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Discover the expert in you.
The Illinois Constitution was initially modeled after the documents used by the U.S. federal government and the state governments of Kentucky, Indiana and Ohio. Though it has since been updated, the constitution is charged with the task of laying down the framework for Illinois state and local laws.
Amendments to the United States Constitution can take as long as seven years to be ratified. The president does not have veto power over an amendment, nor can he make an amendment without going through due process. However, the president can make his opinion known about a proposal. Two ways of amending the Constitution are available. One of the options has never been used and that is through the formation of a constitutional convention.
The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution says, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." Ratified in the 18th century, the amendment's 45 words have been interpreted, and argued over, by judges, politicians, legal scholars and the public ever since.
The First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States prohibits Congress (and, by extension, any branch of the government) from making any law that abridges freedom of speech. The courts have interpreted speech to mean communication in general, including forms of communication that have no verbal element. However, not all forms of speech are considered constitutionally protected.
An amendment to the U.S. Constitution can be proposed by Congress or by a Constitutional Convention requested by two-thirds of the state legislatures in the country. The procedure for proposing an amendment to the U.S. Constitution is spelled out in Article V of the Constitution. Article V also tells how to approve, or ratify, the proposed amendment. There are two paths to ratification: through votes by the state legislatures of three-fourths of the states; or through votes at state conventions called for the purpose of ratification. The following steps outline the process Congress and the states must take.
The Ninth Amendment states that the "enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people." In other words, the Ninth Amendment protects the rights enshrined by the Constitution and ensures that no man can exercise one particular right to deny the constitutional right of another. The abstract nature of this amendment makes it difficult to explain in plain terms. Instead it is necessary to build from the very beginning, giving the children the building blocks of the history of the Constitution and the rights and responsibilities it enshrines while…
The 13th, 14th and 15th amendments to the Constitution are known as the "Reconstitution amendments" and were ratified after the Civil War. The 14th Amendment recognizes as citizens of the United States all who are born or naturalized regardless of race. The amendment also provides all citizens equal protection under the law. The 14th Amendment was only loosely applied until the Civil Rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s, during which African Americans demanded that their constitutional rights be recognized.
There comes a time in all our lives when we have to make amends for our misdeeds or mistakes. A letter of apology is a good way to let someone know that you're aware of what you've done and sorry for it. When writing a letter of apology, it's important to communicate to the reader that you know what you've done wrong, that you regret it, and that you are taking steps to ensure it won't happen again.
The 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was one of the most important changes to the original document since the adoption of the Constitution over seven decades before it. Slavery had been an irreconcilable issue in the original Constitutional Convention. The states that later became the Confederate States during the Civil War refused to accept language abolishing slavery in the original document. The 13th Amendment changed that, abolishing slavery from all of the United States.
The Fourth and Fifth amendments to the U.S. Constitution spell out people's rights in terms of criminal law. The Fourth Amendment protects people from illegal searches and seizures, while the Fifth Amendment guarantees due process and a grand jury indictment and protects people from incriminating themselves. While these amendments do protect people, they also have a few disadvantages that should be examined.
The Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, ratified in 1868, guarantees that all persons born within the United States and "subject to its jurisdiction" are citizens. The amendment did not apply to Native Americans, who were considered members of sovereign nations, until passage of the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924. Because they are not subject to the jurisdiction of the U.S., children born in the U.S. to foreign officials who enjoy diplomatic immunity do not acquire citizenship at birth. To end birthright citizenship, the U.S. Constitution has to be amended. There are several ways to amend the Constitution.
When you do or say something you regret, you can rectify it, and perhaps even make things better than they were before, by sending a meaningful letter of apology. The offense may be personal or business, and might involve hurt feelings, being late, poor service or bad behavior. Reasons to be sorry vary, but good apology letters have one thing in common: sincerity.
The issue of the incorporation of the Bill of Rights in the 14th Amendment and their application to individual states is a long-lasting legal debate, according to the University of Missouri School of Law. As stated in its project "Exploring Constitutional Conflicts," the U.S. Supreme Court's view of which provisions of the Bill of Rights to incorporate is selective and has gone through several changes since the amendment's first interpretation in the Slaughter-House cases of 1873.
Article V of the U.S. Constitution explains the ways the Constitution can be amended. The conventional model is that both the Senate and the House of Representatives pass an amendment by a two-thirds majority of each chamber. Then three-quarters of all states must approve of the amendment via their own state legislatures. However, Article V also states that a governor may decide that his state should consider the amendment by a state convention, not the state legislature. A state convention is made up of delegates, usually voted in or chosen, who decide on the amendment instead of the state legislature.
The Ninth Amendment to the Bill of Rights is not as well known as other amendments. It reads: "The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people." Scholars still ponder what it means, and what rights James Madison had in mind to protect while writing the Ninth Amendment.
Article Five of the US Constitution covers procedures to amend it. As of 2010, 27 amendments have been made to the Constitution. The first 10 amendments are called the Bill of Rights. They cover rights regarding freedom of speech, protections against illegal search and seizure, protections against cruel and unusual punishment and more. The most recent amendment was proposed in 1789 but not ratified until 1992. It says that no laws regarding Congressional pay should take effect until the next session of Congress begins. The President has no role in Constitutional Amendments except for expressing opinion. Presidents cannot veto or…
Dictionaries provide several definitions for the word amendment. It has a few particular common definitions, but no matter in which situation the word is used, amendments are always additions or corrections made to change a given object or circumstance.
The 16th Amendment is the constitutional law that empowers the federal government to levy income taxes on its citizens. Although income taxes were implemented at various times in history, those laws were short-term and generally involved a national emergency. With the adoption of the 16th Amendment, the government was given increased political power to establish the present form of taxation.
The 21st Amendment to the Constitution reversed the 18th Amendment, which had made alcoholic beverages illegal. The 21st Amendment was unique in that it remains the only amendment ratified by the convention method rather than the state legislatures. Besides being the only amendment to repeal another amendment, it also granted the states the right to govern alcohol laws individually.
The 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution granted citizenship and protections to those recently freed from slavery after the U.S. Civil War. It forbade states from denying privileges to people who were formerly enslaved and from denying any citizen equal protection of laws. The 14th Amendment, along with the 13th and 15th Amendments, are considered the Reconstruction Amendments.
Can you apologize without truly accepting any blame? Some CEOs, politicians and celebrities do it all the time. They apologize for the situation, express regret that the wronged party reacted the way he did or wistfully speak about ways the situation might have been different. None of that constitutes an official apology. If circumstances don't permit a face-to-face apology, you can find ways of apologizing without stooping to non-apology "apologies."
The Miranda v. Arizona case was a landmark 5-4 United States Supreme Court case decided in June 1966. The High Court ruled that any statements made by a criminal defendant in response to interrogation while in police custody can be admissible at trial only if the prosecution can show that the defendant was informed of his rights to consult an attorney and against self incrimination. Furthermore, the prosecution should be able to show that the defendant understood those rights and subsequently voluntarily waived them.
The 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution is the most used and cited amendment in litigation in the court system. It forces all states to give equal protection under the law to all citizens of the United States and forbids the states from infringing on these federal rights. This amendment met with severe opposition in the South, but support for the amendment was enough to get the required two-thirds of the states to ratify the amendment (28 of the then-37 states ratified it). Five more of the states that originally rejected the amendment ratified the amendment by 1870.
