Wednesday, December 3, 2008

Deeper in the Constitution Part C

Amendments 12, 13, 14, and 15 are often referred to as a major turning point in US government policy because these amendment rights were in the past, either was banned or given too much power to some of the race especially white people. Importantly, because of these amendments, a lot of people especially the coloured people are then free and has much of the equal rights the whites did. In amendment 12, it talks about the presidency and the electoral college. Amendment 12 is stating the president candidate who have the most electorate votes would be the president. Then the candidate with the second most votes would be the president. However today is different because the president gets to choose the vice president. It seems in the amendment, most of the votes are from electoral and because of amendment 13-15 there are more coloured people that are able to vote with freedom and make decisions. Amendment 13: Slavery is eliminated, Amendment 14: People born in the U.S. are U.S. citizens even if they are different skin color, and Amendment 15: All citizens can vote, does not matter on the race, or color. These three amendments are very important to the coloured people because now that the slavery is abolished, I think especially for African Americans, they would feel more free than ever. Additionally, they are now identified as "U.S. citizens" than "slaves" and they can vote like other people (white people) can. These amendments are able to make America more equal and more just like the preamble wants it to be. It had made at least half the people of the population of that time period to receive equal rights like others. (Source taken from http://firebolt.com/constitution/amendments.html#AM11)

Does the 14th combine with the earlier "no religious test" clause to guarantee a vision of a diverse and equitable society with no government discrimination?
I think the 14th amendment combine with the "no religiuos test" claus can give a vision of a diverse and equitable society with no government discrimination because in a way, everybody has to follow it. And their goal was to create the society to be equal and diverse. In the 14th amendment, everybody is counted equally in the census meaning all the races are counted fairly. In the "no religious test" clause, the Congress members cannot be discriminating each other because they are on the top and protecting people, if the members does not work together, it will be chaos for the people below. If they do work together and having the 14th amendment protecting the rights of the coloured people, the society would become more balance, equal and having more people to be joined into the society. It would also affect the change the white people had on the coloured people and maybe the coloured people on the white people. It will take a long time to get that vision to become successful but I think because of the 14th amendment and the "no religious test" clause, it gives a chance to renew and refresh many (maybe) of the conflicts and change it in a way to give everyone the right to say something for themselves.

After reading through the list from amendments 16-27, I find amendment 19 where all the gender can vote important because since I am a girl and at that time, before 19 came the women were not able to vote. But because the 19th amendment let all gender to vote, it makes a huge different to the women and gave them another right to sound out their voices.

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