Did you know North Carolina banned alcohol long before the rest of the country did?

Our state made its choice years ahead of national Prohibition. Then, when the country finally moved to end the ban, North Carolina went its own way once more.

The 21st Amendment repealed Prohibition in 1933, but h0ow that fight played out here at home is a story most people never learned.

Today’s post in our month-long series looks at the amendment that gave back a freedom the country had taken away.

Text:

Interpretation:

The Twenty-First Amendment is unique in two ways: it is the only one that repeals a previous amendment and the only amendment ratified by Constitutional Convention.

In 1920, the Eighteenth Amendment, known as the Prohibition, was ratified by the required three-fourths of state legislatures.

However, to repeal Prohibition Congress chose the Constitution’s Article V option of state ratifying conventions.

The reason for this unusual move? According to the National Constitution Center:

“The answer seems to be that though prohibition of alcohol had lost a great deal of popular support by the early 1930s, the political power of the temperance lobby remained intact in a great many states. Many state legislators and legislative leaders were likely to be unwilling to risk the lobby’s wrath. So political prudence pointed in the direction of ratifying conventions as a way of leaving gun-shy legislators with their eyes on re-election out of the process and ‘off the hook’.”

What had been referred to as “the Noble Experiment” lost popular support for several reasons. David A. J. Richards in writing his opinion on Prohibition (constitutioncenter.org) said the Amendment failed because:

“… (it) touched on issues of the control of consciousness that are at the heart of the values of freedom of thought and experience of the First Amendment (both the Free Exercise and Free Speech Clauses), and that any prohibition of such drugs must be justified by a compelling secular purpose.

Neither the prohibition of alcohol nor of many other drugs could be thus justified, and indeed worsened harms sometimes incident to drug use that could better be mitigated by forms of regulation …

The Prohibition Amendment for this reason violated human rights, and should further be condemned because its political motives were, on examination, racist, condemning the ways of life not only of people of color but of racialized recent immigrants.

Such unjust criminalization—by making sale and manufacture of alcohol illegal—also made now illegal such businesses lucrative, including willingness to use forms of violence to support such businesses. The violent criminality associated with alcohol use was, in fact, largely the product of its unjust criminalization (its criminogenesis).”

North Carolina did not ratify the Twenty-First Amendment mainly because lawmakers refused to call a state convention. The Amendment was officially ratified on December 3, 1933.

The North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources website, which catalogues historical documents, posted:

“On May 26, 1908, North Carolina voters approved a prohibition on the sale of alcoholic beverages statewide. North Carolina was the first state in the nation to approve such a measure, and did so by the wide margin of 62 to 38 percent.

North Carolina thus became the first state to adopt Prohibition by a direct vote of the people.

The law went into effect in 1909, eleven years before the Eighteenth Amendment established national Prohibition.”

Less than two years after the end to national Prohibition, North Carolina ended its state prohibition.

In 1935 the North Carolina General Assembly passed laws that granted local options for the sale of alcohol, with the provisions for Alcoholic Beverage Control Boards administering retail shops.

On July 2, 1935, the state’s first ABC Store, offering legal alcohol for the first time in twenty-six years, opened in Wilson. 🐦

Text Sourced From:

• Amendment: constitutioncenter.org

• Historical Background: constitutioncenter.org and
  North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources

• Additional Resources:

  • History – 21st Amendment ratified Dec 5, 1933

  • History – 18th Amendment ratified Jan 16, 1919

Researched & Written by:

• D.C. Davis, Cardinal Scribe

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Can a country have two Presidents at once?

For a while, it almost felt that way. After every election, months passed before the winner took office. One President was on the way out. Another was waiting to start. Nobody was fully in charge.

The 20th Amendment fixed that in 1932. It moved up the start of new terms and closed the gap. For decades, hardly anyone thought about it. Then two modern elections reminded us why it exists.

Today’s post in our month-long series looks at the amendment that decides exactly when power changes hands.

Text:

Interpretation:

For 144 years, there was a four-month delay between federal elections and the inauguration of a new President and members of the U.S. Congress. The delay created a “lame duck” Congress, in which lawmakers were still in power but had very little political influence.

Concern about what could happen when the U.S. was “between Presidents” or, as some said, had “two Presidents” led to the Twentieth Amendment in 1932.

Section 1 of the Amendment fixes the start dates for the regular terms of members of the U. S. Congress as January 3rd of the year following their election. For President and Vice President, inauguration was set for January 20th.

The remaining sections of the Amendment have never been used or were only used to ratify or implement the first section.

According to the National Constitution Center,

“By the end of the 1933 legislative sessions, all forty-eight states had ratified the Twentieth Amendment, making it one of the few amendments to the Constitution ratified by all the states and the fastest to achieve that feat.”

The Amendment has never been the subject of a U.S. Supreme Court case, and for almost 20 years after its ratification, it was all but forgotten.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt was in the second half of his first term when the Amendment was ratified. He was elected for three more terms.

There were no term limits at that time. The country was coming out of the Great Depression and heading toward a war. People wanted stability.

When the President died in 1945, his vice president, Harry S. Truman, was sworn in immediately as President. In 1948, Truman was elected to another four years.

Dwight D. Eisenhower was elected President in 1952, testing the Twentieth Amendment for the first time. The ten weeks between Eisenhower’s election and his inauguration were uneventful.

The Twentieth Amendment was rarely mentioned for 48 years, until the 2000 Presidential election. A constitutional crisis was averted when Vice-President Al Gore conceded the election in late December.

The Presidential election of 2020 brought another, much stronger, challenge to the Twentieth Amendment. President Donald Trump and his supporters were reluctant to concede defeat.

According to a February 11, 2021 article published by Reuters, on March 3, 2020, Trump signed the Presidential Transition Enhancement Act, which had passed the House of Representatives unanimously.

The act “makes changes intended to smooth the transfer of executive power during presidential transitions” by amending the Presidential Transition Act of 1963.

The Reuters “Fact Check” article debunks misinformation about the Act Trump signed posted online by people refusing to accept the election results:

“The posts’ claim that Donald Trump will retain control of the military until March 21, 2021, 60 days after Biden’s inauguration, is likely a misinterpretation of the act’s stipulation to “extend support provided by the General Services Administration (GSA) to the President- and Vice President-elect for up to 60 days after the inauguration.”

“The March 4 claims may relate to the fact that until the 20th Amendment came into effect in 1933, the official day for presidential inaugurations was March 4, unless the fourth fell on a Sunday, in which case the ceremonies were held on March 5.”

“The 20th Amendment to the Constitution, however, states that the “terms of the President and the Vice President shall end at noon on the 20th day of January, and the terms of Senators and Representatives at noon on the 3d day of January, of the years in which such terms would have ended if this article had not been ratified; and the terms of their successors shall then begin”.

On January 6, 2021, rioters stormed the Capitol to stop the Senate from certifying the election results. Fortunately, the results were certified and Trump left the White House on January 20th.

However, he never conceded the election. 🐦

Text Sourced From:

• Amendment: constitutioncenter.org

• Historical Background: constitutioncenter.org

Researched & Written by:

• D.C. Davis, Cardinal Scribe

Double-check your voter registration here:
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Learn more about the Forsyth County Democratic Party on our website: https://fcdpnc.org

Did you know North Carolina waited more than 50 years to ratify the amendment giving women the right to vote?

The Nineteenth Amendment says no citizen can be denied the vote because of their sex. It became law in 1920. But the fight to get there took generations, and our state was not on the right side of it.

One woman was arrested for casting a ballot. A western territory refused statehood terms rather than take the vote away from its women. And North Carolina came within one vote of making history for the wrong reason.

