U.S. Constitution Part III

 Safeguards of justice (Amendments 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8)

The Fourth Amendment (1791) protects people against unreasonable searches and seizures of either self or property by government officials. A search can mean everything from a frisking by a police officer or to a demand for a blood test to a search of an individual's home or car. A seizure occurs when the government takes control of an individual or something in the possession of the individual. Items that are seized often are used as evidence when the individual is charged with a crime. It also imposes certain limitations on police investigating a crime and prevents the use of illegally obtained evidence at trial.

The Fifth Amendment (1791) establishes the requirement that a trial for a major crime may commence only after an indictment has been handed down by a grand jury; protects individuals from double jeopardy, being tried and put in danger of being punished more than once for the same criminal act; prohibits punishment without due process of law, thus protecting individuals from being imprisoned without fair procedures; and provides that an accused person may not be compelled to reveal to the police, prosecutor, judge, or jury any information that might incriminate or be used against him or her in a court of law. Additionally, the Fifth Amendment also prohibits government from taking private property for public use without "just compensation", the basis of eminent domain in the United States.

The Sixth Amendment (1791) provides several protections and rights to an individual accused of a crime. The accused has the right to a fair and speedy trial by a local and impartial jury. Likewise, a person has the right to a public trial. This right protects defendants from secret proceedings that might encourage abuse of the justice system, and serves to keep the public informed. This amendment also guarantees a right to legal counsel if accused of a crime, guarantees that the accused may require witnesses to attend the trial and testify in the presence of the accused, and guarantees the accused a right to know the charges against them. In 1966, the Supreme Court ruled that, with the Fifth Amendment, this amendment requires what has become known as the Miranda warning.

The Seventh Amendment (1791) extends the right to a jury trial to federal civil cases, and inhibits courts from overturning a jury's findings of fact. Although the Seventh Amendment itself says that it is limited to "suits at common law", meaning cases that triggered the right to a jury under English law, the amendment has been found to apply in lawsuits that are similar to the old common law cases. For example, the right to a jury trial applies to cases brought under federal statutes that prohibit race or gender discrimination in housing or employment. Importantly, this amendment guarantees the right to a jury trial only in federal court, not in state court.

The Eighth Amendment (1791) protects people from having bail or fines set at an amount so high that it would be impossible for all but the richest defendants to pay, and also protects people from being subjected to cruel and unusual punishment. Although this phrase originally was intended to outlaw certain gruesome methods of punishment, it has been broadened over the years to protect against punishments that are grossly disproportionate to or too harsh for the particular crime. This provision has also been used to challenge prison conditions such as extremely unsanitary cells, overcrowding, insufficient medical care and deliberate failure by officials to protect inmates from one another.

Unenumerated rights and reserved powers (Amendments 9 and 10)

The Ninth Amendment (1791) declares that individuals have other fundamental rights, in addition to those stated in the Constitution. During the Constitutional ratification debates, Anti-Federalists argued that a Bill of Rights should be added. The Federalists opposed it on grounds that a list would necessarily be incomplete but would be taken as explicit and exhaustive, thus enlarging the power of the federal government by implication. The Anti-Federalists persisted, and several state ratification conventions refused to ratify the Constitution without a more specific list of protections, so the First Congress added what became the Ninth Amendment as a compromise. Because the rights protected by the Ninth Amendment are not specified, they are referred to as "unenumerated". The Supreme Court has found that unenumerated rights include such important rights as the right to travel, the right to vote, the right to privacy, and the right to make important decisions about one's health care or body.

The Tenth Amendment (1791) was included in the Bill of Rights to further define the balance of power between the federal government and the states. The amendment states that the federal government has only those powers specifically granted by the Constitution. These powers include the power to declare war, to collect taxes, to regulate interstate business activities and others that are listed in the articles or in subsequent constitutional amendments. Any power not listed is, says the Tenth Amendment, left to the states or the people. While there is no specific list of what these "reserved powers" may be, the Supreme Court has ruled that laws affecting family relations, commerce within a state's own borders, abortion, and local law enforcement activities, are among those specifically reserved to the states or the people.

