How we got our Bill of Rights: Speakers examine what they mean, how they shaped U.S. Constitution

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January 31, 2017 - 12:00 AM

HUMBOLDT — Residents were given an interactive, and eventually tasty, look at the Bill of Rights and how they impact lives today.
Monday’s program, sponsored by the Humboldt Historical Preservation Alliance, was part of the Bill of Rights display set up at Humboldt City Hall.
Eric Carlson, government, history and economics instructor at Humboldt High School, and Heather Bosler, a reporter and photographer for the Humboldt Union, provided the lesson plans.
Carlson’s presentation focused on the history of the Bill of Rights, and the U.S. Constitution as a whole. Bosler used an exercise that focused on the First Amendment.

CARLSON spoke briefly about the Constitution’s predecessors, the Declaration of Independence and Articles of Confederation.
Through the Declaration of Independence, the 13 British colonies announced their secession from Great Britain, while also asserting that all men were created equal, and all were endowed with certain inalienable rights — life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
That was fine and dandy, Carlson said, but the newly formed United States of America still needed a set of instructions in order to get its new government off the ground.
The Founding Fathers hammered out the Articles of Confederation, which served as the country’s first constitution and allowed the U.S. to do such things as conduct diplomacy and establish the 13 sovereign states.
But the Articles had a number of weaknesses, Carlson noted, because they gave little sway to the federal government, and made such tasks such as taxation difficult.
“The Articles of Confederation was a good start, but it didn’t serve the purposes it needed to,” Carlson said. “The federal government could ask for troops, and it could ask for money, but the states didn’t have to do either one.”
Not much later, alarmed nationalists gathered in 1787 and spent several months drafting what became the Constitution.
“By the time they finished cussing and discussing everything … we have a new form of government,” Carlson said. “But it’s not perfect.”
The Constitution had three articles, setting up the legislative, executive and judicial branches of government.
But as it took shape, citizens found themselves in one of two factions — one in favor of a strong central government (the federalists), and the others more in favor of states and individual liberty (anti-federalists), leading to what today remains the nation’s two-party system.
The anti-federalists persuaded the drafters — in this case, James Madison — that a Bill of Rights was needed.
By the fall of 1789, Madison had written a series of amendments, of which 10 were ratified over the next two years, thus creating the Bill of Rights.

CARLSON gave brief summaries of various amendments, and what they mean. As a teacher, he said he frequently allows vigorous debate in his classroom about what the Bill of Rights allow, and disallow.
“If students leave my classroom, and they think they know whether I am a Republican or a Democrat, I don’t think I’ve done my job,” Carlson said. “I don’t think it’s my right or my wish to sway them in any direction.
“But I will be a devil’s advocate,” he continued, “just to get them to think a little bit.”
To wit, he broached the gun debate: How much can the government do to keep guns away from criminals and youth? Likewise, he focused on both the thousands of people who die annually because of guns, as well as the lives saved because of guns.

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