GoPoPro Activities
Bill of Rights Fun Facts
1.WE DIDN’T ALWAYS HAVE A BILL OF RIGHTS
On June 21, 1788, New Hampshire became the ninth state to ratify the document, and it was subsequently agreed that government under the U.S. Constitution would begin on March 4, 1789. The Bill of Rights was not approved until it was ratified by Virginia’s legislature on December 15, 1791.
2.WE ALMOST HAD 17 AMENDMENTS TO THE BILL OF RIGHTS
The House approved 17 amendments. Of these 17, the Senate approved 12. Those 12 were sent to the states for approval in August of 1789. Of those 12, 10 were quickly approved (or, ratified).
3.SOME OF THE ORIGINAL COPIES WERE PROBABLY DESTROYED
During his first term, President Washington and Congress had 14 official handwritten replicas of the Bill of Rights made. At present, two are conspicuously unaccounted for. One copy was retained by the federal government while the rest were sent off to the 11 states as well as Rhode Island and North Carolina, which had yet to ratify. Subsequently, Pennsylvania, Maryland, New York, and Georgia all lost theirs somehow. It’s believed that the Empire State’s was burned in a 1911 fire while Georgia’s likely went up in smoke during the Civil War. In 1945, a long-lost original copy—experts aren’t sure which—was gifted to the Library of Congress. Forty-nine years earlier, the New York Public Library had obtained another. Because it’s widely believed that this one originally belonged to Pennsylvania, the document is currently being shared between the Keystone State and the NYPL until 2020, when New York will have it for 60 percent of the time and Pennsylvania for the rest.
4.NORTH CAROLINA’S COPY MAY HAVE BEEN STOLEN BY A CIVIL WAR SOLDIER.
That’s my home state!!!! During the spring of 1865, Raleigh was firmly under the control of pro-Union troops. According to a statement released by the U.S. Attorney’s office in that city, “Sometime during the occupation, a soldier in Gen. William Sherman’s army allegedly took North Carolina’s copy of the Bill of rights [from the state capitol] and carried it away.” Afterward, it changed hands several times and eventually came into antique dealer Wayne Pratt’s possession. When the FBI learned of his plan to sell the priceless parchment, operatives seized it. In 2007, the copy went on a well-publicized tour of North Carolina before returning to Raleigh—hopefully for good.
5.THREE STATES DIDN’T RATIFY IT UNTIL 1939.
To celebrate the Constitution’s 150th anniversary, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Georgia formally gave the Bill of Rights the approval they’d withheld for well over a century.
6.THE BILL OF RIGHTS’S LEAST LITIGATED AMENDMENT IS THE THIRD.
Thanks to this one, soldiers cannot legally be quartered inside your home without your consent. Since colonial Americans had lived in fear of being suddenly forced to house and feed British troops, the amendment was warmly received during the late 1700s. Today, however, it’s rarely invoked. As of this writing, the Supreme Court has never based a decision upon it, so the American Bar Association once called this amendment the “runt piglet” of the constitution.
7.BILL OF RIGHTS DAY DATES BACK TO 1941.
On November 27, 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt urged America’s citizenry to celebrate December 15 as “Bill of Rights Day” in honor of its anniversary:
“I call upon the officials of the Government, and upon the people of the United States, to observe the day by displaying the flag of the United States on public buildings and by meeting together for such prayers and such ceremonies as may seem to them appropriate.”
“It is especially fitting,” he added, “that this anniversary should be remembered and observed by those institutions of a democratic people which owe their very existence to the guarantees of the Bill of Rights: the free schools, the free churches, the labor unions, the religious and educational and civic organizations of all kinds which, without the guarantee of the Bill of Rights, could never have existed; which sicken and disappear whenever, in any country, these rights are curtailed or withdrawn.”
Epic Bill of Rights Battle
Take 1
Give each student a copy of the Bill of Rights.
Each student turns each Amendment of the Bill of Rights into an emoji. For example, First Amendment = Smiley face + church emoji; Second Amendment = gun emoji.
Each student shows their emojis, out of order, and one at a time, to a partner who tries to match each emoji with each of the 10 Amendments.
Switch r oles with your partner and repeat.
Take 2
Give each student a copy of the Bill of Rights.
Each student turns each Amendment of the Bill of Rights into into a Hashtag. For example, #no1/4soldiers.
