September 13, 2009 |
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Women’s rights are
human rights?
Stephen Henry Lewis,
United Nations’ envoy for HIV AIDS in Africa, 2006, said:
“[Women’s rights have] never been made real, and so long as men control the levers and bastions of power… it never will be real. The demeaning diminution of women is everywhere evident… where freedom from sexual violence, the right to sexual autonomy, to sexual and reproductive health, social and economic independence, and even the whiff of gender equality are barely approximated. It’s a ghastly, deadly business, this untrammeled oppression of women in so many countries on the planet.”
The United States Constitution: What it says, what it means (A hip pocket guide.) ISBN 0-19-530443-8. Find hip pocket guide at Justice Learning.
A Collection of America’s Historical Documents
ISBN 978-1-61539-532-3
A&K Documents
P.O. Box 291915
Kerrville, Texas 78028-1915
Tel: (830) 895-4931
Toll-free: (800) 895-4931
The Constitution of the United States of America here
The original Constitution and the Bill of Rights are on display at the National Archives and Records Administration in Washington, D.C.
“…Remember all Men would be tyrants if they could….”
~ Abigail Adams, 1744–1818
"If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In forming a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself."
~ James Monroe (d) July 4, 1831
Sir Edward Coke (pronounced Cook) framed the Petition of Right in 1628, which was the forerunner of our Bill of Rights.
Learn more about The Charters for Freedom (Making of the Charters, The Declaration, The Constitution, The Bill of Rights, and Impact of the Charters) by clicking here.
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Hip Lessons from His-story
Before my recent visit to a local rummage shop, I knew very little about our Constitution. While there, I found and purchased a tiny booklet, The United States Constitution: What it says, what it means. Dubbed “a hip pocket guide,” I figured what the heck—for a buck I should read it and try to decipher what our founding fathers had in mind for this country. With an Introduction by Caroline Kennedy and an Afterword by David Eisenhower, names I readily recognized from my era, how could I go wrong?
No Girls Allowed
Historically speaking, our government is prescribed by males, as are most others around the globe. I must admit I’m highly suspicious of their motives—especially since women and girls are too often excluded from the benefits of the governed. Yet we, the female gender, must live, move, and have our being within the laws of any country, community, or tribe. How do such far-reaching and long-term documents get written without my gender’s influence? That question challenged me to read the hip pocket guide and find out where the good old boys might have gone wrong.
After several days of devoted study, here are some interesting facts I learned and would like to share with you readers:
Our coveted freedoms began with the signing of The Declaration of Independence from the mother-country, Great Britain, whose king had been meddling big time in the affairs of the original thirteen colonies. On July 4, 1776, our forefathers furnished the king with a list of eighteen grievances plus nine acts of “pretended legislation” for a total of twenty-seven “injuries and usurpations” that were no longer tolerable by the people. The declaration resulted in a war between the colonies and the crown as well as a war among the colonists because some remained loyal to the old country instead of embracing the possibilities of freedom from their previous oppressors.
To help bring the colonies back together again and to re-establish some sort of order amidst the chaos of a war-torn society, The Articles of Confederation were written and adopted in 1781. In this document, the “style” of the Confederacy was officially named “The United States of America.”
The Revolutionary War lasted for nine years but finally ended in 1783 with the signing of a treaty granting the colonies’ independence from British tyranny. The future of the fledgling sovereign nation was at stake. The survivors had to decide how to distribute the power of new governance without duplicating the intolerable oppressions from which they had escaped.
Thus, The United States Constitution was ratified on September 17, 1787, and is 222 years old. It contains a mere seven Articles and only twenty-seven Amendments that have been used as the guiding principles of governance for approximately 307,000,000 people—about half of whom are females. America began with thirteen colonies and is now comprised of fifty states, home to populaces of diverse heritages, needs, lifestyles, and opinions.
Elegance Sans Crown
The structure, composition, physical makeup, or nature of something is called its constitution—the components or elements forming the whole—a sort of jig-saw puzzle with discernable, definitive edges. If speaking of individuals, one’s constitution is the health, strength, and appearance of the body.