Governmental authority (Amendments 11, 16, 18, and 21)

The Eleventh Amendment (1795) specifically prohibits federal courts from hearing cases in which a state is sued by an individual from another state or another country, thus extending to the states sovereign immunity protection from certain types of legal liability. Article Three, Section 2, Clause 1 has been affected by this amendment, which also overturned the Supreme Court's decision in Chisholm v. Georgia (1793)

The Sixteenth Amendment (1913) removed existing Constitutional constraints that limited the power of Congress to lay and collect taxes on income. Specifically, the apportionment constraints delineated in Article 1, Section 9, Clause 4 have been removed by this amendment, which also overturned an 1895 Supreme Court decision, in Pollock v. Farmers' Loan & Trust Co., which declared an unapportioned federal income tax on rents, dividends, and interest unconstitutional. This amendment has become the basis for all subsequent federal income tax legislation and has greatly expanded the scope of federal taxing and spending in the years since.

The Eighteenth Amendment (1919) prohibited the making, transporting, and selling of alcoholic beverages nationwide. It also authorized Congress to enact legislation enforcing this prohibition. Adopted at the urging of a national temperance movement, proponents believed that the use of alcohol was reckless and destructive and that prohibition would reduce crime and corruption, solve social problems, decrease the need for welfare and prisons, and improve the health of all Americans. During prohibition, it is estimated that alcohol consumption and alcohol related deaths declined dramatically. But prohibition had other, more negative consequences. The amendment drove the lucrative alcohol business underground, giving rise to a large and pervasive black market. In addition, prohibition encouraged disrespect for the law and strengthened organized crime. Prohibition came to an end in 1933, when this amendment was repealed.

The Twenty-first Amendment (1933) repealed the Eighteenth Amendment and returned the regulation of alcohol to the states. Each state sets its own rules for the sale and importation of alcohol, including the drinking age. Because a federal law provides federal funds to states that prohibit the sale of alcohol to minors under the age of twenty-one, all fifty states have set their drinking age there. Rules about how alcohol is sold vary greatly from state to state.

Safeguards of civil rights (Amendments 13, 14, 15, 19, 23, 24, and 26)

The Thirteenth Amendment (1865) abolished slavery and involuntary servitude, except as punishment for a crime, and authorized Congress to enforce abolition. Though millions of slaves had been declared free by the 1863 Emancipation Proclamation, their post-Civil War status was unclear, as was the status of other millions. Congress intended the Thirteenth Amendment to be a proclamation of freedom for all slaves throughout the nation and to take the question of emancipation away from politics. This amendment rendered inoperative or moot several of the original parts of the constitution.

The Fourteenth Amendment (1868) granted United States citizenship to former slaves and to all persons "subject to U.S. jurisdiction." It also contained three new limits on state power: a state shall not violate a citizen's privileges or immunities; shall not deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law; and must guarantee all persons equal protection of the laws. These limitations dramatically expanded the protections of the Constitution. This amendment, according to the Supreme Court's Doctrine of Incorporation, makes most provisions of the Bill of Rights applicable to state and local governments as well. It superseded the mode of apportionment of representatives delineated in Article 1, Section 2, Clause 3, and also overturned the Supreme Court's decision in Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857).

The Fifteenth Amendment (1870) prohibits the use of race, color, or previous condition of servitude in determining which citizens may vote. The last of three post-Civil War Reconstruction Amendments, it sought to abolish one of the key vestiges of slavery and to advance the civil rights and liberties of former slaves.

The Nineteenth Amendment (1920) prohibits the government from denying women the right to vote on the same terms as men. Prior to the amendment's adoption, only a few states permitted women to vote and to hold office.

The Twenty-third Amendment (1961) extends the right to vote in presidential elections to citizens residing in the District of Columbia by granting the District electors in the Electoral College, as if it were a state. When first established as the nation's capital in 1800, the District of Columbia's five thousand residents had neither a local government, nor the right to vote in federal elections. By 1960 the population of the District had grown to over 760,000.

