6. JUST WORDS ON PAPER
“Liberty is meaningless where the right to u�er one’s thoughts and opinions has ceased to exist. That, of
all rights, is the dread of tyrants. It is the right which they first of all strike down. They know its power.”
Frederick Douglass, “A Plea for Free Speech in Boston,” 1860
Q: Why did Frederick
Douglass think that
freedom of speech
was so important?
Visit www.rightsmatter.
org to voice your opinion
and discover:
• more on the Alien &
Sedition Acts
• the court system
• court cases
• the fight against slavery
• definitions
• biographies
• activities
22
The rights set down in
the first Ten Amendments
to the U.S. Constitution are
called civil liberties. The
Framers considered them to be
fundamental values for which
the Revolution was fought.
language of the Bill of Rights to
particular situations to define
what rights meant in practice.
Second, it only applied
to the actions of the federal
government (“Congress shall
make no law...”). It did not
These rights were guaranteed
to “all persons” – not just
citizens – and were intended
to be a “parchment barrier”
(in Madison’s words) against
tyranny.
But there was one big
problem with the Bill of Rights.
As Madison had feared, it
didn’t work.
There were three main
reasons for this. First, it had no
enforcement mechanism. Even
with a functioning judicial
branch, there was still no way
of ge�ing violations of rights
in front of the courts. And
besides, no one was sure what
the language of the document
actually meant.
More than a century would
pass before the U.S. Supreme
Court even began to rule in
First Amendment cases. It
took courts applying the
apply to the states, which
could (and did) violate the civil
liberties of their populations.
It did not apply to local police,
who used brutal methods to
uphold the absolute tyranny of
slavery.
Third, it did not apply to
“We the people,” but only to
some of the people. The great
majority in the country had no
civil rights. One thing we learn
from U.S. history is that when
some people are denied rights,
the rights of all are threatened.
It took more than 170 years
for civil rights to be extended
to all citizens, guaranteeing
them the right to be treated
equally under the law, to be
free from discrimination, and
to participate in the political
process.
Only then, in the 1960s,
did the courts rule that most
RIGHTS MATTER:THE STORY OF THE BILL OF RIGHTS