This is Episode 6 of The Savvy Citizen podcast.

I'm your host Kelley Keller and it is my privilege to present the 11th through 27th Amendments to the Constitution of the United States of America.

In the last episode, we read through the Bill of Rights, or the first 10 Amendments. Now, we turn to the 17 amendments that come after, ratified between 1795 and 1992.

For each amendment, I'll identify the date of ratification, make a brief comment about its purpose, and read the text. We'll revisit each amendment in greater detail in future episodes, but, for now, the goal is to read through them in short order and create a foundational resource for reference as we learn more down the road.

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This is Episode 5 of The Savvy Citizen podcast.

I'm your host Kelley Keller and it is my privilege to present the first 10 amendments to the United States Constitution, which are well known as the Bill of Rights.

In the previous episode, we read through the preamble and all 7 articles of the U.S. Constitution, which created our current structure of government.

You may recall from that episode that there was a long and active debate between those whom we call the federalists and those whom we call the anti-federalists, regarding the addition of a Bill of Rights to the Constitution prior to ratification.

The federalists were focused primarily on consolidating the power of the central government to ensure the country could move forward with more cohesion after the failure of the Articles of Confederation, which attempted, unsuccessfully, to hold the 13 states together by a shoestring of an alliance.

The anti-federalists, on the other hand, were opposed to centralizing that much power in the federal government without an accompanying Bill of Rights and without sufficient safeguards to ensure the presidency couldn't become a de facto monarchy.

The anti-federalists also wanted to avoid an out-of-control judiciary and to confirm that the needs of local communities would be both heard and supported by a distant national government.

In the end, the federalists got their way with a ratified Constitution, and the anti-federalists won their battle for the bill of rights, which were adopted as the first 10 amendments to the Constitution in 1791, two years after the Constitution itself went into effect

The Bill of Rights are additions to the Constitution, they do not revise or replace any language in the original text.

After the Bill of Rights was adopted, the Constitution was amended four years later, in 1795. It has been amended a total of 27 times, including the Bill of Rights, with the 27th Amendment being ratified in 1992.

We will cover the Bill of Rights in this Episode and Amendments 11 to 27 in the next Episode.

So, without further ado, I am pleased to present the first ten Amendments to the United States Constitution - the Bill of Rights - which were ratified effective December 15, 1791.

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I'm your host Kelley Keller and it is my privilege to present America's third founding document: The Constitution of the United States of America.

In the previous episode, we took a high level look at the Articles of Confederation which functioned as America's first Constitution.

But the Articles simply didn't work and we needed an upgrade. While the Articles created a "firm league of friendship" between the states as well as a central government, the central government's power was so limited that the government couldn't function well. Specifically, the central government had no power to tax, or otherwise raise money, and was entirely dependent on the States for funding.

When the states convened a Constitutional Convention in the summer of 1787, their primary aim was to be sure the new government they created had sufficieConstitutiont national power to function, but not too much power that fundamental rights are at risk.

They accomplished this by separating the power of government into three co-equal branches with checks and balances. Memories were still sharp from the founders' experience with the King of England and the powerful Parliament. The powers granted to each of the three branches are enumerated in the Constitution, everything else is reserved to the States.

The U.S. Constitution is surprisingly short. At only 4,400 words, it is the shortest (and oldest) written Constitution of any major government in the world. It has only been amended 27 times, with the last time being in 1992.

The population at the time of The Constitution's ratification was approximately 4 million, and today it is approximately 330,000,000. That the form of government our primary founding document created still survives is a testament to the founders and their capacious vision for a free nation.

Without further ado, I present to you the Constitution of the United States of America.

Connect with Kelley Keller

Read more at https://savvycitizen.substack.com/

Connect with Kelley on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/kelleykeller/