Today’s post in our month-long series looks at the amendment that gave women a voice at the ballot box.

Text:

Historical Background:

In 1872, Susan B. Anthony led 50 women to a polling place in Rochester, New York, and registered to vote. On election day, they cast their ballots; Anthony was arrested and charged with election fraud.

The following year, the case, United States v. Susan B. Anthony, was heard in federal court in New York. Anthony believed the Fourteenth Amendment gave her the right to vote. The judge ordered the jury to find her guilty and fined her $100. She refused to pay, and she was never allowed to appeal to the Supreme Court.

Anthony’s case brought national attention to the suffrage movement. The trial was a reminder of a complicated legal system, but it also showed the determination of women to fight for their right to vote. The question Anthony raised did reach the Supreme Court through another woman’s case.

Virginia Minor of Missouri attempted to register to vote in 1872, but had been refused. She filed her own lawsuit, Minor v. Happersett, citing the Fourteenth Amendment. In 1875, the Supreme Court ruled against Minor, deciding that citizenship did not confer voting rights.

According to an article by Nancy Gertner and Gail Heriot posted on the National Constitution Center’s website (constitutioncenter.org), after the Minor case, “the suffrage movement changed its strategy and began to advocate for a separate amendment that would allow women to vote”.

In the Wyoming territory, women had been voting for six years. The governor signed a bill into law Dec. 10, 1869, making the territory the first government in the world to grant full voting rights to women.

According to Wyoming’s historical website (wyohistory.org),

“When Wyoming applied for statehood, Congress initially balked. But the Wyoming legislature stood its ground and cabled back to Congressional leaders, ‘We will remain out of the Union one hundred years rather than come in without the women.’”

Congress did eventually agree. Wyoming became a state in 1890, two years after applying. Before the turn of the century, Utah, Colorado, and Idaho also became suffrage states.

In 1919, 50 years after Wyoming included a women’s right to vote in their constitution, the Nineteenth Amendment passed both chambers of the U.S. Congress. It was ratified by the states in 1920.

However, it was not ratified in North Carolina until May 6, 1971.

The women’s suffrage movement began in North Carolina in 1894 when Helen Morris Lewis held the first public meeting in Asheville. Three years later a women’s suffrage bill was introduced in the N.C. Senate but was moved to the Committee on Insane Asylums.

The revival of the women’s suffrage movement in North Carolina came in 1913, with a meeting of the Equal Suffrage Association, in Charlotte. Again, lawmakers did not take the women seriously.

After the Nineteenth Amendment was passed in Congress and the ratification process began, the North Carolina Senate was forced to take the issue seriously. According to an article in The Carolina Journal (May 6, 2026),

By the time the 19th Amendment reached the NC legislature, 35 states already ratified the amendment. It was believed that North Carolina or Tennessee would be the 36th and final state necessary.

Textile mill owners were concerned that women would vote largely in favor of labor reform because they would try to curtail child labor, which the mills relied on heavily.

Furthermore, white supremacists argued that allowing the federal government to decide voting rules violated states’ rights. North Carolina had effectively disenfranchised black men in 1900 and wanted to maintain that control.

On Aug. 17, 1920, the NC State Senate voted 25-23 to postpone the final vote. The next day, Tennessee approved the amendment, making it law. Women’s suffrage became law across the land, at least on paper. So, what did North Carolinians do? Not much.

By 1971, however, feminism and women’s rights were emerging issues, and North Carolina had not ratified women’s most basic political right, the right to vote. North Carolina legislators decided it was time to right their wrongs, and the 19th Amendment came up again in the North Carolina General Assembly. This time it was mostly approved for symbolic reasons.

Mississippi did not ratify the Nineteenth Amendment until 1984.

In addition to giving women the right to vote, the Amendment was a crucial first step in shaping the fight for other women’s rights issues: employment, reproductive freedoms, education, and athletics.

Unfortunately, those hard-earned rights are under attack in 2026. 🐦

Text Sourced From:

• Amendment: constitutioncenter.org

• Historical Background: constitutioncenter.org, wyohistory.org, & The Carolina Journal

“Who Could Actually Vote in 1920?” Sourced From:

• National Park Service: African American Women and the Nineteenth Amendment

• National Park Service: Nemesis, The South and the Nineteenth Amendment

• Historic New Orleans Collection: Why the 19th Amendment Didn’t Put an End to the Struggle for Voting Rights

• History.com: Why the 19th Amendment Did Not Guarantee All Women the Right to Vote

• Library of Congress: The Indian Citizenship Act of 1924

• Brennan Center for Justice: How Voter Suppression Laws Target Native Americans

Researched & Written by:

• D.C. Davis, Cardinal Scribe

• (”Who Could Actually Vote in 1920?” section)

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What issue could pull racists, progressives, suffragists, populists, and nativists into the same fight, all pushing for the same outcome?

Banning alcohol, of course.

In 1919, the 18th Amendment made it illegal to make, sell, or transport liquor anywhere in the United States. It’s the only amendment that took a freedom away instead of protecting one.

Each group had its own reasons, and most had little to do with drinking. The amendment was rushed through so fast that many voters never got a say. What followed changed American life: lost jobs, lost tax money, organized crime, and a musical revolution that gave us the Jazz Age.

Today’s post in our month-long series looks at the amendment that tried to ban a freedom, and what happened when it did.

Text:

Historical Background:

Taxes on alcohol had been a significant source of government revenues from the nation’s founding. The Sixteenth Amendment, ratified in 1913, established a new source of revenue for the federal government: income tax.

A major obstacle for proponents of a prohibition on liquor had been financial. Thanks to the new amendment, that was no longer an issue at the federal level. The groups supporting an Eighteenth Amendment came together for different reasons, but with one common goal.

In his study of the Eighteenth Amendment and its repeal, Daniel Okrent identifies the powerful political coalition that worked successfully in the two decades leading to the ratification of the Eighteenth Amendment:

“Five distinct, if occasionally overlapping, components made up this unspoken coalition: racists, progressives, suffragists, populists (whose ranks included a small socialist auxiliary), and nativists. Adherents of each group may have been opposed to alcohol for its own sake, but used the Prohibition impulse to advance ideologies and causes that had little to do with it.”

In a live panel discussion hosted by The National Constitution Center, historian Lisa Andersen said the Eighteenth Amendment was ratified too quickly. The Amendment was proposed by Congress on December 18, 1917, and was ratified on January 16, 1919.

“The speed is important because of two factors,“ Andersen explained. “Soldiers in World War I are having difficulty in communicating with their representatives … and members of the State legislatures were elected before prohibition was set as a national issue so … constituents didn’t know that representative’s position on prohibition.”

Andersen added that the speed in which the amendment was ratified meant the government “failed to meet that standard of deliberation that’s a critical prerequisite for democracy to take place.”

Writing for the Center’s site (constitutioncenter.org), David A. J. Richards said,

“What is all too conspicuous in the coalition supporting the Eighteenth Amendment is not only blatant racism against people of color, but also a racism of ethnic hatred against German-Americans and the more recent immigrants to the United States—the so-called ‘hyphenated Americanism’

America, a nation of immigrants, remains, as our contemporary politics shows, vulnerable to sometimes irrational fear of new immigrants of different ethnicities or religions from the dominant majority.”

The Prohibition on Liquor had unintended consequences. Before Prohibition, many states relied heavily on excise taxes in liquor sales to fund their budgets. In New York, almost 75% of the state’s revenue was derived from liquor taxes. With Prohibition in effect, that revenue was immediately lost.