The Twenty-fourth Amendment (1964) prohibits a poll tax for voting. Although passage of the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments helped remove many of the discriminatory laws left over from slavery, they did not eliminate all forms of discrimination. Along with literacy tests and durational residency requirements, poll taxes were used to keep low-income (primarily African American) citizens from participating in elections. The Supreme Court has since struck down these discriminatory measures.

The Twenty-sixth Amendment (1971) prohibits the government from denying the right of United States citizens, eighteen years of age or older, to vote on account of age. The drive to lower the voting age was driven in large part by the broader student activism movement protesting the Vietnam War. It gained strength following the Supreme Court's decision in Oregon v. Mitchell (1970).

Government processes and procedures (Amendments 12, 17, 20, 22, 25, and 27)

The Twelfth Amendment (1804) modifies the way the Electoral College chooses the president and vice president. It stipulates that each elector must cast a distinct vote for president and vice president, instead of two votes for president. It also suggests that the president and vice president should not be from the same state. Article II, Section 1, Clause 3 is superseded by this amendment, which also extends the eligibility requirements to become president to the vice president.

The Seventeenth Amendment (1913) modifies the way senators are elected. It stipulates that senators are to be elected by direct popular vote. The amendment supersedes Article 1, Section 3, Clauses 1 and 2, under which the two senators from each state were elected by the state legislature. It also allows state legislatures to permit their governors to make temporary appointments until a special election can be held.

The Twentieth Amendment (1933) changes the date on which a new president, Vice President and Congress take office, thus shortening the time between Election Day and the beginning of Presidential, Vice Presidential and Congressional terms. Originally, the Constitution provided that the annual meeting was to be on the first Monday in December unless otherwise provided by law. This meant that, when a new Congress was elected in November, it did not come into office until the following March, with a "lame duck" Congress convening in the interim. By moving the beginning of the president's new term from March 4 to January 20 (and in the case of Congress, to January 3), proponents hoped to put an end to lame duck sessions, while allowing for a speedier transition for the new administration and legislators.

The Twenty-second Amendment (1951) limits an elected president to two terms in office, a total of eight years. However, under some circumstances it is possible for an individual to serve more than eight years. Although nothing in the original frame of government limited how many presidential terms one could serve, the nation's first president, George Washington, declined to run for a third term, suggesting that two terms of four years were enough for any president. This precedent remained an unwritten rule of the presidency until broken by Franklin D. Roosevelt, who was elected to a third term as president 1940 and in 1944 to a fourth.

The Twenty-fifth Amendment (1967) clarifies what happens upon the death, removal, or resignation of the President or Vice President and how the Presidency is temporarily filled if the President becomes disabled and cannot fulfill the responsibilities of the office. It supersedes the ambiguous succession rule established in Article II, Section 1, Clause 6. A concrete plan of succession has been needed on multiple occasions since 1789. However, for nearly 20% of U.S. history, there has been no vice president in office who can assume the presidency.

The Twenty-seventh Amendment (1992) prevents members of Congress from granting themselves pay raises during the current session. Rather, any raises that are adopted must take effect during the next session of Congress. Its proponents believed that Federal legislators would be more likely to be cautious about increasing congressional pay if they have no personal stake in the vote. Article One, section 6; Clause 1 has been affected by this amendment, which remained pending for over two centuries as it contained no time limit for ratification.

Unratified amendments

Collectively, members of the House and Senate propose around 150 amendments during each two-year term of Congress. Most however, never get out of the Congressional committees in which they are proposed, and only a fraction of those approved in committee receive sufficient support to win Congressional approval and actually enter the constitutional ratification process.

Six amendments approved by Congress and proposed to the states for consideration have not been ratified by the required number of states to become part of the Constitution. Four of these are technically still pending, as Congress did not set a time limit (Coleman v. Miller) for their ratification. The other two are no longer pending, as both had a time limit attached and in both cases the time period set for their ratification expired.

