Robert wrote:MaxPC wrote:I would add to the bolded above, "what specific benefit has the Constitution been to Anabaptists?"
I want to look at each of the first 10 amendments individually. The constitution gives the framework for the government. The Bill of Rights is really what gives so much of the individual rights to the people.
Only with respect to the Federal government. Amendments 12, 13, and 14 granted individual rights to the people with respect to the individual states.
For instance, Massachusetts was officially Congregational until the 1830s. Only the Federal government was prohibited from having a State Church until these later amendments said the Bill of Rights applied to the individual states. This is mentioned in a variety of Supreme Court decisions, such as
this one:
It is only in recent years that the freedoms of the First Amendment have been recognized as among the fundamental personal rights protected by the Fourteenth Amendment from impairment by the states. Until then these liberties were not deemed to be guarded from state action by the Federal Constitution.
The Encyclopedia Brittanica discusses this here:
First Amendment
In 1868, however, the Fourteenth Amendment was added to the U.S. Constitution, and it prohibited states from denying people “liberty” without “due process.” Since then the U.S. Supreme Court has gradually used the due process clause to apply most of the Bill of Rights to state governments. In particular, from the 1920s to the ’40s the Supreme Court applied all the clauses of the First Amendment to the states. Thus, the First Amendment now covers actions by federal, state, and local governments. The First Amendment also applies to all branches of government, including legislatures, courts, juries, and executive officials and agencies. This includes public employers, public university systems, and public school systems.
Is it biblical? Is it Christlike? Is it loving? Is it true? How can I find out?