According to experts interviewed for the PBS documentary, Prohibition by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick:

“The closing of breweries, distilleries and saloons led to the elimination of thousands of jobs, and in turn thousands more jobs were eliminated for barrel makers, truckers, waiters, and other related trades.

Prohibition cost the federal government a total of $11 billion in lost tax revenue, while costing over $300 million to enforce.

The most lasting consequence was that many states and the federal government would come to rely on income tax revenue to fund their budgets going forward.”

The cultural revolution brought on by the Eighteenth Amendment gave us the “Roaring Twenties” and “The Jazz Age.”

Speakeasies, owned by local mobsters, provided an underground nightlife that defied all social barriers. Everyone was free to be themselves, fueled by alcohol and a strong rebellious nature. The most sought after musicians, Duke Ellington and Louis Armstrong, created the soundtrack for the 1920s.

There was also the dark side of the era. Mobsters became Kings and brutally killed anyone who tried to dethrone them.

What was once called a “Noble Experiment” failed, and the Eighteenth Amendment was repealed in 1933. 🐦

Text Sourced From:

• Amendment: constitutioncenter.org

Historical Background Researched & Written by:

• D.C. Davis, Cardinal Scribe

Double-check your voter registration here:
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Did you know you couldn’t always vote for your U.S. Senators?

For over a century, state legislatures picked them, and regular voters had no say. The 17th Amendment gave that choice to the people.

Since 1913, every voter in North Carolina has helped decide who represents us in the Senate.

But that change came with a price nobody saw coming: Senate candidates now had to run statewide campaigns, and campaigns cost money.

Today’s post in our month-long series looks at what happened next, and why some people still argue about the amendment that put our Senators on your ballot.

Text of 17th Amendment:

What Happened in 1913?

On February 3, 1913, the Sixteenth Amendment was passed, followed by the Seventeenth Amendment on April 8. On December 23, 1913, President Woodrow Wilson signed into law, the Federal Reserve Act . A single year that reshaped the architecture of American governance and set the trajectory for the century that followed.

The 17th Amendment created the demand for campaign money by making senators run popular elections. The 16th Amendment created the supply of influence by building a federal budget worth lobbying for. Together, they built the infrastructure for the modern campaign finance crisis. The1913Project.org

Until the ratification of the Seventeenth Amendment, U.S. Senators were selected by state legislatures under Article I: Section 3 of the Constitution. Members of the House of Representatives are elected by the people of their state under Article 1: Section 2 of the Constitution.

Creation of two different selection methods for members of Congress was deliberate: the House represented the people; the Senate represented the states. However, not everyone agreed with the powers given the Senate because the “Senate combines in itself the legislative, the executive, and the judicial powers…”

In an article for the National Constitution Center (constitutioncenter.org), Steven G. Calabresi wrote:

“James Madison devoted four Federalist Papers: The Federalist Nos. 47 through 51, to refuting the Anti-Federalist argument that the Senate was a dangerous institution. Madison argued that the principle of checks and balances is even more important than the separation of powers to the preservation of constitutional government.”

The Seventeenth Amendment and Federalism in an Age of National Political Parties (openyls.law.yale.edu) was published in May of 2014, by David Schleicher. He began his article by saying,

“Despite it being the constitutional amendment that most directly altered the structure of the federal government, little is known about how and why the Seventeenth Amendment was enacted.”

“For a brief moment in 2010, the Seventeenth Amendment suddenly and surprisingly became news,” Schleicher added. “... repealing the Seventeenth Amendment became popular among Tea Party figures and Republican candidates for office.”

In Schleicher’s opinion, this upsurge in attention to the Seventeenth Amendment, “and the continuing support for repeal in Congress and beyond, raises one of the great, unanswered questions in constitutional history:

Why did we take away from state legislatures the power to select senators, which James Madison described in The Federalist No. 62 as so “congenial with the public opinion” that it was “unnecessary to dilate?”

Congress’ final action of 1913 was passage of The Federal Reserve Act. President Woodrow Wilson signed the new law on December 23rd, creating a bank that controls the country’s money supply, interest rates, and inflation.

The creation of the Federal Reserve not only established a new interpretation of federal economic authority but also highlighted enduring tensions — between crisis management and constitutional constraints, expertise and democratic oversight, pragmatic demands and philosophical principles — that continue to fuel debates about its 21st-century role, authority, and legitimacy (Institute for New Economic Thinking, 2025).

The Sixteenth Amendment clarified the way income taxes were to be collected and the federal budget grew larger than anyone imagined, allowing the federal government to spend more.

Senators didn’t need to raise money when they were appointed to Congress by state legislatures. But the Seventeenth Amendment forces Senate candidates to campaign statewide, and that requires money.

Over a century later, we can see the unintended consequences of 1913. People with money can buy the loyalty of elected officials and despite living in a rich country, marginalized communities’ needs are being ignored.

Demagogues were created in he years following 1913 and that was what Framers of the U.S. Constitution feared most.🐦

Researched & Written by:

• D.C. Davis, Cardinal Scribe

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Every payday, you see it: the line on your pay stub where federal taxes come out. Ever wonder where Congress got the power to do that?

The 16th Amendment settled that question in 1913. It let Congress tax income directly, from any source, without splitting the bill among the states by population.

Now some lawmakers and a shadowy online group want to repeal it. They call the income tax a system “the Founders never envisioned.” What would replace it? Their answers might surprise you.

Today’s post in our month-long series looks at the amendment that decides how America pays its bills.

Text:

Historical Context: What Happened in 1913?

Months after Woodrow Wilson was elected president, three major events occurred in the U.S. Congress. On February 3, 1913, the Sixteenth Amendment was passed, followed by the Seventeenth Amendment on April 8. On December 23, 1913, the Federal Reserve Act was created. All products of the Progressive Era. A single year that reshaped the architecture of American governance and set the trajectory for the century that followed.

Current Considerations

The Sixteenth and Seventeenth Amendments are being attacked by several lawmakers and an organization called The 1913 Project (the1913project.org).

The online group claims to be nonpartisan, but does not list anyone as supporters or founders of the group. Their proposed reform agenda reads in part:

“The 16th Amendment gave the federal government unlimited direct taxing power over individual citizens. What began as a modest tax on the wealthy has become a sprawling system that touches every working American, and funds a federal apparatus the Founders never envisioned.”

Reform options range from full repeal to replacement with a national consumption tax (fair tax), a flat tax, or a constitutional cap on income tax rates. The goal is not to eliminate federal revenue; it’s to restore structural limits on the government’s power to tax and spend without constraint.

Rep. Warren Davidson, a Republican from Ohio’s 8th congressional district, introduced a bill (H.J. Res. 14) to repeal the Sixteenth Amendment last year.

According to Erik M. Jensen, a Federal Taxation expert writing for The National Constitution Center (constitutioncenter.org):

“The Sixteenth Amendment is often said to have given Congress the power to tax income, but Congress always had that power. The question answered by the Amendment was whether an income tax is a direct tax that has to be apportioned.”

Article 1: Section 8, of the U.S. Constitution gives Congress the “Power to lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises”. The amendment’s “apportionment” answer means income taxes are imposed, based on a person’s income, uniformly across all states regardless of population size.

The Constitution defines three types of taxes:

• Direct taxes, which must be apportioned among the states in proportion to their populations;

• “Indirect taxes,” specifically duties, imposts, and excises, which must be uniform throughout the country; and

• Income taxes on humans (as opposed to businesses or other entities), which may apply to income derived from a source.