Pending

The Congressional Apportionment Amendment (proposed 1789) would, if ratified, establish a formula for determining the appropriate size of the House of Representatives and the appropriate apportionment of representatives among the states following each constitutionally mandated decennial census. At the time it was sent to the states for ratification, an affirmative vote by ten states would have made this amendment operational. In 1791 and 1792, when Vermont and Kentucky joined the Union, the number climbed to twelve. Thus, the amendment remained one state shy of the number needed for it to become part of the Constitution. No additional states have ratified this amendment since. To become part of the Constitution today, ratification by an additional twenty-seven would be required. The Apportionment Act of 1792 apportioned the House of Representatives at 33,000 persons per representative in consequence of the 1790 census. Reapportionment has since been effected by statute.

The Titles of Nobility Amendment (proposed 1810) would, if ratified, strip United States citizenship from any citizen who accepted a title of nobility from a foreign country. When submitted to the states, ratification by thirteen states was required for it to become part of the Constitution; eleven had done so by early 1812. However, with the addition of Louisiana into the Union that year (April 30, 1812), the ratification threshold rose to fourteen. Thus, when New Hampshire ratified it in December 1812, the amendment again came within two states of being ratified. No additional states have ratified this amendment since. To become part of the Constitution today, ratification by an additional twenty-six would be required.

The Corwin Amendment (proposed 1861) would, if ratified, shield "domestic institutions" of the states (which in 1861 included slavery) from the constitutional amendment process and from abolition or interference by Congress. This proposal was one of several measures considered by Congress in an ultimately unsuccessful attempt to attract the seceding states back into the Union and to entice border slave states to stay. Five states ratified the amendment in the early 1860s, but none have since. To become part of the Constitution today, ratification by an additional 33 states would be required. The subject of this proposal was subsequently addressed by the 1865 Thirteenth Amendment, which abolished slavery.

The Child Labor Amendment (proposed 1924) would, if ratified, specifically authorize Congress to limit, regulate and prohibit labor of persons less than eighteen years of age. The amendment was proposed in response to Supreme Court rulings in Hammer v. Dagenhart (1918) and Bailey v. Drexel Furniture Co. (1922) that found federal laws regulating and taxing goods produced by employees under the ages of 14 and 16 unconstitutional. When submitted to the states, ratification by 36 states was required for it to become part of the Constitution, as there were forty-eight states. Twenty-eight had ratified the amendment by early 1937, but none have done so since. To become part of the Constitution today, ratification by an additional ten would be required. A federal statute approved June 25, 1938, regulated the employment of those under 16 or 18 years of age in interstate commerce. The Supreme Court, by unanimous vote in United States v. Darby Lumber Co. (1941), found this law constitutional, effectively overturning Hammer v. Dagenhart. As a result of this development, the movement pushing for the amendment concluded.

Expired

The Equal Rights Amendment (proposed 1972) would have prohibited deprivation of equality of rights (discrimination) by the federal or state governments on account of sex. A seven-year ratification time limit was initially placed on the amendment, but as the deadline approached, Congress granted a three-year extension. Thirty-five states ratified the proposed amendment prior to the original deadline, three short of the number required for it to be implemented (five of them later voted to rescind their ratification). No further states ratified the amendment within the extended deadline. In 2017, Nevada became the first state to ratify the ERA after the expiration of both deadlines, followed by Illinois in 2018, and Virginia in 2020, purportedly bringing the number of ratifications to 38. However, experts and advocates have acknowledged legal uncertainty about the consequences of these ratifications, due to the expired deadlines and the five states' purported revocations.

The District of Columbia Voting Rights Amendment (proposed 1978) would have granted the District of Columbia full representation in the United States Congress as if it were a state, repealed the Twenty-third Amendment, granted the District unconditional Electoral College voting rights, and allowed its participation in the process by which the Constitution is amended. A seven-year ratification time limit was placed on the amendment. Sixteen states ratified the amendment (twenty-two short of the number required for it to be implemented) prior to the deadline, thus it failed to be adopted.

