Changes In The Constitution Essay Research Paper

Changes In The Constitution Essay, Research Paper

Proposed Changes in the

Constitution

The Constitution is one of the greatest documents ever written in American history. Rights for all people are included, and everyone is considered to be equal. This took many years to accomplish, and the United States of America are obviously proud of the way they brought everyone together. However, as great of a document that the Constitution is, there are many aspects about it that are outdated or don’t give rights to people that deserve them. In all great pieces of literature, there is always something that can be changed in order to make it better. In the case of the Constitution, the same thing is true. Certain parts of the Constitution need to be rewritten in order for it to keep up with our changing society. The Constitution consists of twenty-seven Amendments. Some of them are great, and really give the people the rights they deserve. But other Amendments, which will be discussed in this paper, are at a need for a rewrite.

Since the beginning of time, the human race has been struggling with the concept of everyone being considered equal. The Puritans, for instance, came to this country because they didn’t feel as though they were being treated equally in the Great Britain. Their religious beliefs were looked down upon, and they wanted to be able to worship whomever they wanted to. If you look in the Bill of Rights in our Constitution, you will notice that the very first Amendment states that, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” (www.usconstitution). This issue was an important matter to the American people, and that was why they created it into a national law stating that everyone had the right to practice any religion. And so, twenty-seven national laws were created in hopes to have everyone be equal.

There are many parts of the Constitution that are very good and should remain in. For instance, the thirteenth Amendment in which slavery was abolished should most definitely remain in the Constitution. If it was taken out, then people would start to own slaves again and claim that there was no law against it anymore. All three of the Civil War Amendments was a big step towards human equality because now blacks were finally given rights. Another step towards equality was the nineteenth Amendment, women’s suffrage. Women were finally allowed to vote in elections because of this Amendment. After this Amendment, every American citizen was finally considered “human” by the Constitution.

There are also many parts of the Constitution concerning the government that should remain. The twenty-third Amendment finally allowed the citizens of Washington D.C. to vote in the election. A ban on the poll tax was issued three years later to encourage more people to participate in the national elections. Before this Amendment came out, poor people didn’t want to have to spend their money to go vote, and so they stayed home. The twenty-sixth Amendment ensured that anyone eighteen years or older could participate in the election. Even the other areas of the Constitution, not including the twenty-seven Amendments, are well written and make sure that the United States has a strong, centralized, and fair government. Checks and balances is the system our government is based on to make sure that each branch of government is equal and that no branch is higher than the other.

However, there are some flaws in this mission to equality. In the same Amendment as the freedom of religion, a freedom to the press was granted. ” Or abridging the freedom of the press.” The Constitution gives power to the press to go out and have the legal freedom to write about whomever they wanted. When the Constitution was written, I think they regarded a free press as almost a fourth branch of government, constantly keeping tabs on the government’s activities and actions. This is definitely a good part of the first Amendment. However, many people take advantage of this right, including tabloid papers, television, and the paparazzi. Some people might say that this trash is a small price to pay to ensure that any news organization can report freely on the activities of the government. However, what about the people outside of the government that are being exploited. The paparazzi is responsible for hundreds of pictures taken of celebrities without their consent. Should the press have the right to invade people’s privacy for the mere sake of public entertainment.

The second Amendment in the Bill of Rights states that, “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” The Constitution is stating that everyone has the right to own a pistol, but it does not give the legal right for a person to own a nuclear weapon. If the authors of the Constitution had any foreknowledge of the types of weapons people would be able to buy nowadays, they may have wanted to rethink this Amendment. At the time of the writing of the Constitution, citizen militias, what eventually became the National Guard, were a major part of what made this country free. Then, arms, or more rightly, muzzle-loaded muskets, were an essential part of the defense of that freedom. The authors did not want their government, or any future government, to