In his 2004 article, “Interpreting the Sixteenth Amendment (By Way of the Direct-Tax Clauses)” Jensen wrote:

“Not all taxes are automatically constitutional. Words matter, and we shouldn’t assume that terms like “direct taxes” and “taxes on incomes” are infinitely malleable. No tax since 1861 has been apportioned, and I assume Congress isn’t likely to consider enacting an apportioned tax ever again.”

In tomorrow’s post, we will look at the Seventeenth Amendment, the Federal Reserve Act, and how they may have led to today’s “campaign finance crisis.”🐦

Text Sourced From:

• Amendment: constitutioncenter.org

• Historical Background: constitutioncenter.org

• Current Considerations: the1913project.org

Current Considerations Researched & Written by:

• D.C. Davis, Cardinal Scribe

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You’ve heard the phrase “grandfathered in,” right?
It usually refers to an old rate, an old plan, an old rule that still applies to you. Do you know where it comes from?

After the 15th Amendment gave Black men the right to vote in 1870, Southern states invented ways to get around it. They came up with poll taxes, literacy tests, and a loophole. They said that if your grandfather could vote before 1867, you didn’t have to take the test.

Since many Black men’s grandfathers had been enslaved, the “grandfather clause” was written to exclude them from voting without ever explicitly saying so.

Today’s post in our month-long series looks at the amendment that promised the vote, and the century it took to make that promise a reality.

Text:

Historical Context & Current Events:

Former Union General and Republican Ulysses S. Grant was elected president in 1868. His election convinced a majority of Republicans that “protecting the Black man’s right to vote was important for the party’s future.”

According to the American History Central website:

Democratic gains in the 1867 elections at the state level hinted that white voters in the North were growing weary of Radical Reconstructionism and yearned for an end to political policies that continued to divide the nation.

Since the Southern states had been readmitted to the U.S. Congress, the Republicans knew they could lose the next election. Their best chance of staying in power was to give African-American men the right to vote.

There was a lot of opposition to the proposed amendment. Many states considered it a severe overreach of the federal government, one that infringed upon the sovereignty of states.

Progressives felt the amendment did not go far enough in furthering the rights of Black men. Activists for women’s rights argued that the amendment should have also encompassed women.

The Fifteenth Amendment, the last Reconstruction Amendment, was ratified February 3, 1870.

After the amendment was adopted, African-American men voted in large numbers. Nearly 1,500 African-Americans were elected or appointed to public office during Reconstruction.

The major weakness of the Fifteenth Amendment was its vague wording, which states could manipulate for their own purposes or to sway the result of a trial or Supreme Court decision.

In 1890, Southern states began adopting laws, like poll taxes and literacy tests, that made it extremely difficult for African-Americans (and many poor whites) to vote.

North Carolina did the same. In 1900, voters here approved an amendment to the state constitution that added a poll tax and a literacy test, and a “grandfather clause” of its own.

The promise of the Fifteenth Amendment, and the hope it would bring about a Civil Rights movement, was fulfilled 95 years later with the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Sadly, in April 2026, the U.S. Supreme Court weakened the Voting Rights Act again. In a Louisiana redistricting case, Louisiana v. Callais, the Court made it much harder to challenge voting maps that dilute the power of Black voters.

Barriers to voting are, again, being built. 🐦

Text Sourced From:

• Amendment: constitutioncenter.org

• Historical Background: constitutioncenter.org & americanhistorycentral.com

Recent Case Researched & Written by:

• D.C. Davis, Cardinal Scribe

Double-check your voter registration here:
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Learn more about the Forsyth County Democratic Party on our website: https://fcdpnc.org

Did you know there’s more to the Fourteenth Amendment than the Birthright Citizenship issue?

The Fourteenth Amendment, as drafted by the Joint Committee on Reconstruction in the spring of 1866, did not explicitly deal with citizenship.

The Senate added what is now the first sentence, which grants both national and state citizenship in language quite similar to that of the Civil Rights of 1866 statute, and the House agreed to the amendment.

Text:

🔎 Relevance to Current Events:

The Fourteenth Amendment, ratified in 1868, was the second Reconstruction Amendment passed to help unify the country after the Civil War. The amendment’s main objectives are: Citizenship Rights, Equal Protection, Apportionment, and Civil War Debt.

Section 1, Sentence One

President Donald J. Trump issued an Executive Order in January of 2025 that pushed the Fourteenth Amendment’s Citizenship Clause into a heated political debate.

“All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.”

Trump claims that birthright citizenship does not apply in several situations traditionally understood to be protected by the 14th Amendment. The executive order never went into effect because every lower court judge who reviewed it concluded, in the words of one judge, that it was “blatantly unconstitutional.”

When the case went to the U.S. Supreme Court, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the majority that the Amendment was written in broad terms not to limit citizenship. Trump maintained that the provision was meant to apply only to former slaves; it “wasn’t meant for the entire world to occupy the United States.”

Roberts pointed to a landmark 1898 Supreme Court case. Wong Kim Ark was born in San Francisco in 1873 to Chinese immigrants, where his parents ran a business until they decided to return to China. In 1895, their son visited his family there, but was denied re-entry to the U.S. because he was not a citizen. He challenged that denial and won in the Supreme Court.

Justice Clarence Thomas agreed with Trump that the 14th Amendment only applied to former slaves and their descendants. Thomas added that he “was not sure that today’s” majority opinion would stand the test of time. Justice Neil Gorsuch and Justice Samuel Alito also sided with Trump.

The 1898 case Roberts referred to was so widely accepted that even in periods of great hostility to immigrants, the notion of birthright citizenship remained untouchable. So much so that in World War II, when Japanese citizens were held as enemy aliens in detention camps in the United States, their newborn children were automatically granted American citizenship because they were born on U.S. soil.

The ACLU’s Cecillia Wang, herself a birthright citizen born to Chinese parents, argued the case before the Supreme Court in April of 2026. As she put it, the men who wrote the Fourteenth Amendment deliberately chose to confer automatic citizenship on the child, not the parent, the idea being that “in America we do not punish children for the sins of their fathers, but instead we wipe the slate clean. When you’re born in this country, we’re all American, all the same.”

Section 1, Sentence Two

The Privileges and Immunities Clause:
“No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States...”

This Clause prevents discrimination against people from out of state, but regarding only basic rights.

The Due Process Clause:
“...nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law...”

When adopted, this Clause was understood to mean that the government could deprive a person of rights only according to law applied by a court. Since then, the Supreme Court has expanded the definition of “Due Process”.

On June 24, 2022, the Court focused on the original understanding of the clause to overturn the 1973 Supreme Court case, Roe v. Wade, and hold that the clause does not protect a right to abortion.

The Equal Protection Clause:
“...nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”

This clause was the basis for Brown v. Board of Education (1954), the Supreme Court decision that helped to dismantle racial segregation. It was also the basis for Obergefell v. Hodges (2015), which legalized same-sex marriages.

Section 2

The Three-Fifths Clause (Article I, Section 2, Clause 3) of the original Constitution, which counted enslaved people as three-fifths of a person for the purpose of apportioning congressional representation was repealed in this section. With slavery outlawed by the 13th Amendment, this clarified that all residents, regardless of race, should be counted as one whole person. This section also guaranteed that all male citizens over age 21, no matter their race, had a right to vote.

Section 3

Congress the authority, under this section, to bar public officials, who took an oath of allegiance to the U.S. Constitution, from holding office if they “engaged in insurrection or rebellion” against the Constitution.

Section 4

This section of the Fourteenth Amendment upheld the national debt, but exempted federal and state governments from paying any debts incurred by the former Confederate states.

Section 5

The Enforcement Clause:
“The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.”

In Shelby County, Alabama v. Holder (2013), the Supreme Court declared a key provision of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 unconstitutional because it exceeded the scope of Congress’s powers under Section 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment and Section 2 of the Fifteenth Amendment (which grants Congress power to enforce that amendment).