Judicial review

The way the Constitution is understood is influenced by court decisions, especially those of the Supreme Court. These decisions are referred to as precedents. Judicial review is the power of the Court to examine federal legislation, federal executive, and all state branches of government, to decide their constitutionality, and to strike them down if found unconstitutional.

Judicial review includes the power of the Court to explain the meaning of the Constitution as it applies to particular cases. Over the years, Court decisions on issues ranging from governmental regulation of radio and television to the rights of the accused in criminal cases have changed the way many constitutional clauses are interpreted, without amendment to the actual text of the Constitution.

Legislation passed to implement the Constitution or to adapt those implementations to changing conditions, broadens and, in subtle ways, changes the meanings given to the words of the Constitution. Up to a point, the rules and regulations of the many federal executive agencies have a similar effect. If an action of Congress or the agencies is challenged, however, the court system ultimately decides whether these actions are permissible under the Constitution.

Scope and theory

Early Court roots in the founding

Courts established by the Constitution can regulate government under the Constitution, the supreme law of the land. First, they have jurisdiction over actions by an officer of government and state law. Second, federal courts may rule on whether coordinate branches of national government conform to the Constitution. Until the twentieth century, the Supreme Court of the United States may have been the only high tribunal in the world to use a court for constitutional interpretation of fundamental law, others generally depending on their national legislature.

The basic theory of American judicial review is summarized by constitutional legal scholars and historians as follows: the written Constitution is fundamental law within the states. It can change only by extraordinary legislative process of national proposal, then state ratification. The powers of all departments are limited to enumerated grants found in the Constitution. Courts are expected (a) to enforce provisions of the Constitution as the supreme law of the land, and (b) to refuse to enforce anything in conflict with it.

As to judicial review and the Congress, the first proposals by Madison (Virginia) and Wilson (Pennsylvania) called for a Supreme Court veto over national legislation. In this it resembled the system in New York, where the Constitution of 1777 called for a "Council of Revision" by the governor and justices of the state supreme court. The council would review and veto any passed legislation; violating the spirit of the Constitution before it went into effect. The nationalist's proposal in convention was defeated three times and replaced by a presidential veto with congressional over-ride. Judicial review relies on the jurisdictional authority in Article III, and the Supremacy Clause.

The justification for judicial review is to be explicitly found in the open ratifications held in the states and reported in their newspapers. John Marshall in Virginia, James Wilson in Pennsylvania and Oliver Ellsworth of Connecticut all argued for Supreme Court judicial review of acts of state legislature. In Federalist No. 78, Alexander Hamilton advocated the doctrine of a written document held as a superior enactment of the people. "A limited constitution can be preserved in practice no other way" than through courts which can declare void any legislation contrary to the Constitution. The preservation of the people's authority over legislatures rests "particularly with judges."

The Supreme Court was initially made up of jurists who had been intimately connected with the framing of the Constitution and the establishment of its government as law. John Jay (New York), a co-author of The Federalist Papers, served as chief justice for the first six years. The second chief justice, John Rutledge (South Carolina), was appointed by Washington in 1795 as a recess appointment, but was not confirmed by the Senate. Resigning later that year, he was succeeded in 1796 by the third chief justice, Oliver Ellsworth (Connecticut). Both Rutledge and Ellsworth were delegates to the Constitutional Convention. John Marshall (Virginia), the fourth chief justice, had served in the Virginia Ratification Convention in 1788. His 34 years of service on the Court would see some of the most important rulings to help establish the nation the Constitution had begun. Other early members of the Supreme Court who had been delegates to the Constitutional Convention included James Wilson (Pennsylvania) for ten years, and John Blair Jr. (Virginia) for five years.

Establishment

When John Marshall followed Oliver Ellsworth as chief justice of the Supreme Court in 1801, the federal judiciary had been established by the Judiciary Act, but there were few cases, and less prestige. "The fate of judicial review was in the hands of the Supreme Court itself." Review of state legislation and appeals from state supreme courts was understood. But the Court's life, jurisdiction over state legislation was limited. The Marshall Court's landmark Barron v. Baltimore held that the Bill of Rights restricted only the federal government, and not the states.

