The Constitution: Taxes, Voting Rights, and Prohibition
The Constitution has been amended 27 times. The most famous amendments are the first ten: the Bill of Rights. But what do you know about the others? John Yoo, Professor of Law at the University of California, Berkeley, breaks them down.
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Script:
The Constitution has been amended 27 times. That may sound like a lot, but that’s over the course of almost 250 years.
And consider this: almost 12,000 amendments have been proposed. That fewer than 30 have made it through the amendment process is a testament to the strength of the Framers’ original design.
The most famous amendments are, of course, the first ten: the Bill of Rights. Most of the others fall into three broad categories.
Those that expanded the franchise – voting rights.
Those that expanded the federal government’s power.
And those that fixed issues relating to the office of the presidency.
Let’s look at each category.
Category one: those that expanded the franchise – voting rights.
The 17th Amendment, ratified in 1913, took the selection of senators out of the hands of state legislatures and placed it into the hands of the voters. The Framers had believed that state officials would collectively have a better grasp of the state’s needs than would ordinary citizens. However, as political machines grew in influence during the 19th century, so did political corruption. A bribery scandal involving the selection of an Illinois senator in 1910 tipped the scales in favor of direct election.
The 19th Amendment, ratified in 1920, guarantees that suffrage “shall not be denied… on account of sex.” In other words, women were given the right to vote.
There was nothing in the Constitution that prohibited women from voting. It was just thought to be unnecessary. This was the general belief held by men and women at the time of the Constitution’s writing.
The two sexes had their specific roles. Men worked; women raised the children. A man’s vote represented the entire household. The Industrial Revolution of the 19th century changed this formula as more and more women joined the workforce. Women began to demand the right to express themselves as individual citizens. The 19th Amendment ensured that right at the ballot box.
The 23rd Amendment, ratified in 1961, included the District of Columbia in presidential elections. Since Washington DC isn’t a state, it originally didn’t have any electoral votes. When its population grew larger than some states, it seemed to make sense to give the district representation in the national election.
The 24th Amendment, ratified in 1964, banned poll taxes – fees imposed by states on voters, specifically black voters. By 1964, five southern states still had poll taxes on their books, a remnant of Jim Crow laws. By banning the tax, the 24th Amendment ended a blatant form of discrimination.
The 26th Amendment, ratified in 1971, lowered the minimum age of voting from 21 to 18. With soldiers as young as 18 fighting in World War II, and then in Vietnam, many felt that if you were young enough to fight, you were old enough to vote for the leaders who could send you into war.
Category two: the amendments that expanded the government’s power.
The 16th Amendment, ratified in 1913, gave Congress the “power to lay and collect taxes on incomes.”
As wealth disparity increased between farmers, workers, and a new class of fabulously wealthy industrialists like John D. Rockefeller, Andrew Carnegie, and J.P. Morgan, so did the sentiment for an income tax.
The promise was that only the rich would pay. History would quickly prove otherwise. The top tax rate shot up from 7% to 77% to finance World War I, and then 94% to finance World War II. But of course, the income tax didn’t stay confined to the wealthy, as any young person getting his first paycheck can attest.
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Y'all should envoke the 25th amendment, not that kamala would make much of a difference, do it anyway
Of course is durable, it keeps them in power, do you think the communist in Cuba want to change their constitution, of course not, it keeps them in power.
Pgrager has serious problems with authority.
Voting is barbaric, how can you have other people vote against your rights.
The constitution is a fraudulent religious illegal document, that was only signed by those who wrote it, they had the audacity to think they could make laws and contracts over the will of the people. I will like to debate prager on the constitution, to show him how illogical and inmoral he is when it comes to the constitution.
John Yoo, the most anti-american thinker to ever be near the White House with his unitary executive theory…. oh how we've forgotten.
Now if we can just fix our elections and choose our own leaders.
DC is NOT a State, it is a Criminal Vatican Entity and therefore Should NOT have Any Vote!
I still say women do not deserve the right to vote just yet. Women are not required to give up anything in order to vote much like men do. Men are legally required to give up their livelihood once they have a driver's license- if they are ever called upon. You should not have the right to vote for a president if you're not legally required to work for them when summoned.
The 15th Amendment was the first one to expand voting rights to men of all races. Why was it excluded here?
A Berkeley Professor on Prager U? Now that’s refreshing 👍🏻
This video has issues.
First, they forgot to include the 15th Amendment, which granted the vote to blacks.
Second, the video gives the impression that the 17th Amendment is a good thing. No, it isn't. The United States Senators should still be elected by the states, not the people. Just because there was one bribery scandal in Illinois does not justify taking away from the states their power to elect their representatives.
We really should have made the 26th amendment give the vote to anyone serving in the military instead of lowering the age to 18
Almost every amendment after the original is a disaster. It shows how much thought the framers put into the Constitution.
A few are obvious. A few are correct. But most are horrible.
We need an internet bill of rights pronto
How do i study from Prager University. I love your beliefs and values.🙏🏽❤️
How does an amendment get added to the Constitution?
Donald Trump tried to destroy our constitutional electoral process right before our eyes on January 6, 2021. Anyone who stands with Donald Trump is also the enemy of the constitution.
the 16th amendment is the worst of all, the taxes on incomes, shouldnt be allow to do that
The 20th, 22nd and 25th are the only amendments he specifically talked about in detail which are reasonably within the powers the USA federal government should. All of the others are fundamentally unAmerican and oppressive.
The 16th and 17th Amendments should be repealed. A new Amendment should be proposed to limit any individual to two terms in Congress. No grandfather clause.
You know full well there is still going to be some video out there titled "PragerU misunderstands nature The Constitution!" and it's going to be 40 minutes of someone drooling over 5 minutes of facts.
The worst was the Income tax. It was inspired by class warfare. It is the power that drives a massive government.
If a citizen can't have ownership over his income what is he?
Government is to huge and it's hundreds of government programs are not a true benefit for the citizens but for those in government who have much more benefits than the national average citizen.
These programs are called Social Slavery Programs as to many are locked into them.
The 22nd comically actually had the (un)-intended consequence of reducing the likelihood that an actual good president would stick around and dismantle the deep state's power in the legislature, where there are no term limits.
The 16th was one of the greatest frauds ever perpetrated on the people. And the progressive income tax was straight from the communist playbock.
Repeal the 17th amendment. Senators are supposed to represent the interests of the individual states at the federal level. Pushing them back will properly align the incentives an make senators way less powerful than they are today and that is a good thing.
If we had maintained inauguration day in April there may have been time to allow all of the needed challenges to the presidential election of 2020 to happen. This would verify for sure if we had a legitimate election.
Your definition of the 16th Amendment is not complete.
praguer u became too boring
The Framers constructed the document with certain assumptions; the populace was grounded in both transcendent truth (self-evident and undergirded by divine Providence, as the Declaration states) and biblical wisdom. With both of these essential qualities currently lacking, it's no wonder we desire a do-over. And that to the peril of this grand experiment in republican government.