The First Amendment

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- [Kim] Hi, this is Kim from Khan Academy.

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And today, I'm learning more
about the First Amendment

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to the U.S. Constitution.

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The First Amendment is one of
the most important amendments

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to the Constitution, if
not the most important.

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It reads: "Congress shall make no law

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"respecting an establishment of religion,

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"or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;

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"or abridging the freedom
of speech, or of the press;

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"or the right of the people
peaceably to assemble,

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"and to petition the government

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"for a redress of grievances."

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To learn more about the First Amendment,

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I talked to two experts.

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Erwin Chemerinsky is the Jesse H. Choper

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Distinguished Professor of Law

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and Dean of Berkeley Law.

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Michael McConnell is the Director

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of the Constitutional Law
Center at Stanford Law School

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and a Senior Fellow at
the Hoover Institution.

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Professor Chemerinsky,
there's a lot going on

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in the First Amendment.

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Can you tell us a little bit
more about why the framers

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chose to protect these
rights in particular?

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- [Erwin] The historical
background of the First Amendment

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of the Constitution shows why the framers

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wanted to be sure that
all of the liberties

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in the First Amendment were safeguarded.

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Let's focus on freedom of
speech and freedom of the press.

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In England, there was after
the printing press developed

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licensing so that anyone
who wanted to be able

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to publish anything needed a
license from the government.

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Such licensing was seen to be inconsistent

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with freedom of speech;
freedom of the press;

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for that matter: freedom of
thought, freedom of inquiry.

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- [Kim] Interesting.

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Okay, so there are a lot
of essential freedoms

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that are packed into this First Amendment,

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so much that it's almost
amazing that we're gonna attempt

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to talk about them all in one video.

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But if we dial into freedom of speech,

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Professor McConnell, what
is freedom of speech?

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Does that encompass some
things and not others?

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- [Michael] Freedom of speech
was actually less important

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to the framers than the freedom
with which it was coupled

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which is the freedom of the press.

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And the reason for this is that speech

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that can reach large audiences
is much more important

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to the individual, but
also dangerous to the state

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than mere speech.

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When you speak, only those
people within hearing range

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can hear you.

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But when you are able to use Gutenberg's

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fantastic new technology
to publish your sentiments

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and distribute them widely,

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maybe even over the entire
country or across the Atlantic

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and reaching hundreds
of thousands of people,

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now that is powerful.

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And no wonder.

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So you think about how the
American Revolution was won.

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This required spreading the word.

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It required gaining
converts and telling people

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what their grievances were.

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To a very great extent, this was done

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through the mechanism
of the printing press.

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- [Erwin] When you ask the question of

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what's freedom of speech,
there's implicit within it

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the issue of: what do we mean by speech.

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Ultimately, the answer to your question is

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the First Amendment protecting
speech broadly safeguards

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a right to express one's ideas.

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But it's not absolute.

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The government can restrict expression

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if there's a compelling interest.

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- [Kim] Interesting, can
you say more about that?

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- [Erwin] The Supreme
Court always has been clear

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that freedom of speech is not absolute.

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The court has said that
there are certain categories

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of speech that are unprotected
by the First Amendment.

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Incitement of illegal
activity is a category

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of unprotected speech.

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The court has said this
requires showing that

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the speech was directed at causing

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imminent illegal activity,

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and there was substantial likelihood

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of imminent illegal activity.

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Another example: obscenity is unprotected

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by the First Amendment.

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The court struggled for
years trying to define

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what is obscenity.

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Maybe the low point in that is

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when Justice Potter Stewart said,

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"I can't define it, but
I know it when I see it."

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There are also these categories of speech

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where the government can prohibit,

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even punish the expression.

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- [Michael] That's where
most of the limitations

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on the freedom of speech
and of the press come from

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is in order to make sure that we don't

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hurt other people's rights
through the use of our own.

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So an example of that.

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The government can prohibit speech

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which incites violence against someone.

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So if you're making a speech
and calling upon the crowd

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to attack somebody's
house or their person,

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that can be punished and prevented

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as an incitement to violence.

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And you can see how that
follows from the logical idea

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of freedom of speech being a natural right

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and therefore limited by
the rights of other people.

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- [Kim] So let's turn our attention

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toward the freedom of religion
part of the First Amendment.

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So the first thing that the amendment says

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is about establishment.

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So what does this
establishment clause prevent?

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- [Erwin] The language of the
First Amendment is important.

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It says that "Congress may make no law

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"respecting the
establishment of religion."

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Since 1947, the Supreme
Court has said that

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that also applies to state
and local governments.

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And the Supreme Court has said this means

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that the government cannot
act with the purpose

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of advancing religion.

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- [Michael] To the founders,

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this was a very clear legal concept.

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Namely, it was the
established Church of England.

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In the statute books, in the law,

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the Church of England was referred to as

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and I quote "the Church
by law established."

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And what did it mean to be established?