In the landmark Marbury v. Madison case, the Supreme Court asserted its authority of judicial review over Acts of Congress. Its findings were that Marbury and the others had a right to their commissions as judges in the District of Columbia. Marshall, writing the opinion for the majority, announced his discovered conflict between Section 13 of the Judiciary Act of 1789 and Article III. In this case, both the Constitution and the statutory law applied to the particulars at the same time. "The very essence of judicial duty" according to Marshall was to determine which of the two conflicting rules should govern. The Constitution enumerates powers of the judiciary to extend to cases arising "under the Constitution". Further, justices take a Constitutional oath to uphold it as "Supreme law of the land." Therefore, since the United States government as created by the Constitution is a limited government, the federal courts were required to choose the Constitution over congressional law if there were deemed to be a conflict.

"This argument has been ratified by time and by practice ..." The Supreme Court did not declare another act of Congress unconstitutional until the controversial Dred Scott decision in 1857, held after the voided Missouri Compromise statute had already been repealed. In the eighty years following the Civil War to World War II, the Court voided congressional statutes in 77 cases, on average almost one a year.

A crisis arose when, in 1935 and 1936, the Supreme Court handed down twelve decisions voiding acts of Congress relating to the New Deal. President Franklin D. Roosevelt then responded with his abortive "court packing plan". Other proposals have suggested a Court super-majority to overturn Congressional legislation, or a constitutional amendment to require that the justices retire at a specified age by law. To date, the Supreme Court's power of judicial review has persisted.

Self-restraint

The power of judicial review could not have been preserved long in a democracy unless it had been "wielded with a reasonable measure of judicial restraint, and with some attention, as Mr. Dooley said, to the election returns." Indeed, the Supreme Court has developed a system of doctrine and practice that self-limit its power of judicial review.

The Court controls almost all of its business by choosing what cases to consider, writs of certiorari. In this way, it can avoid opinions on embarrassing or difficult cases. The Supreme Court limits itself by defining what a “justiciable question” is. First, the Court is fairly consistent in refusing to make any "advisory opinions" in advance of actual cases. Second, "friendly suits" between those of the same legal interest are not considered. Third, the Court requires a "personal interest", not one generally held, and a legally protected right must be immediately threatened by government action. Cases are not taken up if the litigant has no standing to sue. Simply having the money to sue and being injured by government action are not enough.

These three procedural ways of dismissing cases have led critics to charge that the Supreme Court delays decisions by unduly insisting on technicalities in their "standards of litigability". They say cases are left unconsidered which are in the public interest, with genuine controversy, and resulting from good faith action. "The Supreme Court is not only a court of law but a court of justice."

Separation of powers

The Supreme Court balances several pressures to maintain its roles in national government. It seeks to be a co-equal branch of government, but its decrees must be enforceable. The Court seeks to minimize situations where it asserts itself superior to either president or Congress, but federal officers must be held accountable. The Supreme Court assumes power to declare acts of Congress as unconstitutional but it self-limits its passing on constitutional questions. But the Court's guidance on basic problems of life and governance in a democracy is most effective when American political life reinforces its rulings.

Justice Brandeis summarized four general guidelines that the Supreme Court uses to avoid constitutional decisions relating to Congress: The Court will not anticipate a question of constitutional law nor decide open questions unless a case decision requires it. If it does, a rule of constitutional law is formulated only as the precise facts in the case require. The Court will choose statutes or general law for the basis of its decision if it can without constitutional grounds. If it does, the Court will choose a constitutional construction of an act of Congress, even if its constitutionality is seriously in doubt.

Likewise with the executive department, Edwin Corwin observed that the Court does sometimes rebuff presidential pretensions, but it more often tries to rationalize them. Against Congress, an act is merely "disallowed". In the executive case, exercising judicial review produces "some change in the external world" beyond the ordinary judicial sphere. The "political question" doctrine especially applies to questions which present a difficult enforcement issue. Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes addressed the Court's limitation when political process allowed future policy change, but a judicial ruling would "attribute finality". Political questions lack "satisfactory criteria for a judicial determination."