Based on the current law, there are two key limits on Congress’s power under the Fourteenth Amendment, Section 5, both of which are controversial:

• Congress cannot “regulate private conduct, but only the actions of state and local governments”.

• Congress does not have the power to create new rights or expand existing rights, only the authority to prevent or remedy violations of rights already recognized by the courts.

• The remedies provided by federal statutes must be “proportionate” and “congruent” to the scope of proven constitutional violations.

🐦

Text Sourced From:

• Amendment: constitutioncenter.org

• Historical Background: constitutioncenter.org

Researched & Written by:

• D.C. Davis, Cardinal Scribe

Double-check your voter registration here:
https://vt.ncsbe.gov/RegLkup

Learn more about the Forsyth County Democratic Party on our website: https://fcdpnc.org

Have you heard of the “Forgotten Failed 13th Amendment”?

On March 2, 1861, Congress submitted a proposed Constitutional Amendment to the States intended to entice border slave states to stay in the Union. The amendment reads:

“No amendment shall be made to the Constitution which will authorize or give to Congress the power to abolish or interfere, within any State, with the domestic institutions thereof, including that of persons held to labor or service by the laws of said State.”

Just weeks before the outbreak of the Civil War, Lincoln sent a letter to each state’s governor transmitting the proposed amendment. This final attempt to salvage the Union without bloodshed failed because the States’ Rights issues of secession were complex. The Southern states, ignoring the opportunity to ratify a constitutional amendment, backed by Lincoln, that would have preserved slavery, proves it was not the primary motive behind the dissolution of the Union.

Text:

Historical Background:

While the Civil War was raging, some members of Congress began quietly discussing another way to abolish slavery. However, the politics of that day delayed passage of what would become the first of three Reconstruction Amendments.

The Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was drafted and, after a lengthy debate, passed in the Senate on April 8, 1864. Seven months later, President Abraham Lincoln was re-elected.

In his book, Final Freedom: The Civil War, the Abolition of Slavery, and the Thirteenth Amendment, noted historian Michael Vorenberg pieced together a clear picture of the amendment’s background.

“Congressional debate in 1864 over an antislavery amendment reflected Republican political posturing for the fall campaign as much as sincere interest in the objective. Republicans found the Slave Power-Democratic alliance a useful target even though some northern Democrats were embracing constitutional abolition.

Despite the credit given to Republicans for carrying forward the Thirteenth Amendment, it was northern Democratic senators such as Reverdy Johnson of Maryland and John Henderson of Missouri who were responsible for challenging party rivals and making the case that the amending power was unrestricted and allowed the overturning of slavery.

The Senate’s adoption of the amendment in April 1864 by a vote of 38-6 demonstrated the inroads that abolition had made among Democrats as well as the unity of support among Republicans. For the time being, however, the issue teetered on the results of military action and the fall balloting.”

After the 1864 election, the House of Representatives passed the amendment on January 31, 1865. According to Vorenberg:

“Republicans stood unanimously in favor of the amendment and, critically, a number of Democrats either reversed their previous position or absented themselves, allowing the amendment to be adopted with two votes to spare.”

On February 1, 1865, President Lincoln signed the amendment. As required by the Constitution, three-fourths of the states (27 out of 36) had to ratify the amendment before it was officially adopted.

After some objected to allowing the Confederate states to vote on the amendment, Lincoln said the states were still a part of the Union and should be allowed to vote. The 13th Amendment was ratified on December 6, 1865.

Vorenberg suggests that disputes over the meaning of the freedom granted by the Thirteenth Amendment, together with a new bipartisan acceptance of constitutional amendment as the favored means of articulating principles, soon led to the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment, which ever after would overshadow the Thirteenth. 🐦

Text Sourced From:

• Amendment: 13thamendment.org

• Forgotten Amendment: 13thamendment.org

Historical Background Researched & Written by:

• D.C. Davis, Cardinal Scribe

Double-check your voter registration here:
https://vt.ncsbe.gov/RegLkup

Learn more about the Forsyth County Democratic Party on our website: https://fcdpnc.org

Did you know the runner-up in a presidential election used to become vice president?

There was only one problem. Sometimes the runner-up was the president’s biggest rival.

The 1800 election broke that system so badly that Congress rewrote the rules. North Carolina was the first state to ratify the fix.

Today’s post in our month-long series looks at the amendment that gave us the presidential ticket: the president and vice president running together as one team, the way we vote today.

This is a long one, so here’s a summary.

The 12th Amendment reformed the Electoral College system to address flaws exposed in the 1800 election, where rival candidates from different parties could end up as President and Vice President. It required electors to cast separate votes for President and Vice President, ensuring a unified ticket and preventing deadlocks. Ratified in 1804, the amendment adapted the Constitution to the reality of political parties and streamlined future elections.

Original Full Text as Ratified in 1804:

The part that is in bold was changed with the 20th Amendment.

Interpretation:

The idea of a political party “Presidential Ticket” began with the Twelfth Amendment.

Under Article II, Section 1, Clause 3 of the U.S. Constitution, each member of the Electoral College cast two votes and the candidate with the most votes became president, while the runner-up became vice president.

George Washington, a Federalist, easily won election to be the country’s first president in 1789. John Adams, also a Federalist, was elected his vice president. Both men were re-elected in 1792, but Washington chose not to run for a third term.

In 1796, Adams and Thomas Jefferson, a Democratic-Republican (they were one party back then), ran for president. Adams won with 71 votes and Jefferson finished second, with 68 votes, making him vice president.

Adams and Jefferson could not work together because of their conflicting ideology. In 1800, both men ran for president again. Jefferson won, 73 to 65. However, Adams did not receive enough votes to become vice president.

Aaron Burr, who ran as Jefferson’s running mate for vice president, tied Jefferson with 73 votes. Breaking the tie fell to the House of Representatives, where each state would cast a single vote.

The House members voted 35 times, and 35 times they were tied. After strong political persuasion from Alexander Hamilton, the tie was broken on the sixth day: ten votes for Jefferson, four for Burr, two made no choice.

For the first time, the government was controlled by the Democratic-Republican Party. Jefferson didn’t trust Burr after the contested tiebreaker and gave him nothing to do as vice president.

Even though it was a peaceful transfer of power, the process exposed flaws in the system and the Framers of the Constitution decided a change had to be made. The Twelfth Amendment was fully ratified by early 1804, just in time for the next election.

Under the new requirement for separate ballots to elect the president and vice president, the Democratic-Republican Party’s ticket of incumbent President Thomas Jefferson and former New York Governor George Clinton won in a landslide.

Jefferson and Adams eventually put their differences behind them and wrote a series of friendly letters during the last decade of their lives. They both died on July 4, 1826, the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. 🐦

Text Sourced From:

• Summary: constitutioncenter.org

• Amendment: constitutioncenter.org

Researched & Written by:

• D.C. Davis, Cardinal Scribe

Double-check your voter registration here:
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Learn more about the Forsyth County Democratic Party on our website: https://fcdpnc.org

If a state government owes you money, can you take it to court?

In 1793, someone did just that, and his case became the first real test of the U.S. Supreme Court to uphold the Constitution. The Court failed. So many people were outraged over the Court’s decision that Congress passed the 11th Amendment the very next year.

This amendment was written to limit federal judicial power, ensuring states could not be sued by citizens of other states without consent, and reinforces the concept of partial state sovereignty within the federal system.

