well hey there and welcome back to heimler's history and furthermore welcome to the first video review for unit three of the AP Government curriculum this unit is all about civil liberties and civil rights and this video in particular is an introduction to the Bill of Rights so if you're ready to get them brain cows milk then let's get to it so in this video here's what we're trying to do explain how the US Constitution protects individual liberties and rights and describe the rights protected in the Bill of Rights Okay so we've got plenty to do but let me remind you before we jump in that if you need help getting an A in your class and a five on your exam in May then you can grab my AP Government viiew package it's got exclusive videos that are not here on YouTube and practice questions and AP style practice exams and basically everything your little heart could possibly desire to succeed in your class and do well on the exam so if that's something you're into then get your clicky finger out and follow the link in the description okay so the Bill of Rights what is it and where did it come from well the Bill of Rights includes the first 10 amendments to the Constitution designed to protect civil liberties and what are civil liberties civil liberties are constitutionally established guarantees and freedoms that protect citizens against arbitrary government interference in other words the Bill of Rights exist to keep Big Daddy government from getting all up in your business now where did the Bill of Rights come from well as you no doubt remember there was a great fight over the ratification of the Constitution and the Waring factions were known as the Federalists who were in favor of a more powerful central government and the Anti-Federalists who were in favor of more powerful states and since the Constitution very much invested the federal government the central government with more power than it had under the Articles of Confederation the Anti-Federalist got a little Twitchy about the possibility of that government becoming tyrannical and squashing their freedoms so the Anti-Federalist said they would not sign or ratify the Constitution without a Bill of Rights that outlined the specific Liberties upon which the federal government could not tread now probably the most important of these Anti-Federalists for you to know is George Mason he was a delegate from Virginia at the Constitutional Convention and was not shy about frequently opening his mouth hole and protesting the Constitution's lack of a Bill of Rights now James Madison who wrote the Constitution argued along with his fellow Federalists that no Bill of Rights was necessary because a free government by the people had no right to trample on civil liberties anyway so what's the point in spelling all of them out Plus Madison said if we start listing out specific protected rights it's very likely that something is going to be left off that list and thus better not to specifically mention anything but Mason and the Anti-Federalists were like nuh-uh and demanded that a Bill of Rights be included if there was any hope of their States ratifying the Constitution and so Madison compromised and finally agreed to include a Bill of Rights as soon as the requisite number of states ratified the document and that day came in September of 1787 when the delegates at the Constitutional Convention signed off on the document and then in the next year when the Constitution was finally ratified so Madison got to work on the first 10 amendments to the Constitution and he drew heavily from George Mason's own work in the Virginia Declaration of Rights included in the state of Virginia's Constitution which in turn borrowed from the English Bill of Rights in the Magna cartter now Madison wrote more than 10 Amendments but only 10 of them were ratified and since I'm devoting whole videos to the content of these amendments here I'm only going to give you a taste look I'm not just listing these out for funsies you do have to have a working knowledge of the these amendments and that's what this whole unit is about so let's have a look the first amendment protects the freedom of religion speech press assembly and petition the second amendment protects the right to keep and bear arms the third amendment protects citizens from having soldiers quartered in their homes the fourth amendment protects against unreasonable searches and seizures of personal property and effects the Fifth Amendment deals with the rights of citizens when they are accused of crimes in the same vein the sixth amendment explains how the process will go when a person is accused of a crime and explains the protections to which they are entitled the seventh amendment guarantees the right to trial by jury the eighth amendment protects against cruel and unusual punishment and excessive bail the ninth amendment acknowledges that if there are other rights not mentioned in the first 10 amendments their exclusion from the list does not mean that such rights are not protected and the 10th Amendment says that any power is not explicitly granted by the Constitution to the federal government belong exclusively to the states okay so that's the content of the Bill of Rights and there's one more very important thing I need to mention regarding these amendments the Liberties outlined in the Bill of Rights protect citizens from intrusion by the federal government and that was the point of including these amendments the Anti-Federalists were afraid of intrusion by the federal government and that's precisely what these 10 Amendments protected them from so that means in the early days of the Republic all the Liberties listed in the Bill of Rights protected citizens from the federal government not state governments now later with the passage of the 14th Amendment the Bill of Rights will be applied to the States but that's not how it originally was all right click here and grab my ultimate review packet if 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