Bill Of Rights Dbq

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To James Madison, a strong federalist and supporter of the Constitution, the proposed Bill of Rights, the first 10 amendments to the U.S Constitution, was unnecessary because it would serve as “parchment barriers”, and would do nothing to protect people from the abuse of authority. Madison saw these “parchment barriers” as something that would offer little to no protection of individuals’ rights, and believed that the real way to ensure the security of individual liberties lay in the system of checks and balances. In this “scheme of representation”, governing as a republic, by law, rather than a pure democracy, ruled by the majority, Madison saw the system of checks and balances as a better way to check the excess of liberty and prevent more …show more content…
United States, and Korematsu v. United States, demonstrated instances where the “parchment barriers”, as Madison predicted, proving their uselessness to preventing the abuse of authority and the fact that they were least effective when most needed. In both of these cases, the individual liberties and rights supposedly guaranteed in the Bill of Rights were overlooked and curtailed during times of war, under the name of security for the greater good, even if individuals were being denied their own rights, proving the ineffectiveness of these “parchment barriers”. Charles Schenck, in the 1919 case of Schenck v. United States, faced the question of whether or not his actions of mailing anti-war propaganda to draftees and encouraging peaceful actions to repeal the Conscription Act were protected by the free speech clause in the First Amendment. Ultimately, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously that Schenck was violating the Espionage Act, and consequently charged him with conspiracy, saying that he had attempted to cause insubordination in the military. In the case of Korematsu v. United States, after an executive order was signed by President Roosevelt in 1942 that forced many Japanese Americans into internment camps after the bombing of Pearl Harbor in December of 1941. When Fred Korematsu, a Japanese American, was arrested after claiming to Mexican-American in order to avoid internment, he challenged the conviction, taking it to courts and citing that he …show more content…
Des Moines, the cases of New Jersey v. TLO and Hazelwood School District v. Kuhlmeier are also examples of times when these “parchment barriers” failed to protect the constitutional rights of students, highlighting their ineffectiveness in defending the students in these cases, against the abuse of authority. In the landmark case of New Jersey v. TLO, TLO, a New Jersey high school student was accused of violating school rules by smoking in the bathroom. When the principal caught her and searched her purse, she was found in the possession of marijuana, as well as other materials that suggested she dealt marijuana. TLO was charged with the possession of marijuana, and when she tried to have the evidence found in her purse suppressed, saying that the act of smoking in the bathroom did not justify the search of her purse and that this search violated her Fourth Amendment rights, which prohibits unreasonable search and
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