John Marshall recognized that the president holds "important political powers" which as executive privilege allows great discretion. This doctrine was applied in Court rulings on President Grant's duty to enforce the law during Reconstruction. It extends to the sphere of foreign affairs. Justice Robert Jackson explained, foreign affairs are inherently political, "wholly confided by our Constitution to the political departments of the government ... [and] not subject to judicial intrusion or inquiry."

Critics of the Court object in two principal ways to self-restraint in judicial review, deferring as it does as a matter of doctrine to acts of Congress and presidential actions.

Its inaction is said to allow "a flood of legislative appropriations" which permanently create an imbalance between the states and federal government.

Supreme Court deference to Congress and the executive compromises American protection of civil rights, political minority groups and aliens.

Subsequent Courts

Supreme Courts under the leadership of subsequent chief justices have also used judicial review to interpret the Constitution among individuals, states and federal branches. Notable contributions were made by the Chase Court, the Taft Court, the Warren Court, and the Rehnquist Court.

Salmon P. Chase was a Lincoln appointee, serving as chief justice from 1864 to 1873. His career encompassed service as a U.S. senator and Governor of Ohio. He coined the slogan, "Free soil, free Labor, free men." One of Lincoln's "team of rivals", he was appointed Secretary of Treasury during the Civil War, issuing "greenbacks". Partly to appease the Radical Republicans, Lincoln appointed him chief justice upon the death of Roger B. Taney.

In one of his first official acts, Chase admitted John Rock, the first African American to practice before the Supreme Court. The Chase Court is famous for Texas v. White, which asserted a permanent Union of indestructible states. Veazie Bank v. Fenno upheld the Civil War tax on state banknotes. Hepburn v. Griswold found parts of the Legal Tender Acts unconstitutional, though it was reversed under a late Supreme Court majority.

Scope of judicial review expanded

William Howard Taft was a Harding appointment to chief justice from 1921 to 1930. A Progressive Republican from Ohio, he was a one-term President.

As chief justice, he advocated the Judiciary Act of 1925 that brought the Federal District Courts under the administrative jurisdiction of the Supreme Court. Taft successfully sought the expansion of Court jurisdiction over non-states such as District of Columbia and Territories of Alaska and Hawaii.

 

In 1925, the Taft Court issued a ruling overturning a Marshall Court ruling on the Bill of Rights. In Gitlow v. New York, the Court established the doctrine of "incorporation", which applied the Bill of Rights to the states. Important cases included the Board of Trade of City of Chicago v. Olsen, which upheld Congressional regulation of commerce. Olmstead v. United States allowed exclusion of evidence obtained without a warrant based on application of the 14th Amendment proscription against unreasonable searches. Wisconsin v. Illinois ruled the equitable power of the United States can impose positive action on a state to prevent its inaction from damaging another state.

Earl Warren was an Eisenhower nominee, chief justice from 1953 to 1969. Warren's Republican career in the law reached from county prosecutor, California state attorney general, and three consecutive terms as governor. His programs stressed progressive efficiency, expanding state education, re-integrating returning veterans, infrastructure, and highway construction.

In 1954, the Warren Court overturned a landmark Fuller Court ruling on the Fourteenth Amendment interpreting racial segregation as permissible in government and commerce providing "separate but equal" services. Warren built a coalition of justices after 1962 that developed the idea of natural rights as guaranteed in the Constitution. Brown v. Board of Education banned segregation in public schools. Baker v. Carr and Reynolds v. Sims established Court ordered "one-man-one-vote". Bill of Rights Amendments were incorporated into the states. Due process was expanded in Gideon v. Wainwright and Miranda v. Arizona. First Amendment rights were addressed in Griswold v. Connecticut concerning privacy, and Engel v. Vitale relative to free speech.