Text:

Historical Background:

The first real test of the U.S. Supreme Court to uphold the Constitution came in 1793. They failed. So many people were outraged over the Court’s decision in Chisholm v. Georgia that Congress passed the Eleventh Amendment in 1794, and the states ratified it by 1795.

The amendment was written to limit federal judicial power, ensuring states could not be sued by citizens of other states without consent, and reinforces the concept of partial state sovereignty within the federal system.

Court Cases:

The U.S. Supreme Court began hearing cases in February of 1790. Chisholm v. Georgia is considered their first case of significance and impact.

At issue was Article III, Section 2 of the U.S. Constitution, which grants federal courts jurisdiction in cases between a state and a citizen of another state where the state is the defendant

The Court, in a 4–1 decision, ruled in favor of Alexander Chisholm, executor of an estate of a citizen of South Carolina who sued the state of Georgia for money owed.

Soon after the Chisholm v. Georgia decision, Massachusetts was sued and John Hancock, in his final public act, summarized the outrage:

“There are certain inherent principles in the Constitution . . . which can never be surrendered, without essentially changing the nature, or destroying the existence of the Government. . . . A consolidation of all the states into one Government, would at once endanger the Nation as a Republic, and eventually divide the States united, or eradicate its principles which we have contended for.”

The Eleventh Amendment was the first constitutional amendment to be passed in response to an issue that had arisen in interpreting the laws of the new United States of America.

Since the Eleventh Amendment was ratified in 1795, only three major court cases based on the amendment made it to the Supreme Court:

• Hans v. Louisiana (1890) Ruling: States are immune from lawsuits by their own citizens.

• Fitzpatrick v. Blitzer (1976) Ruling: Congress can subject states to lawsuits for federal law violations.

• Alden v. Maine (1999) Ruling: States are immune from federal lawsuits in their own courts.

Interpretations of the amendment vary, and exceptions exist, such as lawsuits against municipalities or when a state waives immunity.🐦

Text Sourced From:

• Amendment: constitutionus.com

• Historical Background: constitutionus.com

Written & Researched by:

• D.C. Davis, Cardinal Scribe

Double-check your voter registration here:
https://vt.ncsbe.gov/RegLkup

Learn more about the Forsyth County Democratic Party on our website: https://fcdpnc.org

When Washington passes a law, can it force your county sheriff to enforce it?

In 1981, James “Jim” Brady was seriously wounded during an assassination attempt on President Ronald Reagan.

Congress passed the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act in 1993, after years of lobbying by Brady and his wife. A case heard by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1997 challenged a section of the Brady Bill.

The case discussed in today’s post deals with two culturally important themes: federalism and “states’ rights,” as well as the national problem of gun violence.

Text:

Recent Case:

The Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act required the U.S. Attorney General to create a national system for conducting background checks on prospective handgun buyers.

Also, until the national system was in place, the Attorney General was to “command the chief law enforcement officer” of each local jurisdiction to conduct such checks and perform related tasks on an interim basis.

Sheriffs Jay Printz of Montana and Richard Mack of Arizona challenged the command on the grounds that it forced state officers to carry out federal law, a violation of the Tenth Amendment.

The Supreme Court ruled for Printz and Mack, 5-4.

Writing for the majority Justice Antonin Scalia cited many previous court cases and the “historical understanding of the Tenth Amendment” Scalia added:

“The Framers rejected the concept of a central government that would act upon and through the States, and instead designed a system in which the State and Federal Governments would exercise concurrent authority over the people.”

Justice John Paul Stevens wrote a dissenting opinion, suggesting there were other parts of the constitution that would give weight to Congress’ authority in this case.

“The Tenth Amendment,” Stevens argued, “contains no additional limitations on federal power, serving merely to clarify that the Government has only those powers granted by the Constitution.”

Stevens was very concerned with the ability of the federal government to respond to a national emergency.

“I do not believe there is anything in the 10th amendment, in historical understanding and practice, in the structure of the Constitution, or in the jurisprudence of this Court, that forbids the enlistment of state officers to make that response effective.”

🐦

Text Sourced From:

• Amendment: constitutioncenter.org

• Historical Background: constitutioncenter.org

Recent Case Researched & Written by:

• D.C. Davis, Cardinal Scribe

Double-check your voter registration here:
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Learn more about the Forsyth County Democratic Party on our website: https://fcdpnc.org

The Bill of Rights lists your freedoms. So what happens to the ones it leaves out?

The 9th Amendment answers that in just twenty-one words: the government does not have complete authority over “We the People of the United States.”

Your rights don’t stop existing just because no one wrote them down.

During the ratification debates over the Constitution, some people feared the government would use its power to limit any liberties of the people that were not listed. Almost two centuries later, one court case proved that fear was justified.

Today’s post looks at a 9th Amendment court case that proved that fear was justified.

Text:

Recent Case:

In 1961, ten days after a Planned Parenthood Center opened in New Haven, Connecticut, it was raided by police under the state’s Birth Control Laws.

The Executive Director of the Planned Parenthood League of Connecticut, Estelle Griswold, and its medical director, Dr. Charles Buxton, a licensed physician, were charged as accessories for

“giving married persons information and medical advice on how to prevent conception and, following examination, prescribing a contraceptive device or material for the wife’s use.”

According to a New York Times article, The Planned Parenthood League of Connecticut had opened the center seeking to determine whether the statutes were constitutional. At the time, Connecticut and Massachusetts were the only states with birth control laws.

A spokesperson for Planned Parenthood said the center opened “only to extend the right of family planning to couples of limited income who do not have access to private physicians”.

Buxton filed a lawsuit with the U.S. Supreme Court, but it was rejected because the Connecticut law had “never been enforced and has become a nullity”. However, the Connecticut courts convicted Buxton and Griswold.

A second case, Griswold v. Connecticut, made its way to the Supreme Court in 1965. By a vote of 7-2, the Justices ruled the Connecticut Birth Control Laws unconstitutional.

Writing for the majority, Justice William Douglas, asked:

“Would we allow the police to search the sacred precincts of marital bedrooms for telltale signs of the use of contraceptives? The very idea is repulsive to the notions of privacy surrounding the marriage relationship … We deal with a right of privacy older than the Bill of Rights — older than our political parties, older than our school system.”

Justice Arthur Goldberg wrote a concurring opinion to clarify that the “Ninth Amendment to the United States Constitution shows the framers’ view that there are fundamental rights beyond those enumerated in the Constitution.”

Justice Byron White also said that Connecticut’s law failed the rational basis standard. 🐦

Text Sourced From:

• Amendment: constitutioncenter.org

• Historical Background: constitutioncenter.org

Recent Case Researched & Written by:

• D.C. Davis, Cardinal Scribe

Double-check your voter registration here:
https://vt.ncsbe.gov/RegLkup

Learn more about the Forsyth County Democratic Party on our website: https://fcdpnc.org

The punishment is supposed to fit the crime, but who decides how far is too far?

The Eighth Amendment bans excessive bail, excessive fines, and cruel and unusual punishment. The meaning of those words has been argued about since 1791, and the answers keep evolving with the times.

Today’s post in our month-long series looks at the amendment that limits how far punishment can go.

Text:

Interpretation:

A violation of the Eighth Amendment’s Excessive Bail Clause was defined by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1951 as when bail is set at a “figure higher than an amount reasonably calculated to ensure the asserted governmental interest.”

When the Bill of Rights was ratified, cruel meant in comparison to longstanding prior practice or tradition.

So it can be argued that the Cruel and Unusual Punishments Clause does not prohibit the death penalty, because capital punishment was permissible in 1791, and because the text of the Constitution mentions the death penalty.

