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> The US was fundamentally no better, and in practice worse despite the Bill of Rights You also have to remember that until the Fourteenth Amendment was passed

by amyjess 11y ago

> The US was fundamentally no better, and in practice worse despite the Bill of Rights You also have to remember that until the Fourteenth Amendment was passed, the Bill of Rights only applied to acts of Congress ("Congress shall make no law...") and not to state legislatures.

btilly 11y ago
You have oversimplified the history. After the Fourteenth Amendment arrived, there was considerable confusion about what it actually meant for state laws. And it took a long time for the very complex details to get ironed out. That is why the case I pointed to was nearly a century after the 14th amendment was passed. See http://tenthamendmentcenter.com/2012/03/12/the-14th-amendment-and-the-bill-of-rights/ http://tenthamendmentcenter.com/2012/03/12/the-14th-amendmen... for a detailed (and admittedly somewhat opinionated) history of this topic. And see http://constitution.findlaw.com/amendment14.html http://constitution.findlaw.com/amendment14.html to start digging in on exactly how complex the current interpretation of the 14th amendment actually is.
- selimthegrim 11y ago
  Google 'Slaughterhouse cases', and 'Colfax massacre', and then curse Louisiana for being the rock which incorporation stubbed its toe on.
- amyjess 11y ago
  > You have oversimplified the history. After the Fourteenth Amendment arrived, there was considerable confusion about what it actually meant for state laws. And it took a long time for the very complex details to get ironed out. That is why the case I pointed to was nearly a century after the 14th amendment was passed. I'm not disagreeing with you. I was just placing a hard earliest point where the Bill of Rights could apply to the states, not saying that it was immediately interpreted as such as soon as it was ratified.
pdonis 11y ago
> the Bill of Rights only applied to acts of Congress ("Congress shall make no law...") That specific language only appears in the First Amendment. Other amendments were taken to apply to the states well before the Fourteenth; for example, there is case law from state courts from the first half of the 19th century dealing with how states interpret the Second Amendment, which would be meaningless if that Amendment were not held to apply to the states.
- afarrell 11y ago
  I would be very interested in reading that case law if you can dig it up for us.
  - btilly 11y ago
    Most of the cases that are usually cited were, upon close reading, decided based on clauses in various state constitutions. The one exception that I am aware of is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nunn_v._Georgia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nunn_v._Georgia where the decision was made in a state court and hence was only binding for that state. By contrast in the early years after the 14th was passed, the Supreme Court stated in both https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Cruikshank https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Cruikshank and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presser_v._Illinois https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presser_v._Illinois that the 2nd amendment was only a restriction on what the federal government could do. State and local regulation was unaffected.
    - amyjess 11y ago
      > Most of the cases that are usually cited were, upon close reading, decided based on clauses in various state constitutions. Yes. One of the arguments against adding the Bill of Rights to the Constitution was that the states already had similar clauses. That was the reason why they're amendments and not part of the original Constitution, in fact. The argument went something like this: "Here's your new Constitution! Please ratify it." "Um, there's no Bill of Rights." "Well, the states already have Bills of Rights." "Yeah, that sounds like a loophole waiting to happen. Add a Bill of Rights or I'm not ratifying it." "Fine, fine. I promise that if you ratify it, we'll amend it with a Bill of Rights the first chance we get."

by amyjess 11y ago

btilly 11y ago

You have oversimplified the history. After the Fourteenth Amendment arrived, there was considerable confusion about what it actually meant for state laws. And it took a long time for the very complex details to get ironed out. That is why the case I pointed to was nearly a century after the 14th amendment was passed. See http://tenthamendmentcenter.com/2012/03/12/the-14th-amendment-and-the-bill-of-rights/ http://tenthamendmentcenter.com/2012/03/12/the-14th-amendmen... for a detailed (and admittedly somewhat opinionated) history of this topic. And see http://constitution.findlaw.com/amendment14.html http://constitution.findlaw.com/amendment14.html to start digging in on exactly how complex the current interpretation of the 14th amendment actually is.

selimthegrim 11y ago
Google 'Slaughterhouse cases', and 'Colfax massacre', and then curse Louisiana for being the rock which incorporation stubbed its toe on.
amyjess 11y ago
> You have oversimplified the history. After the Fourteenth Amendment arrived, there was considerable confusion about what it actually meant for state laws. And it took a long time for the very complex details to get ironed out. That is why the case I pointed to was nearly a century after the 14th amendment was passed. I'm not disagreeing with you. I was just placing a hard earliest point where the Bill of Rights could apply to the states, not saying that it was immediately interpreted as such as soon as it was ratified.

pdonis 11y ago

> the Bill of Rights only applied to acts of Congress ("Congress shall make no law...") That specific language only appears in the First Amendment. Other amendments were taken to apply to the states well before the Fourteenth; for example, there is case law from state courts from the first half of the 19th century dealing with how states interpret the Second Amendment, which would be meaningless if that Amendment were not held to apply to the states.

afarrell 11y ago
I would be very interested in reading that case law if you can dig it up for us.
- btilly 11y ago
  Most of the cases that are usually cited were, upon close reading, decided based on clauses in various state constitutions. The one exception that I am aware of is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nunn_v._Georgia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nunn_v._Georgia where the decision was made in a state court and hence was only binding for that state. By contrast in the early years after the 14th was passed, the Supreme Court stated in both https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Cruikshank https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Cruikshank and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presser_v._Illinois https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presser_v._Illinois that the 2nd amendment was only a restriction on what the federal government could do. State and local regulation was unaffected.
  - amyjess 11y ago
    > Most of the cases that are usually cited were, upon close reading, decided based on clauses in various state constitutions. Yes. One of the arguments against adding the Bill of Rights to the Constitution was that the states already had similar clauses. That was the reason why they're amendments and not part of the original Constitution, in fact. The argument went something like this: "Here's your new Constitution! Please ratify it." "Um, there's no Bill of Rights." "Well, the states already have Bills of Rights." "Yeah, that sounds like a loophole waiting to happen. Add a Bill of Rights or I'm not ratifying it." "Fine, fine. I promise that if you ratify it, we'll amend it with a Bill of Rights the first chance we get."