I have a question about the ordering of the Constitution

[jmowreader]

A Second Amendment absolutist once told me the Founding Fathers put the Bill of Rights in the Constitution in order of importance.

Okay then, if this is so, why are the rights to privacy (Fourth Amendment), protection against self-incrimination (Fifth), speedy and public trials (Sixth), juries of your peers (Seventh) and to not be sentenced to cruel and unusual punishment (Eighth) less important than the right to not have your house turned into an army barracks against your will?

[former9thward]

1. One of the causes of the Revolution

was the great anger people in the colonies had against the King placing his troops in people's houses against their will. We don't think about it much now because we have military bases. It is one of the reasons the founders refused to have a standing army after the nation was formed.

[jmowreader]

5. I know why it's in there

They were called the Quartering Acts. It belongs in the Bill of Rights, but even in those fractious days not waking up some morning to find out you'd been tried and convicted in absentia for a murder committed in Vermont on a day when you were in Georgia had to be at least as important as not having to house soldiers against your will.

It's more likely the Bill of Rights was set up based on the order they thought the rights up.

[former9thward]

9. Well the answer you will get depends on whether you favor rights of gun owners or you don't.

The gun grabbers will say the 2nd amendment has no importance and those in favor of gun ownership will say it is very important. Just look at the posts in this thread -- all giving opinions without evidence.

[TexasProgresive]

2. Can't answer that because I think all 10 are of a piece.

They are all important. The bill of Rights is a gestalt.

[TreasonousBastard]

3. I've never heard of that and would...

ask him for some link to a legal or historical Constitutional authority for that claim.

Repeating what he heard some drunken teabagger yell at a rally doesn't count.

[Fred Sanders]

4. Historical context?? Wild guess.

[JaneyVee]

6. That person is completely full of shit and doesn't know history.

[H2O Man]

7. The "absolutist"

is absolutely wrong.

[MohRokTah]

8. The only absolute in terms of surpremecy within the constitution regards amendments.

Should a new amendment of the constitution contradict anything in the constitution or any amendment ratified prior, the new amendment takes precedent. Usually these contradictions are by design and are very specific, but in some cases they are not.

This is why the 14th amendment applies prior restrictions on the federal government to all levels of government.

[petronius]

10. I don't think they're in order of importance

What really happened is that, after they finished writing the Constitution, they got blitzed at a Chinese restaurant and decided that the first ten fortune cookies would be made into amendments. But I could be mistaken...