“Progressive perspectives on the Eighth Amendment insist that ‘evolving standards of decency’ must shape and inform the Supreme Court’s application of the Eighth Amendment. Focusing on the original intentions of ‘Founding Fathers’ cannot resolve important questions about punishment today.”

The Stakes:

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in the 2012 landmark case, Miller v. Alabama, that juvenile offenders could not be sentenced to life without the possibility of parole.

Writing for the majority, Justice Kagan said Evan Miller’s sentence which is equivalent to the death penalty for a juvenile, violated the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment.

However, the Justices also ruled that the lower courts could take into account the severity of the crime and mitigating circumstances. Miller was only 14 years old when he bludgeoned his neighbor to death and then set fire to the man’s trailer in an attempt to cover up the crime.

In 2017, Miller was resentenced to life without parole.🐦

TEXT EXCERPTED FROM:

• Amendment: constitutioncenter.org

• Interpretation: constitutioncenter.org

“THE STAKES” WRITTEN BY:

• D.C. Davis, Cardinal Scribe

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If your employer breaks a contract, or your union fails to stand up for you, who decides your case? A judge alone, or a jury of regular people?

The 7th Amendment answered that question back in 1791: you have the right to a jury in civil cases. But juries decide less than one percent of the civil cases filed in court.

When twenty-seven North Carolina truck drivers demanded a jury, the fight went all the way to the Supreme Court.

Today’s post in our month-long series looks at the amendment that puts your case in the hands of your neighbors.

Text:

Introduction

Seventh Amendment cases are rare. According to the Constitution Center, “Juries decide less than one percent of the civil cases that are filed in court.”

The verdict in one local case: Terry (and 26 other employees), Plaintiffs v. CHAUFFEURS, TEAMSTERS AND HELPERS, LOCAL 391 and McLean Trucking Company, Inc., Defendants was appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court and set a precedent.

Case Summary

In July 1983, 27 plaintiffs brought suit against both their union and McLean Trucking Company in the United States District Court for the Middle District of North Carolina in Greensboro. The lawsuit, argued for the plaintiffs by two Winston-Salem attorneys, alleged that McLean violated the collective bargaining agreement and that the union breached its duty of fair representation. The plaintiffs were seeking back pay and benefits, including restored seniority.

Plaintiffs had requested a jury trial, but the union moved to strike the demand for a jury trial on the grounds that no right to a jury trial exists in a duty-of-fair-representation suit.

The U.S. District Court of the Middle District of NC in Greensboro denied the motion to strike.

In 1987, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit agreed with the District Court decision and that the plaintiffs are entitled to a jury trial on their claims for monetary damages under the Seventh Amendment.

McLean Trucking filed for bankruptcy in 1986, and all the claims against it were voluntarily dismissed.

Local No. 391 appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court and a decision was rendered in 1990.

According to the Supreme Court official verdict, the 27 truck drivers had filed a grievance with the Union, contesting the order of layoffs and recalls during restructuring by McLean. They also challenged McLean’s policy of stripping any driver who had been laid off of his special seniority rights. They also claimed that McLean breached the collective bargaining agreement by giving inactive drivers preference over them.

McLean was ordered by the grievance committee to recall any of the truck drivers who were laid off and to lay off any inactive driver who had been recalled. Also, the committee ordered McLean to reinstate the drivers’ seniority rights.

Justice Thurgood Marshall wrote the majority opinion:

“The back-pay sought by respondents is not money wrongfully held by the Union, but wages and benefits they would have received from McLean had the Union processed the employees’ grievances properly … We hold, then, that the remedy of back-pay sought in this duty of fair representation action is legal in nature. Considering both parts of the Seventh Amendment inquiry, we find that respondents are entitled to a jury trial on all issues presented in their suit.”

Even though the plaintiffs were never fully compensated, this case is considered important because it upheld the Seventh Amendment and affirmed the right to a jury trial for claims against unions for breach of duty. 🐦

TEXT EXCERPTED FROM:

• Amendment: constitutioncenter.org

INTRO & CASE SUMMARY WRITTEN BY:

• D.C. Davis, Cardinal Scribe

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https://vt.ncsbe.gov/RegLkup

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If you were ever arrested, you’d want a lawyer by your side. But what happens when your own lawyer works against you?

Before the Sixth Amendment, there was no guarantee you’d have a lawyer at all. No promise of a speedy trial, a jury, or even knowing what you were accused of. The Bill of Rights fixed that.

But less than ten years ago, one man’s case went all the way to the Supreme Court to answer a question you’d think was already settled: who decides your defense, you or your attorney?

Today’s post in our month-long series looks at the amendment that protects you in the courtroom.

Text:

Introduction:

Today most of us take it for granted that a lawyer will represent us in court when needed, even if we can’t afford one. However, before the 1791 ratification of the Sixth Amendment, as part of the Bill of Rights, that was not the case. The latest U.S. Supreme Court case based on the Sixth Amendment defined the defendant’s right to choose their defense strategy.

Recent Case:

Court cases based on the Sixth Amendment are rare. However, in 2018, a case (McCoy v. Louisiana) went before the U.S. Supreme Court that clarified the relationship between the defendant and their attorney.

Robert McCoy was charged in 2008 with three counts of murder in Louisiana but was arrested in Idaho. McCoy maintained his innocence, saying he was not in the state at the time of the murders. But his court-appointed attorney, Larry English, entered a plea of guilty over McCoy’s objections.

English’s strategy was to concede that McCoy committed the murders and to argue that he should be convicted only of second-degree murder, because his “mental incapacity prevented him from forming the requisite specific intent to commit first-degree murder.”

However, that strategy did not work because Louisiana does not permit a diminished capacity defense unless the accused has pled not guilty by reason of insanity.

After obtaining a new lawyer and several legal maneuvers in Louisiana, McCoy’s case went to the Supreme Court. Chief Justice John Roberts, Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Anthony Kennedy, Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan ruled in favor of McCoy. Justices Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas, and Neil Gorsuch dissented.

Justice Ginsburg wrote in part, “The Sixth Amendment guarantees a defendant the right to choose the objective of his defense and to insist that counsel refrain from admitting guilt, even when counsel’s experience-based view is that confessing offers the best chance to avoid the death penalty. Some decisions are reserved for the client—including whether to plead guilty, waive a jury trial, testify in one’s own behalf, and forgo an appeal.”

The case was sent back to Louisiana for a new trial. In 2024, a judge declared McCoy incompetent to stand trial and moved him to a treatment facility. 🐦

TEXT EXCERPTED FROM:

• Amendment: constitutioncenter.org

INTRO & RECENT CASE WRITTEN BY:

• D.C. Davis, Cardinal Scribe

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You’ve heard the line in every crime show: “You have the right to remain silent.”

» Queue “Bad Boys (Theme from Cops)” here «

But the 5th Amendment is bigger than one famous warning. It protects people from being forced to testify against themselves. It helps prevent someone from being tried twice for the same offense. It promises due process before the government can take away life, liberty, or property.

And here’s the part worth remembering: using the 5th Amendment is not an admission of guilt. It is not a loophole. It is one of the ways the Constitution limits government power and protects ordinary people.

Today’s post breaks down what the 5th Amendment actually says, why it matters, and when these protections come into play.

Text:

Interpretation:

In summary, the 5th Amendment includes:

• Allowing people to be indicted by a grand jury before going to trial

• Protection against being made to answer more than once for the same crime

• Allowing people to avoid self-incriminating

• The right to fair treatment by the court system

The Latest:

Today’s legal framework of due process is based on the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in the 1966 case of Miranda v. Arizona. The Court sided with Miranda, saying under the Fifth Amendment, law enforcement officers had to instruct suspects of their right to remain silent.

