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Linguapress-on-line a collection of free resources for students and teachers of English as a second or foreign language, including news and current affairs articles in graded English.

 
 
 
 

The Five principal articles of  the United States Constitution lay down:
 Article 1.  The constitution and powers of Congress (legislative power)
 Article 2.  The powers of the President of the United States, and their limits (executive power)
 Article 3.  The power of the Supreme Court (judicial power)
 Article 4.  Relations between the states, and the possibility of admitting new states.
 Article 5.  Methods of amending the Constitution.
These will be considered later.

However it quickly became clear that the original Constitution was not sufficient, and since 1791 a number of Amendments have been added. The first of these, Amendments 1 to X, were voted in 1791: defining the status of people in the United States, these first 10 Amendments are collectively known as the Bill of Rights.

The Bill of Rights

The "First Amendment" is no doubt the most famous of all the items in the American Constitution. It states, quite briefly, that: 
 "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibition of the free exercise thereof; of abridging the freedom of speech or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for the redress of grievances."
 Thus "first amendment rights" have been invoked by Americans ever since in defence of their rights to freedom of belief, freedom of behaviour (within the scope of legality), and freedom of all kinds of idiosyncratic ideas. However, they are also invoked by those who wish to practice or disseminate all kinds of bizarre or extreme ideas and religions, from the strange Mormon preachings of Joseph Smith in the 19th century, to the dissemination of neo-Nazi propaganda over the Internet in the 21st.

 The Second Amendment
 This states that : "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed."
 This, perhaps the most controversial of the Amendments in modern times, is the cause of intense attention by the two opposing camps in modern American society, those in favor of firearms legislation as a means to combat America's terrible record in homicides and armed crime (the homicide and armed crime rate in the USA is far far higher than those in other Western countries where the possession of arms is closely regulated, if not largely forbidden), and those who maintain the "constitutional" right of any American to carry arms even for personal use (nothing to do with a Militia for the purpose of State security)

 The Fourth Amendment
 Places limits on the rights of the state to enter or conduct seizures on private property.

 The 5th to 8th Amendments
 These establish the civil rights of defendants in courts of law, including the rights to trial by jury, the rights to summon witnesses, and the limits on the power of the State or state prosecutors to set "unreasonable" levels of bail.

The 10th Amendment.
 This underlines the fact that only certain powers in the United States are delegated to the federal government, and that all other power resides in the individual states and the people.

Other major Amendments to the Constitution

 The Twelfth Amendment (ratified in 1804) determines the manner in which the President and Vice President of the USA are elected by "electors" nominated by the different states. N.B. As was illustrated by the Bush/Gore election controversy in 2000, the President of the USA is NOT directly elected by universal suffrage, contrary to an often held popular belief.)

The Thirteenth Amendment (1865) banned slavery in the United States. Note; In spite of the Jeffersonian precept that "all men are born equal", slavery was banned in the USA long after it was outlawed in most countries of Europe and their dependencies.

The Fourteenth Amendment (ratified in 1868) defines US citizenship and the manner in which states elect their Representatives to Congress.

The Fifteenth amendment (ratified in 1870) establishes universal suffrage, irrespective of a person's race, status or religion.

. The Sixteenth Amendment (ratified in 1913) gives Congress the formal right to levy taxes, including income tax . This represented a reversal of a principle  that was dearly held by many original colonists and many Americans.

 The nineteenth amendment (1920) extended voting rights to women.

. The twentieth amendment (1933) fixed the terms and changeover dates of the presidency. In 1951, the 22nd Amendment limited the number of terms of office that a president could serve, to two terms of four years each.

This page is currently under construction, and will be extended  in due course. For links to factual US sites, consult the ESIP links page