Amending the Constitution

Predecessors to the U.S. Bill of Rights

A bill of rights would be absurd / Noah Webster

The U.S. Constitution needs a Bill of Rights / Melancton Smith

The U.S. Constitution does not need a Bill of Rights / Alexander Hamilton

The Bill of rights proposal / James Madison

Freedom of expression

Criticism of the government should be permitted / James Burgh

Unfair criticism of the government should be restricted / John Marshall

The First Amendment protects criticism of the government / Oliver Wendell Holmes

Obscenity and censorship / Anthony Comstock, interviewed by Mary Alden Hopkins

The right to not speak / Robert H. Jackson

Church and state

The freedom of conscience / Thomas Jefferson

Why church and state should work together / Edmund Burke

The dangers of theocracy / Joseph Priestley

Faculty-led public school prayer violates the First Amendment / Hugo Black

Faculty-led public school prayer does not violate the First Amendment / Potter Stewart

A well-regulated militia

Proposal for a civilian militia / George Washington

A case against standing armies / Mary Wollstonecraft

The Second Amendment protects individual firearm ownership / William Rawle

The Second Amendment protects organized State militias / James Clark McReynolds

Rights of the accused / Against general search warrants / James Otis

Electronic surveillance and the Fourth Amendment / Tom Clark

Voluntary confessions and the Fifth Amendment / Earl Warren

Voluntary confessions should always be admissible in court / Antonin Scalia.