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First of all, it meant that
the doctrines of the church,

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the 39 Articles of Faith
of the Church of England

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were voted upon by Parliament.

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So the doctrines, the liturgy, the text

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were all adopted by law.

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The established church was
the government's church.

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And it could be used, and
from time to time was used,

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as an instrument of government

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or as an instrument of politics.

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And this is a way in which the government

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is able to have a powerful
influence on the way

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in which values and
opinions are inculcated.

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It's one of the most important ideas

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of the established church,
especially in the 18th century,

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was to teach that there's
actually a religious obligation

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to obey the law and to recognize the king

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as a supreme leader in matters
of both church and state.

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And the framers' experience with this

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was extremely powerful.

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- [Erwin] That's because
the framers were aware

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of the religious persecution

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that had gone on in other countries.

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They were aware of the evils that occur

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when the government becomes aligned

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with a particular religion.

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- [Michael] The principal
reason why many of the colonists

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had come to these shores to begin with

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was to escape the oppressions
of the established

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Church of England back
home and to come to a place

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where they would be able to exercise

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the freedom of religion for themselves.

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And the main opponents
of the established church

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were not anti-Christian
or anti-religious people.

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They were the most religious people.

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And their view was the government should

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stay out of our church,
that we will decide

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what we believe for ourselves.

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We will control our own church.

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We will write our own liturgy.

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We'll decide what version of the Bible

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we're going to use.

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We'll choose our own ministers.

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Thank you very much,
government, stay out of it.

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Leave us free to practice our religion

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without having this kind
of an establishment.

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- [Erwin] So for instance,
a county in Kentucky

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required that the 10
Commandments be posted

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in all county buildings.

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The Supreme Court said the 10 Commandments

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are a religious scripture.

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There's no secular purpose
for having the 10 Commandments

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posted in county buildings.

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The court declared it unconstitutional.

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The Supreme Court has said
the government can't act

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where the primary effect is to advance

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or to inhibit religion.

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So for example, there can't
be prayer in public schools.

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Even a voluntary prayer in
public schools in impermissible.

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Because the court has said
that the primary effect

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of having prayer in public
schools is to advance religion.

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The court has explained that
children will inevitably

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feel pressured to participate.

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And this coercion
violates the Constitution.

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- [Kim] So the First
Amendment then prevents

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that kind of intermingling

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of the government and the church.

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This is I guess the key idea of separation

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between church and state.

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But it also says that the
"Congress shall make no law

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"prohibiting the free
exercise" of religion.

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So what does that mean?

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- [Michael] Free exercise
of religion was the right

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to practice your own religion.

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It didn't keep the government
from setting up a church,

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but it did keep the government

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from requiring you to attend that church,

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maybe even to contribute to the church,

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but also kept the government
from preventing you

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from worshiping elsewhere.

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So the establishment clause by and large

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prevents the government
from forcing people

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to participate in religion.

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And the free exercise clause by and large

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prohibits the government
from preventing people

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from practicing their religion.

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Those two things work together

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to enable everyone to worship God

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in accordance with their own conscience.

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- [Kim] Interesting.

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So we mentioned a little bit
about freedom of the press.

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But there are two other
aspects of the First Amendment:

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"the right of the people
peaceably to assemble,

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"and to petition the government

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"for a redress of grievances."

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So what is included with the
right to peaceably assemble?

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Are there any situations where
that might be restricted?

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- [Erwin] The Supreme Court has said

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that under freedom of
speech, there's a right

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to use government property
for speech purposes.

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This is also something which entails

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the freedom of assembly.

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And the Supreme Court has said that

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there's certain government
properties that the government

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is required to make available for speech:

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sidewalks and parks.

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There's other places where the government

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has more latitude to regulating speech:

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school facilities evenings and weekends.

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There's places where the government

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can close entirely to speech:

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military bases, areas
outside prisons and jails.

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All of these cases have been litigated

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under freedom of assembly.

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Some of the earlier cases
explicitly mentioned

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freedom of assembly.

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But subsequent cases
combined freedom of assembly

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into the protection of freedom of speech.

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- [Kim] I guess that makes sense.

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But what about something
like a march, for example,

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that might say block traffic?

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That's perhaps a clear case
when there is this tension

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between freedom of speech and assembly

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and say public safety if they're
blocking say an ambulance.

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How do you resolve that tension?

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- [Michael] Sometime in roughly the 1970s,

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the court began using
a quite different way

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of looking at the free speech question

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in which they said that

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laws which regulate or prohibit speech

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on the basis of the content of the speech

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are, generally speaking, unconstitutional

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absent a very important
governmental purpose.

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But that laws that are content neutral

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and regulate speech on
the basis of its time,

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place, or manner are permitted.

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So the basic idea here is

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the government has regulatory
authority over speech,

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but not over what you say,

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but just over when you say it,

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where you say it, how you say it.

