Guarantee Clause

Examples of Guarantee Clause in the following topics:

• The State Constitutions

  • The Tenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, part of the Bill of Rights, provides that "[t]he powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people. " The Guarantee Clause of Article 4 of the Constitution states that "[t]he United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government. " These two provisions give states the wide latitude to adopt a constitution, the fundamental documents of state law.

• The Dorr Rebellion

  • Constitution's Guarantee Clause, which stated, "The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government... ."
  • Constitution, added that, "[i]f resistance is made to the execution of the laws of Rhode Island, by such force as the civil peace shall be unable to overcome, it will be the duty of this Government to enforce the constitutional guarantee—a guarantee given and adopted mutually by all the original States."

• The Bill of Rights

  • They guarantee a number of personal freedoms, limit the government's power in judicial and other proceedings, and reserve some powers for the states and public.
  • First Amendment: establishment clause, free exercise clause; freedom of speech, of the press, and of assembly; right to petition
  • Fifth Amendment: guarantees due process, prohibits legal double jeopardy, protects against self-incrimination, establishes eminent domain
  • Sixth Amendment: guarantees trial by jury and rights of the accused; Confrontation Clause, speedy trial, public trial, right to counsel

• The Bill of Rights

  • They guarantee a number of personal freedoms, limit the government's power in judicial and other proceedings, and reserve some powers to the states and the public.
  • James Madison, who believed it was unnecessary to guarantee people's rights explicitly when the federal government had such limited powers, nevertheless recognized that Congress should respond to the demands of the state conventions and authored the text of the Bill of Rights, passed as amendments to the Constitution in 1791.
  • First Amendment: establishment clause, free exercise clause; freedom of speech, of the press, and of assembly; right to petition.
  • Fifth Amendment: guarantees due process, prohibits double jeopardy, protects against self-incrimination, establishes eminent domain.
  • Sixth Amendment: guarantees trial by jury and rights of the accused; Confrontation Clause, speedy trial, public trial, right to counsel.

• Marriage Equality and the Courts

  • Shortly thereafter, the Supreme Court also ruled that the Defense of Marriage Act of 1996 was unconstitutional because it violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
  • Windsor (2013) was a landmark civil rights case in which the United States Supreme Court held that restricting U.S. federal interpretation of "marriage" and "spouse" to apply only to heterosexual unions, by Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), is unconstitutional under the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment.
  • Jones ruled that Section 3 of DOMA was unconstitutional under the due process guarantees of the Fifth Amendment and ordered the federal government to issue the tax refund, including interest.
  • Supreme Court case in which the Court held in a 5-4 decision that the fundamental right to marry is guaranteed to same-sex couples by both the Due Process Clause and the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S.
  • The Court examined the nature of fundamental rights guaranteed to all by the Constitution, the harm done to individuals by delaying the implementation of such rights while the democratic process plays out, and the evolving understanding of discrimination and inequality that has developed greatly since Baker.

• Laissez-Faire and the Supreme Court

  • Supreme Court case that held that the notion of a "liberty of contract" was implicit in the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
  • Sandford (1857), the Supreme Court established that the Due Process Clause (found in both the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments) is not merely a procedural guarantee, but also a substantive limitation on the type of control the government may exercise over individuals.
  • Although this interpretation of the Due Process Clause is a controversial one, it had become firmly embedded in American jurisprudence by the end of the nineteenth century.
  • Seven years earlier, the Supreme Court had accepted the argument that the Due Process Clause protected the right to contract in Allgeyer v.

• The Rights of Englishmen

  • The Magna Carta, sealed in 1215 by King John after coercion from an assembly of his barons, is an English charter that limited the power of the king by guaranteeing certain rights, liberties, and privileges to the English aristocracy .
  • Among other important clauses, Magna Carta forbade the king from arbitrarily punishing any free man without due process of law and decreed that all nobles were to be judged by a jury of peers.

• The Reconstruction Amendments

  • The Fourteenth Amendment, proposed in 1866 and ratified in 1868, guaranteed U.S. citizenship to all persons born or naturalized in the United States and granted them federal civil rights.
  • The three main clauses of the amendment are the "Citizenship" clause, the "Due Process" clause, and the "Equal Protection" clause.
  • The "Citizenship" clause overruled the Supreme Court's 1857 Dred Scott v.
  • The "Equal Protection" clause requires each state to provide equal protection under the law to all people within its jurisdiction.
  • This clause was the basis for the 1954 Brown v.

• The Holdouts: Virginia and New York

  • The Constitution was debated, criticized, and expounded clause by clause.
  • Many delegates who were generally in favor of the Constitution were concerned that it did not contain a list of guaranteed rights akin to the celebrated Virginia Declaration of Rights.

• Legislative Change

  • Congress asserted its authority to legislate under several different parts of the United States Constitution, principally its power to regulate interstate commerce under Article One (section 8), its duty to guarantee all citizens equal protection of the laws under the Fourteenth Amendment and its duty to protect voting rights under the Fifteenth Amendment.
  • Historians speculate that Smith was trying to embarrass northern Democrats who opposed civil rights for women because the clause was opposed by labor unions.
  • Designed to enforce the voting rights guaranteed by the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution, the Act secured voting rights for racial minorities throughout the country, especially in the South.