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To: pickrell

What were the 10 amendments by Henry that were not included?


2 posted on 06/25/2012 12:58:10 PM PDT by kingcanuteus
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To: kingcanuteus
"..What were the 10 amendments by Henry that were not included?.."

Some were folded into the ten which did pass. This may not have been such a good idea.

For instance, the First Amendment combines a strong statement warning the government to keep it's nose out of the religion business, with a separate freedom included for persons and the press to speak without fear of being arrested. Yet a third part, adding that of being able to gather together in groups without arrest, was also thrown in.

These 3 concepts were crunched together, with "excess wording" minimized, into the First Amendment.

The problem is that due to the brevity of the final wording, all of these freedoms have come under revisionist attack by persons or interests who wish to "clarify" what was meant. A fuller more ironclad wording would have been possible if the freedoms had not been so compressed, for the sake of brevity, perhaps, or elegance, or even to save the trees from their paper fate...

Only the courts now can protect the rights of the citizens, when they are not busy "reading new, previously unimagined rights" into the Constitution. Sadly, this protection is often from the Supreme Court itself. Warren vs Roberts.

In fairness to Madison, and the rest, I can envision them saying in good faith, "How much more plainly need it be said?" since they originally didn't think it needed written down at all. "What part of inalienable don't you understand?"

8 posted on 06/26/2012 7:30:27 AM PDT by pickrell (Old dog, new trick...sort of)
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