The full text of the Miranda warning is as follows:

“You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be provided for you. Do you understand the rights I have just read to you? With these rights in mind, do you wish to speak to me?”

In February of this year, Ghislaine Maxwell agreed to a recorded deposition in front of the U.S. House Oversight Committee about her involvement with Jeffrey Epstein.

When asked if she was a close friend of Epstein’s Maxwell replied,

“I would like to answer your question, but on the advice of counsel, I respectfully decline to answer this question and any related questions. My habeas petition is pending in the Southern District of New York. I therefore invoke my right to silence under the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution”.

In June, the CEO of ActBlue, a Democratic fundraising platform, was called before the House Administration Committee. Regina Wallace-Jones invoked the Fifth Amendment.

Wallace-Jones wrote an op-ed, published in the Washington Post, before her appearance on Capitol Hill.

“Invoking the Fifth Amendment is not an admission, or even an insinuation, of guilt. It is not a retreat. It is the only reasonable response to a proceeding that from the beginning has been about harassing a political opponent’s fundraising platform, not genuine oversight.”

🐦

TEXT EXCERPTED FROM:

• Amendment: constitutioncenter.org

• Interpretation: constitutionus.com

“THE LATEST” WRITTEN BY:

• D.C. Davis, Cardinal Scribe

Double-check your voter registration here:
https://vt.ncsbe.gov/RegLkup

Learn more about the Forsyth County Democratic Party on our website: https://fcdpnc.org

On the Fourth of July, here’s a right worth celebrating.

The 4th Amendment protects you from unreasonable searches. The government can’t just go through your home, your papers, or your things without good reason and a warrant.

The founders were thinking about tax collectors ransacking homes without cause. They would never have imagined something like your smart phone. But just last week, the Supreme Court ruled that your location history counts, too.

Today’s post looks at how a constitutional amendment written in 1791 protects your smart phone in 2026.

Text:

Interpretation:

In England, “general warrants allowed the King’s messengers to break into the homes of the King’s critics and arrest them without probable cause that they had committed a crime.”

In the American colonies, “the King’s officials used the writs of assistance—like general warrants, but often unbounded by time restraints—to search for goods on which taxes had not been paid.” That is what was on the minds of Framers of the Constitution in 1776. They could not have envisioned how the Fourth Amendment would be applied 250 years later.

The Latest:

On June 29, 2026, the U.S. Supreme Court wrote another chapter in the evolution of the search and seizure law when they ruled on Chatrie v. United States.

Police obtained information in the armed robbery of a credit union in Virginia through a geofence warrant. That type of warrant allows law enforcement to request location data from technology companies for all mobile devices within a specific geographic area during a certain time period.

The geofence warrant told Google to search location histories of every one of its users in order to determine which ones were present in the vicinity of the bank robbery. That information ultimately led to the arrest of Okello Chatrie.

According to Court documents, Chatrie’s lawyers argued that the tactic was “an unconstitutional general warrant, compelled Google to conduct a fishing expedition through millions of Google accounts, without any basis for believing that any one of them would contain incriminating evidence.”

“The Fourth Amendment was born of the Founders’ revulsion for general warrants and writs of assistance — instruments that allowed the government to search first and develop suspicions later,” the lawyers added.

In a 6-3 vote, the Justices sided with Chatrie, although their reasons differed. Justice Neil Gorsuch said, “As I see it, Mr. Chatrie’s Location History data qualifies as his personal property, which would place it among his ‘effects’, a specific category that is listed in the Fourth Amendment itself.”🐦

TEXT EXCERPTED FROM:

• Amendment: constitution.congress.gov

• Interpretation: constitutioncenter.org and usconstitution.net

“THE LATEST” WRITTEN BY:

• Cardinal Scribe

Double-check your voter registration here:
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When was the last time you worried about soldiers moving into your house?

Probably never, and that’s thanks to the Third Amendment. In colonial times, the British could force families to house and feed troops in their own homes. The people who wrote the Constitution had lived through that, and they made sure the government couldn’t do it again.

The Supreme Court has never decided a case on the third amendment, but they have cited it to help support the constitutional right to privacy. Let’s dig in!

Text:

Interpretation:

This is one of least talked about Amendments, one the U.S. Supreme Court has never decided a case based on it, and one that came about because of an English fear of standing armies.

In 1765 the British Parliament “passed a Quartering Act that set down the regulations for housing soldiers in the American colonies during time of peace. The colonists were to provide barracks for the soldiers, and if they were not available, the troops were to be billeted in inns, stables, and alehouses; if these were insufficient, the governors and councils of the provinces were authorized to use uninhabited houses, barns, and other buildings to lodge the soldiers. The colonists were required to furnish provisions and necessaries for the troops, including firewood, bedding, and beer.”

Naturally, this did not go over well with the Colonists and tensions began to rise in New York and Boston.

“In the eyes of the British government Boston seemed to be a hotbed of fanaticism. The Tea Party in December 1773, in which patriots threw ₤10,000 of tea into Boston harbor, confirmed this view and led Parliament in 1774 to pass the Coercive Acts, among which was a new Quartering Act. This act went beyond the earlier statute by authorizing the royal governors to order the billeting of soldiers in private homes if the colonists refused to provide other lodging.” (constitutioncenter.org)

Ironically, the Quartering Act was a result of the long-held belief by the English that concentrations of soldiers in barracks might pose military threats to the people’s liberties.🐦

TEXT EXCERPTED FROM:

• Amendment: constitution.congress.gov

• Interpretation: constitutioncenter.org and usconstitution.net

STAKES WRITTEN BY:

• Cardinal Scribe

Double-check your voter registration here:
https://vt.ncsbe.gov/RegLkup

Learn more about the Forsyth County Democratic Party on our website: https://fcdpnc.org

People have argued over the Second Amendment for 200 years, and the debate isn’t settled yet.

For most of that history, courts read it through the lens of militias and the balance of power between citizens and government. The individual-rights reading we hear so much about today is actually the newer interpretation. And the Court is still shaping what it means, with more gun cases coming this fall.

Today’s post in our month-long series walks through where this one came from and where it’s headed.

Text:

Interpretation:

The Second Amendment was drafted as a result of the British Army’s attempt to disarm the American colonists.

“James Madison, instrumental in incorporating this Amendment, believed a civilian militia would prevent government tyranny.The contrast between a government-controlled army and a people’s militia was a fundamental consideration for the Framers.

Early interpretations of the Second Amendment focused on maintaining a balance of power, ensuring that state militias could counterbalance federal military forces. Key figures like Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson viewed armed citizens as a deterrent against federal overreach.

Throughout the early 19th century, courts and scholars widely agreed that the Amendment protected the right to bear arms within the context of organized militias. It was not until the mid-20th century that significant shifts in interpretation began to surface, challenging and expanding traditional views.” (usconstitution.net)

Stakes:

On June 25, 2026 the U.S. Supreme Court, by a vote of 6-3, struck down a new law passed by the state of Hawaii. The law required gun owners to get property owners’ permission before bringing a gun onto their private property. A majority of the Justices said the law was an infringement on the gun owners’ right to bear arms.

When the Supreme Court reconvenes in October, they will consider cases challenging the legality of state restrictions on assault-style rifles, such as AR-15s, and large-capacity ammunition magazines. 🐦

TEXT EXCERPTED FROM:

• Amendment: constitution.congress.gov

• Interpretation: constitutioncenter.org and usconstitution.net

STAKES WRITTEN BY:

Double-check your voter registration here:
https://vt.ncsbe.gov/RegLkup

Learn more about the Forsyth County Democratic Party on our website: https://fcdpnc.org