Amendment process
- 1. The Times They Are A-Changin’ The Process of Amending the Constitution
- 2. WarmUp: What Does Government Do?
- 3. Does it Work? Thomas Jefferson’s Quotes on the Constitution: • Nothing is more likely than that the enumeration of powers is defective. This is the ordinary case of all human works. Let us go on perfecting it by adding by way of amendment to the Constitution those powers which time and trial show are still wanting. -To Wilson Nicholas, 1803 • No Society can make a perpetual constitution, or even a perpetual law. -To James Madison, 1789
- 4. School of Rock • Bob Dylan, one of America’s best-known songwriters, used his music in the 1960s to illuminate the political and social issues of the time – Civil rights, women’s rights, the Vietnam War • The Times They Are A- Changin’ captured this spirit of upheaval that characterized the period
- 5. Why Change?
- 6. Notes: Amendment Process That useful alterations will be suggested by experience, could not but be foreseen. It was requisite, therefore, that a mode for introducing them should be provided. The mode preferred by the convention seems to be stamped with every mark of propriety. It guards equally against that extreme facility, which would render the Constitution too mutable; and that extreme difficulty, which might perpetuate its discovered faults. It, moreover, equally enables the general and the State governments to originate the amendment of errors, as they may be pointed out by the experience on one side, or on the other. James Madison, Federalist No.43
- 7. Notes: Amendment Process Methods of Proposal Method 1 Method 2 By a national By 2/3 vote in both constitutional the House and the convention called by Senate Congress at the request of 2/3 of the (most common method of states proposing an amendment) (has never been used)
- 8. Notes: Amendment Process Methods of Ratification Method 1 Method 2 By legislatures in ¾ Through of the states conventions in ¾ of the states (in all but one case, this is how our amendments have been ratified) (only used once to ratify the 21st Amendment)
- 9. Questions for Review • What is a constitutional amendment? • Why do you think the Founders built the amendment process into the Constitution? • Since the Constitution’s ratification in 1788, there have only been 27 amendments added. Why is it so difficult to change it? • Do you think the amendment process needs to be changed? Explain why or why not.
- 10. Making Sense of Political Cartoons • Political cartoons use satire to point out issues or take a position on political events • Satire is the use of humor, irony, or sarcasm to make fun of an individual event
- 11. SYMBOLS
- 12. EXAGGERATION / UNDERSTATEMENT • Exaggeration: – Wildly overstating the truth – Making a problem seem bigger than it is • Understatement – Saying less than the truth – Making an issue seem unimportant
- 13. CARICATURE • Picks up on a unique physical feature – magnifies it to make it more noticeable • Makes the character both: – Humorous (funny) – Identifiable (you can figure out who it is)
- 14. STEREOTYPES • Opposite of caricature – ignores uniqueness • Generalizes about groups of people • Emphasizes biases about those groups
- 15. Determine the Message • Who? • Combine with • What? S.E.C.S. • Use background • Where? knowledge • When? • Look for clues • Why? in words
- 17. Challenges
- 18. Challenges
- 19. Challenges