Unit 8 Lesson 1

Lesson Overview

• Students Will Be Able To:

o Identify historical influences on the Bill of Rights.
o Infer how the content of the Bill of Rights

addressed the Federalists' concerns
about adding a bill of rights to the Constitution.

o Discuss why some Bill of Rights protections have

not been incorporated at the state level.

• Vocabulary:

o Incorporation

Incorporation Broken Down

• Dictionary-Defintion: the inclusion of something as

part of a whole.

• For Government this means inclusion (including) bill of

rights protections to state governments and laws.

Historical Influences on
the Bill of Rights

• A list of fundamental rights of the people that a government is prohibited

from restricting

• The Founding Fathers used ideas from the political and philosophical

world to form their new government

• Examples-

o Magna Carta- King John of England signed this in 1215, it put limits

on the monarch's power

o English Bill of Rights- passed in 1689 by the English Parliament, gave

freedoms to English citizens like the BOR does for America

o John Locke- English Philosopher of the Enlightenment, who wrote

about Natural Rights and influenced the phrase, "Life, Liberty and
the Pursuit of Happiness."

Debate Over the Bill of Rights

• Remember that the Bill of Rights was not part of

the original draft of the Constitution.

• So, the Federalists and the Anti-

Federalists argued/debated on this issue and
whether to include the BOR

o Federalists- Wanted a strong central government and

did not think a BOR was needed

o Anti-Federalist- Wanted a weaker central government

and wanted a BOR included for protection

• Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and John

Jay "Federalist Dream Team"

The Bill of Rights and
Ratification

• Nine of the thirteen newly formed states

needed to ratify the new Constitution.

• This is the same # of states that needed to

vote to amend the Constitution (The Bill of
Rights would amend the original document)

• Federalists and Anti-Federalists had to

compromise to ratify this

• Point to Ponder- Why do you think that the

same people that worked together to beat
Great Britain (England), now opposed
one another?

The First 10
Amendments

• These were drafted by James

Madison called the, "Father of the
Constitution."

• They are a combination of

suggestions and historical influences
throughout history that Madison put
together in a list

• Congress sent these amendments to

the states for ratification (originally
there were 12 and not the 10 we
know today)

• These 10 Amendments became what

we know of as the "Bill of Rights."

• Hint- think of these like a shield for

the people to use against the power
of the government

The Bill of Rights and the States

• Originally the BOR only pertained to the federal

government and state governments had their
own BOR

• The 14th Amendment allowed the Supreme

Court to include the protection of these rights
from state governments as well

• States cannot make a law that violates the

"Privileges and Immunities," which are
protected by the Constitution

• Point to Ponder- Why would it not make sense

to have or "Incorporate" the protections from
the federal governemnt to the state
governemnt as well?

The Bill of Rights and the States

Incorporation

• So, when States are required to provide the protections of the BOR at the state

level that is called- Incorporation

Essential Question- Why does the Constitution have
the Bill of Rights?

• Influences such as the Magna Carta, the English Bill of Rights, and the

Enlightenment shaped the U.S. Bill of Rights.

• Some people worried that without a bill of rights, the federal

government would be too powerful.

• The Supreme Court has applied most of the Bill of Rights protections

to the states, a process called incorporation.

• What's Coming Up- Learning about the 1st Amendment