The Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution was adopted on July 9, 1868, as one of the Reconstruction Amendments. Usually considered one of the most consequential amendments, it addresses citizenship rights and equal protection under the law and was proposed in response to issues related to formerly enslaved Americans following the American Civil War. The amendment was bitterly contested, particularly by the states of the defeated Confederacy, which were forced to ratify it in order to regain representation in Congress. The amendment, particularly its first section, is one of the most litigated parts of the Constitution, forming the basis for landmark Supreme Court decisions such as Brown v. Board of Education (1954) regarding racial segregation, Loving v. Virginia (1967) regarding interracial marriage, Roe v. Wade (1973) regarding abortion, Bush v. Gore (2000) regarding the 2000 presidential election, Obergefell v. Hodges (2015) regarding same-sex marriage, and Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard (2023) regarding race-based college admissions. The amendment limits the actions of all state and local officials, and also those acting on behalf of such officials.
Gibbons v. Ogden, 22 U.S. 1 (1824), was a landmark decision of the Supreme Court of the United States which held that the power to regulate interstate commerce, which is granted to the US Congress by the Commerce Clause of the US Constitution, encompasses the power to regulate navigation. The decision is credited with supporting the economic growth of the antebellum United States and the creation of national markets. Gibbons v. Ogden has since provided the basis for Congress' regulation of railroads, freeways and television and radio broadcasts.
The Constitution of the Confederate States was the supreme law of the Confederate States of America. It superseded the Provisional Constitution of the Confederate States, the Confederate State's first constitution, in 1862. It remained in effect until the end of the American Civil War in 1865.
American exceptionalism is the belief that the United States is either distinctive, unique, or exemplary compared to other nations. Proponents argue that the values, political system, and historical development of the U.S. are unique in human history, often with the implication that it is both destined and entitled to play a distinct and positive role on the world stage.
In American political discourse, states' rights are political powers held for the state governments rather than the federal government according to the United States Constitution, reflecting especially the enumerated powers of Congress and the Tenth Amendment. The enumerated powers that are listed in the Constitution include exclusive federal powers, as well as concurrent powers that are shared with the states, and all of those powers are contrasted with the reserved powers—also called states' rights—that only the states possess. Since the 1940s, the term "states' rights" has often been considered a loaded term or dog whistle because of its use in opposition to federally-mandated racial desegregation and, more recently, same-sex marriage and reproductive rights.
Glenn Lee Beck is an American conservative political commentator, radio host, entrepreneur, and television producer. He is the CEO, founder, and owner of Mercury Radio Arts, the parent company of his television and radio network TheBlaze. He hosts the Glenn Beck Radio Program, a talk-radio show nationally syndicated on Premiere Radio Networks. Beck also hosts the Glenn Beck television program, which ran from January 2006 to October 2008 on HLN, from January 2009 to June 2011 on Fox News and now airs on TheBlaze. Beck has authored six New York Times–bestselling books.
The Three-fifths Compromise was an agreement reached during the 1787 United States Constitutional Convention over the inclusion of slaves in a state's total population. This count would determine: the number of seats in the House of Representatives; the number of electoral votes each state would be allocated; and how much money the states would pay in taxes. Slave holding states wanted their entire population to be counted to determine the number of Representatives those states could elect and send to Congress. Free states wanted to exclude the counting of slave populations in slave states, since those slaves had no voting rights. A compromise was struck to resolve this impasse. The compromise counted three-fifths of each state's slave population toward that state's total population for the purpose of apportioning the House of Representatives, effectively giving the Southern states more power in the House relative to the Northern states. It also gave slaveholders similarly enlarged powers in Southern legislatures; this was an issue in the secession of West Virginia from Virginia in 1863. Free blacks and indentured servants were not subject to the compromise, and each was counted as one full person for representation.
United States v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. 649 (1898), was a landmark decision of the U.S. Supreme Court which held that "a child born in the United States, of parents of Chinese descent, who, at the time of his birth, are subjects of the Emperor of China, but have a permanent domicile and residence in the United States, and are there carrying on business, and are not employed in any diplomatic or official capacity under the Emperor of China", automatically became a U.S. citizen at birth. This decision established an important precedent in its interpretation of the Citizenship Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution.