William Rehnquist was a Reagan-appointed chief justice, serving from 1986 to 2005. While he would concur with overthrowing a state supreme court's decision, as in Bush v. Gore, he built a coalition of Justices after 1994 that developed the idea of federalism as provided for in the Tenth Amendment. In the hands of the Supreme Court, the Constitution and its amendments were to restrain Congress, as in City of Boerne v. Flores.

Nevertheless, the Rehnquist Court was noted in the contemporary "culture wars" for overturning state laws relating to privacy, prohibiting late-term abortions in Stenberg v. Carhart, prohibiting sodomy in Lawrence v. Texas, or ruling so as to protect free speech in Texas v. Johnson or affirmative action in Grutter v. Bollinger.

Civic religion

There is a viewpoint that some Americans have come to see the documents of the Constitution, along with the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights, as being a cornerstone of a type of civil religion. Some commentators depict the multi-ethnic, multi-sectarian United States as held together by political orthodoxy, in contrast with a nation-state of people having more "natural" ties.

Worldwide influence

The United States Constitution has been a notable model for governance worldwide, especially through the 1970s. Its international influence is found in similarities in phrasing and borrowed passages in other constitutions, as well as in the principles of the rule of law, separation of powers, and recognition of individual rights.[

The American experience of fundamental law with amendments and judicial review has motivated constitutionalists at times when they were considering the possibilities for their nation's future. It informed Abraham Lincoln during the American Civil War, his contemporary and ally Benito Juárez of Mexico, and the second generation of 19th-century constitutional nationalists, José Rizal of the Philippines and Sun Yat-sen of China. The framers of the Australian constitution integrated federal ideas from the U.S. and other constitutions.

Since the 1980s, the influence of the United States Constitution has been waning as other countries have created new constitutions or updated older constitutions, a process which Sanford Levinson believes to be more difficult in the United States than in any other country.

Criticisms

The United States Constitution has faced various criticisms since its inception in 1787.

The Constitution did not originally define who was eligible to vote, allowing each state to determine who was eligible. In the early history of the U.S., most states allowed only white male adult property owners to vote; the notable exception was New Jersey, where women were able to vote on the same basis as men. Until the Reconstruction Amendments were adopted between 1865 and 1870, the five years immediately following the American Civil War, the Constitution did not abolish slavery, nor give citizenship and voting rights to former slaves. These amendments did not include a specific prohibition on discrimination in voting on the basis of sex; it took another amendment—the Nineteenth, ratified in 1920—for the Constitution to prohibit any United States citizen from being denied the right to vote on the basis of sex.

According to a 2012 study by David Law and Mila Versteeg published in the New York University Law Review, the U.S. Constitution guarantees relatively few rights compared to the constitutions of other countries and contains fewer than half (26 of 60) of the provisions listed in the average bill of rights. It is also one of the few in the world today that still features the right to keep and bear arms; the other two being the constitutions of Guatemala and Mexico.

Difficult to amend

Sanford Levinson wrote in 2006 that it has been the most difficult constitution in the world to amend since the fall of Yugoslavia. Levitsky and Ziblatt argue that the US Constitution is the most difficult in the world to amend and that this helps explain why the US still has so many undemocratic institutions that most or all other democracies have reformed, directly allowing significant democratic backsliding in the United States.

Preamble

Many have criticized the opening statement "We the People," questioning who they intended by "we" and "the People" when they excluded so many groups of people, such as Native Americans and African slaves, and women could not vote. The apparent intended meaning is that "the People" are only European males of Protestant or Deist backgrounds.

Commemorations

In 1937, the U.S. Post Office, at the prompting of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, an avid stamp collector himself, released a commemorative postage stamp celebrating the 150th anniversary of the signing of the U.S. Constitution. The engraving on this issue is after an 1856 painting by Junius Brutus Stearns of Washington and shows delegates signing the Constitution at the 1787 Convention. The following year another commemorative stamp was issued celebrating the 150th anniversary of the ratification of the Constitution. In 1987 the U.S. Government minted a 1987 silver dollar in celebration of the 200th anniversary of the signing of the Constitution.