Only if a State were explicitly exercising one of the few forbidden powers or (later, as I indicate) they were actively denying the substance of the first 8 Amendments to their citizensActually, the BoR should not be considered without also taking into account the Preamble to same, the relevant portion of which reads:
Yes. The first 8 Amendments, being mutually agreed upon by all the States, was binding on all the States.
The conventions of a number of the States having, at the time of their adopting the Constitution, expressed a desire, in order to prevent misconstruction or abuse of its powers, that further declaratory and restrictive clauses should be added, and as extending the ground of public confidence in the Government will best insure the beneficent ends of its institution.Without belaboring the point, please note that Stateswhich preexisted the Constitutionwere concerned about the abuse of "its powers"and not "their powers" as one should expect if the BoR were intended at the start to be applied to the several States. Examination of the rest of the preamble and some of the articles themselves will bear this out.
A well-regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.This article exist mainly within the context of Article 1:Section 8, the relevant portion of which reads:
To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces;The important function of the 2nd Amendment may be summed up in that context as follows: it PREVENTS the Congress from so regulating the formation of the Militia as to PREVENT it and further prevents the Congress from disarming the People from whom the Militia would be comprised.
To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions;
To provide for organization, arming, and disciplining, the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;
No Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the Owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.Please consider, a "Soldier" is not the same thing as a militiaman. For one, he is a definitive article ("Soldier" nor soldier) and thus relates to belonging in a standing Army as governed by Article 1:Section 8. A militiaman, being part of the Militia, is not properly a "Soldier" in that sense.
In Suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise re-examined in any court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law.It was the "due process" and "equal protection" clauses of the 14th Amendment that extended the Amendments in question to be authoritative over the several States. A careful reading of the Slaughterhouse opinion will demonstrate that the 1st Amendment (among a few other essential rights) was already held applicable apparently becauseours being a representative Republicit was imprudent to distinguish between the activity of a political party at the State level and the activity of same at the Federal level THUS the assurance given in Article 4:Section 2:
The Citizens of each State shall be entitled to all Privileges and Immunities of Citizens in the several States.... was called into play.
Mr. Justice FIELD, dissenting:Please understand the sections I've highlighted.
I am unable to agree with the majority of the courts in these cases, and will proceed to state the reasons of my dissent from their judgment.
The question presented is, therefore, one of the gravest importance, not merely to the parties here, but to the whole country. It is nothing less than the question whether the recent amendments to the Federal Constitution protect the citizens of the United States against the deprivation of their common rights by State legislation. In my judgment the fourteenth amendment does afford such protection, and was so intended by the Congress which framed and the States which adopted it....
The amendment does not attempt to confer any new privileges or immunities upon citizens, or to enumerate or define those already existing. It assumes that there are such privileges and immunities which belong of right to citizens as such, and ordains that they shall not be abridged by State legislation. If this inhibition has no reference to privileges and immunities of this character, but only refers, as held by the majority of the court in their opinion, to such privileges and immunities as were before its adoption specially designated in the Constitution or necessarily implied as belonging to citizens of the United States, it was a vain and idle enactment, which accomplished nothing, and most unnecessarily excited Congress and the people on its passage. With privileges and immunities thus designated or implied no State could ever have interfered by its laws, and no new constitutional provision was required to inhibit such interference. The supremacy of the Constitution and the laws of the United States always, controlled any State legislation of that character. But if the amendment refers to the natural and inalienable rights which belong to all citizens, the inhibition has a profound significance and consequence.
What, then, are the privileges and immunities which are secured against abridgment by State legislation?
In the first section of the Civil Rights Act Congress has given its interpretation to these terms, or at least has stated some of the rights which, in its judgment, these terms include; it has there declared that they include the right "to make and enforce contracts, to sue, be parties and give evidence, to inherit, purchase, lease, sell, hold, and convey real and personal property, and to full and equal benefit of all laws and proceedings for the security of person and property." That act, it is true, was passed before the fourteenth amendment, but the amendment was adopted, as I have already said, to obviate objections to the act, or, speaking more accurately, I should say, to obviate objections to legislation of a similar character, extending the protection of the National government over the common rights of all citizens of the United States. Accordingly, after its ratification, Congress re-enacted the act under the belief that whatever doubts may have previously existed of its validity, they were removed by the amendment.
The terms, privileges and immunities, are not new in the amendment; they were in the Constitution before the amendment was adopted. They are found in the second section of the fourth article, which declares that "the citizens of each State shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States," and they have been the subject of frequent consideration in judicial decisions.
I am authorized by the CHIEF JUSTICE, Mr. Justice SWAYNE, and Mr. Justice BRADLEY, to state that they concur with me in this dissenting opinion.
That's one thing most people don't see. The States created the federal government, not the other way around.
The created can never be superior to the creator...period. The act of creation grants an inherent superiority.
That which you create, you have the right to control, and the federal government was given a very narrow area in which it had exclusive control.
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That act, it is true, was passed before the fourteenth amendment, but the amendment was adopted, as I have already said, to obviate objections to the act, or, speaking more accurately, I should say, to obviate objections to legislation of a similar character, extending the protection of the National government over the common rights of all citizens of the United States.
In doing what the Judge suggests, it obliterates the Constitution. Nowhere does the federal government have the authority to reach outside its Constitutional boundaries.
It'll take me a while to sort through everything. It's been a while since I've read Slaughterhouse. I usually have to go through this type of things over and over....and I learn something new everytime!
:-)