The Fugitive Slave Act of 1793 was an Act of the United States Congress to give effect to the Fugitive Slave Clause of the U.S. Constitution, which was later superseded by the Thirteenth Amendment, and to also give effect to the Extradition Clause. The Constitution's Fugitive Slave Clause guaranteed a right for a slaveholder to recover an escaped slave. The subsequent Act, "An Act respecting fugitives from justice, and persons escaping from the service of their masters", created the legal mechanism by which that could be accomplished.
The Blockade of Africa began in 1808 after the United Kingdom outlawed the Atlantic slave trade, making it illegal for British ships to transport slaves. The Royal Navy immediately established a presence off Africa to enforce the ban, called the West Africa Squadron. Although the ban initially applied only to British ships, Britain negotiated treaties with other countries to give the Royal Navy the right to intercept and search their ships for slaves.
Prigg v. Pennsylvania, 41 U.S. 539 (1842), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the court held that the Fugitive Slave Act of 1793 precluded a Pennsylvania state law that prohibited Blacks from being taken out of the free state of Pennsylvania into slavery. The Court overturned the conviction of slavecatcher Edward Prigg as a result.
Andrew Peter Napolitano is an American former jurist and syndicated columnist whose work appears in numerous publications, including The Washington Times and Reason. Napolitano served as a New Jersey Superior Court judge from 1987 to 1995. He also served as a visiting professor at Widener University Delaware Law School, Seton Hall University School of Law, and Brooklyn Law School. He is a libertarian and has gained prominence in part due to his criticism of the administrations of George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and Donald Trump. Beginning in 1997, he became an analyst for Fox News, commenting on legal news and trials. He has written nine books on legal and political subjects.
Glenn is a news talk and political opinion show on TheBlaze hosted by Glenn Beck. It is produced and recorded at TheBlaze studios in Dallas, TX. The show originally ran on CNN Headline News from 2006 to 2008 and moved to the Fox News Channel in 2009. Beck's program departed Fox News on June 30, 2011, with Beck announcing the creation of an online only network, later to become TheBlaze, that would air his television show among other programming.
Federalist Paper No. 54 is an essay by James Madison, the fifty-fourth of The Federalist Papers. It was first published by The New York Packet on February 12, 1788 under the pseudonym Publius, the name under which all The Federalist papers were published.
The Fugitive Slave Clause in the United States Constitution, also known as either the Slave Clause or the Fugitives From Labor Clause, is Article IV, Section 2, Clause 3, which requires a "Person held to Service or Labour" who flees to another state to be returned to his or her master in the state from which that person escaped. The enactment of the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which abolished slavery except as a punishment for criminal acts, has made the clause mostly irrelevant.
Smith v. Turner; Norris v. Boston, 48 U.S. 283 (1849), were two similar cases, argued together before the United States Supreme Court, which decided 5–4 that states do not have the right to impose a tax that is determined by the number of passengers of a designated category on board a ship and/or disembarking into the State. The cases are sometimes called the Passenger Case or Passenger Cases.
Beck v. Eiland-Hall was a case filed in 2009 before the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), a United Nations agency. It was filed by political commentator Glenn Beck against Isaac Eiland-Hall, concerning the website "GlennBeckRapedAndMurderedAYoungGirlIn1990.com". Eiland-Hall created the site as a parody to express the view that Beck's commentary style challenged his guests to prove a negative. The site's name was based on a joke first used by comedian Gilbert Gottfried at the 2008 Comedy Central Roast of Bob Saget, in which Gottfried jokingly implored listeners to disregard the (non-existent) rumor that Saget had raped and murdered a girl in 1990. Online posters began an Internet meme comparing Gottfried's joke with Beck's style of debate, by requesting Beck disprove he had committed the act in question. Eiland-Hall launched his website on September 1, 2009.
Common Nonsense: Glenn Beck and the Triumph of Ignorance is a 2010 book by investigative reporter Alexander Zaitchik. Released in June 2010, the book attempts to critically explain the life story and phenomenon of conservative host Glenn Beck.
The Dimitrov Constitution was the second Constitution of Bulgaria, in effect from 1947 to 1971. It formed the legal basis for Communist rule in Bulgaria.
In the United States, abolitionism, the movement that sought to end slavery in the country, was active from the colonial era until the American Civil War, the end of which brought about the abolition of American slavery, except as punishment for a crime, through the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.
