U. S. Constitution and Your Rights

After the U.S. Constitution was adopted, many Americans felt it was important to protect the individual citizen's rights.
When the first Congress met in 1789, they passed 10 amendments. These amendments are called the Bill of Rights. printer version

The Interactive Constitution web site will help you to answer these questions. Also The Bill of Rights

1. Write the First Amendment.

Give an example of how this applies to you.

2. Write the Sixth Amendment in your own words.

Give an example of when this would be very important to a person.

3. Which amendment(s) would be particularly important to Rosa Parks? Explain.

4. Abigail Adams urged her husband John Adams to “remember the ladies” when he worked with other delegates to write the U.S. Constitution.
The delegates did not follow her advice.

Which amendment gives women the right to vote?

When were women finally afforded the right to vote?

For how many years have women been permitted to vote in the United States of America?

5. The Ninth Amendment was James Madison's answer to critics of the list of rights he wanted to add to the Constitution.
What does the Ninth Amendment guarantee?

6. It is argued that the U.S. Government's reading your emails, listening to your phone calls and checking out which books you have read at the library (Patriot Act) violates your rights under the Constitution. Which of the Bill of Rights Amendments do these actions violate?

Should the government be allowed to do this? Explain.

7. What argument was used to support the 26th Amendment?

Do you agree with it or dispute it? Explain.

8. How are Norman Rockwell's Four Freedoms emblematic of the Bill of Rights? - research then respond.

"As a man is said to have a right to his property, he may be equally said to have a property in his rights." James Madison

Done already? Excellent!