The Jenny Beth Show

The Bill of Rights: The Ten Amendments Were Never a Gift From Government | Bill Norton

Episode Summary

The Bill of Rights does not grant you a single right. Constitutional scholar Bill Norton walks Jenny Beth Martin through all ten amendments in the concluding lesson of the founding principles series, and the through-line is a distinction most Americans were never taught: those ten amendments protect rights you already had. They do not hand them to you. Read them the other way, Norton says, and whatever government gave, government can regulate or take back. The history is the argument. George Mason refused to sign the Constitution in Philadelphia because it carried no bill of rights. James Madison told him the government had not been given enough power to abuse anyone. Mason answered that they will, because they always do. Alexander Hamilton and Madison had a fear of their own, that listing rights would hand the federal government the authority to define them, and Norton argues both sides were proven right. From there it is amendment by amendment: freedom of conscience as the original name for freedom of religion, the 1735 acquittal of publisher Peter Zenger, the Alien and Sedition Acts and their convenient expiration date, the Second Amendment read militia first, the Third Amendment's principle of pre-consent, writs of assistance and the Internal Revenue Service, the takings clause, and the Ninth Amendment misreading Norton says he made for years. Bill Norton is a constitutional scholar and author of Speaking the Language of Liberty and coauthor of Behind the Bill of Rights. More at jennybethshow.com and teapartypatriots.org.

Episode Notes

Bill Norton is a constitutional scholar and the author of Speaking the Language of Liberty, the book he describes as a liberty self-help book, and the coauthor of Behind the Bill of Rights, written with Jeremy Nelson of the National Center for Constitutional Studies. Companion volumes on the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution are in progress. This is the fourth and final lesson in his founding principles training series with Jenny Beth Martin, following two lessons on the Declaration of Independence and one on the Constitution, with bonus episodes accompanying each.

Jenny Beth Martin hosts.

Key topics:

• Why the Bill of Rights protects rights rather than granting them, and what changes the moment you read it the other way
• The Bill of Rights as a restriction on Congress alone, and what the courts did with the Fourteenth Amendment
• George Mason refusing to sign the Constitution, and Madison's answer that the government had not been given enough power to abuse anyone
• Hamilton and Madison's argument against listing rights at all, and why Norton says both of their fears were validated
• More than two hundred state suggestions cut to seventeen, twelve sent out, and only ten ratified
• Why the two that failed were numbered one and two, and how that shifts every amendment number in the founders' letters
• The Twenty-Seventh Amendment, unratified for two centuries until a law student finished the job
• The preamble to the Bill of Rights, and Congress writing down that its purpose was to prevent misconstruction or abuse of the government's powers
• Freedom of conscience as the founders' original framing, and Thomas Paine calling toleration the counterfeit of intolerance
• The 1735 trial of publisher Peter Zenger, and Gouverneur Morris calling that jury the germ of American freedom
• The Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798, the expiration date set for the next election, and the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions
• The Second Amendment read militia first and individual right second, and why Norton says the individual right survives either way
• The Third Amendment, the one court case it ever produced, and the principle of pre-consent it left behind
• Writs of assistance, and how Norton applies the Fourth Amendment to the Internal Revenue Service
• The Fifth Amendment past pleading the fifth: charge stacking, spousal testimony, civil asset forfeiture, and the takings clause
• The Ninth Amendment misreading Norton says he made for years, and Madison telling Washington that protecting a right is the same as listing it

Timestamped breakdown:

00:14 — Cold open: the concluding lesson on the founding documents

01:42 — Philadelphia, 1787: four months in a stuffy building

02:04 — George Mason stands up and refuses to sign

03:40 — Hamilton and Madison argue against listing rights at all

06:12 — The states say no ratification without a bill of rights

08:46 — Two hundred suggestions cut to seventeen, twelve sent out

09:22 — Why the two that failed were numbered one and two

10:18 — The Twenty-Seventh Amendment, two centuries later

12:37 — The Bill of Rights does not grant you anything

13:11 — A restriction on Congress, and what the Fourteenth changed

16:03 — The preamble to the Bill of Rights

19:40 — Amendment One, and freedom of conscience

23:55 — Thomas Paine on toleration

25:14 — Freedom of speech

26:46 — The Peter Zenger case, 1735

28:53 — The Alien and Sedition Acts

32:57 — Freedom of the press

33:55 — The right to peaceably assemble

37:11 — Petition for a redress of grievances

38:28 — The Second Amendment

48:25 — The right of self-preservation

49:34 — The Third Amendment

53:21 — The pandemic and the principle of pre-consent

56:14 — The Fourth Amendment

57:45 — Writs of assistance

59:54 — Income tax and the Internal Revenue Service

01:02:10 — The Fifth Amendment

01:06:47 — Eminent domain and the takings clause

01:11:48 — The Sixth Amendment

01:18:42 — The Seventh Amendment

01:19:33 — The Eighth Amendment

01:21:28 — The Ninth Amendment

01:24:56 — The Tenth Amendment, the catch-all

01:28:55 — Closing: keeping the republic takes work

01:30:28 — The books behind the lessons

Links: jennybethshow.com | teapartypatriots.org

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