Lesson 15: How Have Amendments and Judicial Review Changed the Constitution?
What are the advantages and disadvantages of the amendment processes contained in the Constitution? (Video)
Article V and the amendment process; advantages and disadvantages of the process; history of its use.
Student Questions: Unit 3, Lesson 15, Sections 1-6 (pdf download)
Image credits: U.S. Supreme Court Building, Washington, D.C. by Carol Highsmith, 1980-2006, Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress, LC-DIG-highsm-14781; Youngest parader in New York City suffragist parade by American Press Association, 1912, Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress, LC-USZC4-5585; The population of the States as of July 2013, based on data from United States Census Bureau by Ali Zifan, 2014, Wikimedia Commons/CC0 1.0.
What amendments processes do most states use and what are their advantages and disadvantages compared to the federal procedures? (Video)
State constitutions' amendment processes; advantages and disadvantages compared with federal process.
What kinds of amendments have been added to the Constitution? (Video)
Types of amendments to the U.S. Constitution; Bill of Rights; Reconstruction amendments; amendments broadening democracy and making it more functional, e.g., extension of suffrage, modifications regarding the presidency; Fourteenth Amendment application of most of the Bill of Rights to state governments; a second constitution.
Image credits: Vice President Joe Biden and President Barack Obama look at an app on an iPhone in the Outer Oval Office by Pete Souza, 2011, Wikimedia Commons/The White House; A look at the east front of the U.S. Capitol from the Senate wing by Phil Roeder, 2011, Flickr/Phil Roeder/CC BY 2.0; The Winner: Corporal William W. Sessions smiles as he displays the holes in his helmet and 3.5 inch rocket launcher following an encounter with the North Vietnamese Army by Private First Class E. E. Hildreth, 1968, Wikimedia Commons/USMC Archives/CC BY 2.0; Emancipation by King & Baird, 1865, Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress, LC-DIG-pga-03898.
What were the major issues involved in adding the Bill of Rights? (Video)
Issues related to the addition of the Bill of Rights; concern with the extent of power of the national government; means of limiting power of the national government; Madison's argument against the addition of the Bill of Rights.
Image credits: King George III in Coronation Robes by Allan Ramsay, 1765, Wikimedia Commons/Art Gallery of South Australia; No U turn by Kevin Dooley, 2014, Flickr/Kevin Dooley/CC BY 2.0
Why is judicial review controversial? (Video)
Controversy over judicial review; Chief Justice John Marshall and the narrow early concept of the scope of the power of judicial review; evolution to a broader scope of power; diminished role of legislative intent in decisions made by the Court; diminished role of other branches in the interpretation of the Constitution; the antimajoritarian issue; judicial review as an implied power in the Constitution; Marbury v. Madison and the establishment of judicial review.
Image credit: Richard Stein, Center for Civic Education
What should be the scope and limits of the judicial review power of the federal judiciary? (Video)
Principal arguments for and against judicial review; role of judges in interpreting the Constitution; conflict with the principles of popular sovereignty and democracy; problem of the difficulty of amending the Constitution; dead hand problem; judicial review in other advanced democracies; U.S. system is unique; actual and proposed limits on the power of judicial review; the roles of Congress and the president in restraining the power of judicial review.
Federalist 78 (Video)
A reading of Federalist 78.
Marbury v. Madison (Video)
A video discussing the famous Supreme Court case, Marbury v. Madison.
Marbury v. Madison (1803) (Video)
Dramatization of Marbury v. Madison. First in the four-part Equal Justice under Law series. From the Judicial Conference of the United States. Hosted by Internet Archive. Length: 33 min, 41 sec. Various file sizes available.
The U.S. Constitution: Amending The Constitution (Video)
A video describing the process for amending the Constitution.
The Courts: Our Rule of Law (Video)
The Courts: Our Rule of Law is the fifth video of the Democracy in America series. Describes the state and federal court systems. From Annenberg Media's Learner.org website. Produced by the Educational Film Center in 2003. Registration and log-in required. Length: 28 min., 26 sec.
The Constitution: Fixed or Flexible? (Video)
A video describing constitutional interpretation and the debate between Thomas Jefferson and James Madison over how and whether the Constitution should be amended. From the Democracy in America series. From Annenberg Media's Learner.org website. Produced by the Educational Film Center in 2003. Registration and log-in required. Length: 28 min., 30 sec.
Marbury versus Madison (Video)
A video on the Marbury v. Madison case.
American History: The Rise of Prohibition (Video)
A video describing the temperance movement, the Eighteenth Amendment, and organized crime.
Unit 3 Overview: We the People: The Citizen & the Constitution Level 3 Text (Audio)
Scholars Margaret Branson, Sue Leeson, and Scott Casper present Unit 3 of the new We the People student text. Size: 5.8 mb. Length: 6 min, 18 sec.