Each student shows their hahtags, out of order, and one at a time, to a partner who tries to match each hashtag with each of the 10 Amendments.
Switch roles with your partner and repeat.
Download a PDF of the Bill of Rights
Alexander Hamilton and Federalist #78
ALEXANDER HAMILTON
From The Federalist No. 78
1787
Need a little inspiration? Watch this rap about Alexander Hamilton from the amazing, Lin-Manuel Miranda.
Read The Federalist No. 78 and answer any 24 of the following questions
1. Alexander Hamilton wrote that, “The judiciary …will always be the least dangerous to the political rights of the Constitution; because it will be least in a capacity to annoy or injure them.” Wait a second, what did Hamilton just say? Could you please translate the preceding Hamilton quote into a 140-character Tweet:
2. Do you agree with Hamilton that the judiciary is the least dangerous branch?
3. And if Hamilton is correct that the judiciary is the lest dangerous branch, in your humble opinion, what is the most dangerous branch?
4. And could you prove it with a fact or two, please:
5. Furthermore…sayeth Hamilton, “The judiciary has no influence over either the sword or the purse. It may be said to have neither FORCE nor WILL but merely judgment,” What does Hamilton mean by the “sword” and the “purse”?
6. And what is that FORCE and WILL stuff and why did he capitalize it (he really did)?
7. Hamilton goes on to write, that the power of the judiciary, “must depend upon the aid of the executive arm even for the efficacy of its judgments.” What does that mean?
8. And once you figure out what that quote means, do you think Hamilton is correct?
9. How much power would the judiciary have if there were no executive branch?
10. But wait, Hamilton’s not done…“It proves incontestably that the judiciary is beyond comparison the weakest of the three departments of power.” Based on the checks and balances written into the Constitution, and the actual contemporary behavior of the government, do you agree with Hamilton’s assessment in his preceding quote?
11. Now Hamilton’s going to get off the relative powers of the branches riff and get to the part about an independent judiciary. He writes, “Nothing can contribute so much to its firmness and independence as permanency in office, this quality may therefore be justly regarded as an indispensable ingredient in its constitution.” What does independence mean?
12. What is Hamilton arguing for here, and do you agree with him?
13. In your opinion, what would happen if we had elections for Supreme Court Justices?
14. Now Hamilton turns his attention to another aspect of the judiciary…“The complete independence of the courts of justice is peculiarly essential in a limited Constitution…which contains certain specified exceptions to the legislative authority; such, for instance, as that it shall pass no bills of attainder, no ex post facto laws, and the like. Limitations of this kind can be preserved in practice no other way than through the medium of courts of justice, whose duty it must be to declare all acts contrary to the manifest tenor of the Constitution void. Without this, all the reservations of particular rights or privileges would amount to nothing.” What practice of the federal courts does this argument support?
15. “A constitution is, in fact, and must be regarded by the judges, as a fundamental law. It therefore belongs to them to ascertain its meaning, as well as the meaning of any particular act proceeding from the legislative body. If there should happen to be an irreconcilable variance between the two, that which has the superior obligation and validity ought, of course, to be preferred; or, in other words, the Constitution ought to be preferred to the statute, the intention of the people to the intention of their agents.” According to the quote by Hamilton above, when laws and the constitution collide, who wins?
16. “Nor does this conclusion by any means suppose a superiority of the judicial to the legislative power. It only supposes that the power of the people is superior to both; and that where the will of the legislature, declared in its statutes, stands in opposition to that of the people, declared in the Constitution, the judges ought to be governed by the latter rather than the former. They ought to regulate their decisions by the fundamental laws, rather than by those which are not fundamental.” According to Hamilton, who should be the keeper of the constitutional conscience?
17. According to Hamilton, which is more valid and important, laws or constitution?
18. According to Hamilton, what should judges do when laws stand in opposition to the Constitution?
19. In your opinion, does all of this empower judges and the judiciary too much?
20. Use a direct quote from Federalist 78 to answer the following. Why, Mr. Hamilton, should judges serve for life?
21. Use a direct quote from Federalist 78 to answer the following. What, Mr. Hamilton, should happen when laws are un-Constitution?
22. If you rewrote the Constitution today (don’t do it), how would you change the judiciary?
23. Overall, does Hamilton’s argument convince you?
24. When the Supreme Court recently ruled that laws limiting same-sex marriage are unconstitutional there was a backlash from many people who said that the justices were, “making law.” What would Hamilton say to that?