In drafting the Constitution, the forefathers got right to the point by stating its purposes in the first paragraph of the document, an introduction known as the Preamble. In total, there were six simply elegant statements of intent:
…to form a more perfect union,
…to establish justice,
…to insure domestic tranquility,
…to provide for the common defense,
…to promote the general welfare,
…to secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity.
But how could the representatives of “we the people” accomplish these simple-sounding goals and still guarantee certain rights to the governed? First things first! They ‘articulated’ a plan for structuring the powers and duties of the new government:
Articles of the United States Constitution
Article I sets forth the legislative powers of the Senate and the House of Representatives (Congress) and includes ten sections.
Article II describes the executive power of the President of The United States in four sections.
Article III describes the judicial power vested in one Supreme Court in three sections.
Article IV addresses the differences in state and federal powers in four sections.
Article V describes the amendment process in one paragraph.
Article VI gives federal law supremacy over state laws in three paragraphs.
Article VII gives the writers’ statement of consent and ratification for the establishment of the Constitution, witnessed and subscribed.
The United States Constitution, destined to become one of the world’s most famous documents was signed, sealed, and delivered to the king with nary a female signature. How did they do it? How could it last? What about the people they left out?
Bill Me Later
Two years after the Constitution was ratified Ten Amendments, known as The Bill of Rights, were added to the Constitution in order to “prevent misconstruction or abuse of its [the Constitution’s] powers” and for “extending the ground of public confidence in the Government” through what the writers called “declaratory and restrictive clauses” favoring certain rights of the people.
As briefly as possible, the first ten amendments to the Constitution grant the following rights to the governed:
The Bill of Rights
Amendment I: freedom of speech, freedom from religion.
Amendment II: the right to bear arms.
Amendment III: the right of private property.
Amendment IV: freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures.
Amendment V: the right to due process of law.
Amendment VI: the right to trial by jury and counsel for defense.
Amendment VII: civil court matters.
Amendment VIII: freedom from cruel and unusual punishment.
Amendment IX: other fundamental individual rights may be retained by the people.
Amendment X: powers not delegated to government or states are reserved to the people.
The Bill of Rights addressed the freedoms, rights, and powers of citizens as defined by the cultural memes of the era. But the rights of certain groups of people were not addressed—women, Negroes, Indians, immigrants and others—which therefore excluded them from the freedoms granted to Caucasian males.
Cherish is the Word
Over the course of the next 197 years (1795–1992), seventeen subsequent amendments were added and are no less important than the first ten. Rather than list them here, I urge you to seek them yourself in order to determine their impact on your life as an American citizen. One of them actually guarantees your right to be a citizen if you were born in this country or naturalized by law. Do you know which one?
Amendments XI through XXVII gradually granted a modicum of equality to the previously excluded groups, and other corrections and changes to the Constitution were adopted. Eventually people of color and the female gender were included in the ‘rights’ equation. Prohibition came and went through the self-correcting powers of the amendment process. Presidential powers were limited to two four-year terms. Washington, D.C., not a state, was granted a voice in the House of Representatives. Voters were freed from poll taxes. People were awarded the privilege of voting at age eighteen.
Unfortunately, many young people today can name the Three Stooges, but can’t name the three branches of government. Neither could I before reading the hip pocket guide! Now I will never forget what allowed our nation to ‘j-e-l’: judicial, executive, and legislative.
David Eisenhower, in his Afterword stated, “Civic engagement is not just an abstract principle, it is essential if we wish to remain a free and prosperous nation….‘We the people’ tell the government what to do, it doesn’t tell us. ‘We the people’ are the driver, the government is the car. And we decide where it should go, and by what route, and how fast. Almost all the world’s constitutions are documents in which governments tell the people what their privileges are. Our Constitution is a document in which ‘We the people’ tell the government what it is allowed to do.”
Know it, respect it, protect it, and cherish it. Be the driver of your destiny—it is your right, privilege, and responsibility.
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