally to all, doesn't mean that such was intended by the Constitution. Later, additional amendments to the Constitution clarify the original intent of the Constitution, they don't set it aside.

And I repeat the fact that your issues aren't with the Bill of Rights at all, but with your interpretation of the application of legal protections to various groups in later years. Your claims have nothing to do with the Bill of Rights, and don't belong in this article. Citing biased sources (ACLU-- an extremely liberal group-- and a "Women's Studies" article) and then even twisting what they say to fit your purposes is doubly an issue. You need to leave the politically-motivated arguments out of this article, and add them to appropriate articles that discuss those issues.R0nin Two (talk) 05:42, 21 August 2011 (UTC)

I'm talking about the Bill of Rights with the original 10 amendments. The reason I was mentioning the 14th amendment was in response to the statement that there were no other changes to the original document. We are now up to 27 amendments, so yes, there were changes. According to policy WP:VALID, it is important to account for all significant viewpoints in an article. The fact that over half of the population was left out, is extremely significant. Abigail Adams urged her husband to include "Women" in the Constitution and the word "Women" was intentionally left out. USchick (talk) 14:32, 21 August 2011 (UTC)

Your responses can be summarized as attacks on other editors, accusing them of ignorance, dismissing the fact that the sources don't amplify the point as much as your edits. WP:NPOV is a good place to start. WP:Civil seems to also have been overlooked. TEDickey (talk) 15:06, 21 August 2011 (UTC)

I'm sorry if I hurt your feelings. I added references to support the statement. The claim that women were included in the Constitution is false, because if they were, what was the purpose of the Suffragist movement? If women were citizens according to the Constitution, why could they not vote? If you claim that the term "men" applied to "mankind" please provide a source. USchick (talk) 20:59, 21 August 2011 (UTC)

Go back to the beginning of the thread, and one will see that you have not only misrepresented the sources, but misrepresented the nature of the dispute. TEDickey (talk) 22:00, 21 August 2011 (UTC)

I honestly have no idea what you're talking about, and I don't care about the dispute, but I'm prepared to listen if you think that's important. I'm talking about this article and the fact that at the time it was written, it applied to very few people. I understand what you're saying about the information not being in the body, so I added it. Please review it and let me know if it is to your satisfaction. Thanks. USchick (talk) 22:24, 21 August 2011 (UTC)

It needs work. I'm not in the habit of repairing messes made by people who go out of their way to attack other editors. TEDickey (talk) 22:31, 21 August 2011 (UTC)

The Bill of Rights may sound gender neutral to us today, but for all legal purposes, it has never been gender neutral. This is not my area of interest, so you'll be happy to know that I probably won't be spending much time on other similar articles. Most of the Constitutional articles on Wikipedia have been written like they were always fair and just, which is far from the truth. I do hope this issue gets picked up by other people interested in history. USchick (talk) 22:46, 21 August 2011 (UTC)

The sentence should go. It is patently false. If the contention was true it would have been legal to quarter troops in women's houses but not mens' and that was not the case even in the earliest days. I think what you are focusing on USchick is voting rights, which deserves to be noted but which was also more of an issue of how states were allowed to legislate voter eligibility not that the bill of rights was restricted to certain groups. LegrisKe (talk) 07:41, 22 August 2011 (UTC)

If it should go, then discuss why. I'm not seeing anything "patently false" in it. If the statement in the article is not backed up by the source, then either change the source, or change the article so that it correctly represents the informations in the source, but don't remove it completely, as there's no justification for that, especially as there doesn't appear to be a consensus either way on that matter. - SudoGhost 13:12, 22 August 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for your support. Since the beginning of this discussion, additional sources have been added in the lead and in the body to support the statements. I have more if necessary. This is not about the vote, but about certain groups being historically excluded from the constitution on purpose. We shouldn't be making judgments about that, especially since that was the intent, but it needs to be reflected in the article because it's history. USchick (talk) 16:41, 22 August 2011 (UTC)

As far as quartering troops, it didn't seem to make a difference. "...women left alone to manage households often had the additional burden of quartering troops, American and British. Lydia Post, a Long Island farm wife with Patriot sympathies, was forced to quarter Hessian troops in her house. These soldiers lived in the kitchen, which was barred off from the rest of the house." [10] USchick (talk) 17:09, 22 August 2011 (UTC)

Second Amendment

Second amendmebnt reads: "..keep and bear Arms.." not weapons. Entirely different legal definition. The wording needs be changed.70.162.46.94 (talk) 22:26, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

Source requested

The balance of state and federal power under the incorporation doctrine is still an open question and continues to be fought separately for each right in the federal courts. This statement seems odd and unbelievable and is not sourced. Can we please get a reliable source behind it? 97.85.163.245 (talk) 09:05, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

still an open question and continues to be fought separately for each right this is the objectionable phrase which reads as if all of the rights are still being fought over and not resolved. There are only a few enumerated rights that have not been incorporated, like the quartering of troops. Maybe change the phrase to the incorporation doctrine is still undecided for a few of the enumerated freedoms in the Bill of Rights 97.85.163.245 (talk) 09:25, 15 September 2011 (UTC)