Bill of Rights and Amendments

The Bill of Rights and Amendments

According to Patterson (2009), the framers of the US Constitution wanted to ensure governmental structure would be able to grow and change to match the needs of American society over time. As such, the National Archives (2011) website describes in detail the process listed in Amendment V to propose to alter the United States Constitution. Within this paper, problems with the original document and changes in society that motivated the adoption of the Bill of Rights will be discussed. Additionally, how and why amendments become part of the Constitution will be addressed along with the effects these later amendments, such as the Thirteenth through Fifteenth Amendments, have had on the American people.

The How and Why of Amendments

As society changes so do the needs of the people; what may have been commonplace in 1885 is out of place in 2005, and so on (Mount, 2010). To enable the Constitution to remain a living, relevant document, Mount (2010) states the framers included Article V to detail the process by which amendments are proposed as well as Article VII to describe the ratification process for those amendments. There are only two ways to amend the Constitution (Patterson, 2009). Amending by a two-thirds vote of both houses of Congress along with a three-fourths ratification of state legislatures is the most used process; the Convention option has never been initiated, according to the National Archives (2011) website. Due to the difficulty of amending the Constitution, only 27 amendments, including the almost immediate inclusion of the Bill of Rights, have been ratified to date (National Archives, 2011).

Motivation for the Bill of Rights Adoption

Solidly based on colonial experiences that shaped the American view of liberty and governmental power, Patterson (2009) declares the thought of losing newly found freedoms such as freedom of speech, press, and religion spearheaded the adoption of the Bill of Rights. A remarkable...