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- [Kim] All right, so the last
thing in the First Amendment

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is the phrase "petitioning the government

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"for a redress of grievances."

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Congress shall make no law
abridging that freedom.

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What does this mean?

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How would one petition the government

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for a redress of grievances?

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- [Erwin] There are, of
course, many ways that people

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can petition government for
a redress of grievances.

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It's the ability to go and testify

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before our legislative body.

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It's the ability to communicate
with one's legislators

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or representatives about change.

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It's basically the ability
to go to the government

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and ask it to change its policy.

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There are relatively few
cases just about the right

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to petition government
for redress of grievances.

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Again, I think the reason for that is

00:13:21.230 --> 00:13:23.950
it's been so subsumed into the protection

00:13:23.950 --> 00:13:26.770
of freedom of speech,
everything one would do

00:13:26.770 --> 00:13:29.740
by way of petitioning government
for redress of grievances

00:13:29.740 --> 00:13:32.380
is through speech and expression.

00:13:32.380 --> 00:13:34.990
And so, the larger protection
of speech and expression

00:13:34.990 --> 00:13:36.530
has meant that the court
hasn't needed to focus

00:13:36.530 --> 00:13:38.700
so much on this particular right.

00:13:38.700 --> 00:13:39.820
- [Kim] Is there anything that you feel

00:13:39.820 --> 00:13:43.420
people commonly misunderstand
about the First Amendment,

00:13:43.420 --> 00:13:45.943
what it encompasses and what it does not?

00:13:46.900 --> 00:13:49.460
- [Erwin] One of the most
important misunderstandings

00:13:49.460 --> 00:13:52.430
about the First Amendment
is people fail to realize

00:13:52.430 --> 00:13:55.130
that it, like all rights
in the Constitution,

00:13:55.130 --> 00:13:56.860
apply only to the government.

00:13:56.860 --> 00:13:59.720
Before I took my current
job, I was a professor

00:13:59.720 --> 00:14:02.070
at Duke University in
Durham, North Carolina.

00:14:02.070 --> 00:14:03.970
Duke is a private university.

00:14:03.970 --> 00:14:07.180
If while I was there, I had
criticized the president

00:14:07.180 --> 00:14:09.550
of the university and he
would have ordered me fired,

00:14:09.550 --> 00:14:12.350
I could not have sued
him or Duke University

00:14:12.350 --> 00:14:14.030
for violating my free speech rights.

00:14:14.030 --> 00:14:16.100
The First Amendment doesn't apply

00:14:16.100 --> 00:14:17.240
if it's a private university.

00:14:17.240 --> 00:14:19.200
But now I'm with the
University of California,

00:14:19.200 --> 00:14:20.360
a state university.

00:14:20.360 --> 00:14:22.240
If I were to give a speech criticizing

00:14:22.240 --> 00:14:23.550
the president of the university

00:14:23.550 --> 00:14:25.040
or the chancellor of my campus

00:14:25.040 --> 00:14:27.680
and I was to be fired for
doing that, I could sue.

00:14:27.680 --> 00:14:29.040
I would sue.

00:14:29.040 --> 00:14:30.730
Since this is a public university,

00:14:30.730 --> 00:14:32.180
the First Amendment applies.

00:14:32.180 --> 00:14:34.370
- [Michael] So I think
the really dangerous thing

00:14:34.370 --> 00:14:36.637
in our times is that

00:14:38.090 --> 00:14:42.770
many people believe that they
have some kind of a right

00:14:42.770 --> 00:14:47.510
not to hear opinions
that they find offensive.

00:14:47.510 --> 00:14:50.540
Certainly college campuses are filled

00:14:50.540 --> 00:14:52.750
with controversies of this sort.

00:14:52.750 --> 00:14:57.060
This is something that our Constitution

00:14:57.060 --> 00:14:58.500
was designed to prevent.

00:14:58.500 --> 00:15:01.900
Free speech can inflict offense.

00:15:01.900 --> 00:15:05.140
Sometimes it can be hurtful and insulting.

00:15:05.140 --> 00:15:09.280
But we as a nation have decided

00:15:09.280 --> 00:15:11.710
that it is better to put up with that

00:15:11.710 --> 00:15:14.420
so that we can all be
free to express ourselves,

00:15:14.420 --> 00:15:16.660
to criticize the government,

00:15:16.660 --> 00:15:19.640
to urge the religious and scientific

00:15:19.640 --> 00:15:22.663
and artistic ideas that we have.

00:15:23.790 --> 00:15:25.610
And that it's more important for all of us

00:15:25.610 --> 00:15:28.040
to be able to do that than it is

00:15:28.040 --> 00:15:31.946
to be able to retreat to safe spaces,

00:15:31.946 --> 00:15:35.690
and require other people to shut up.

00:15:35.690 --> 00:15:37.680
- [Kim] So we've learned
that the rights protected

00:15:37.680 --> 00:15:41.120
in the First Amendment derive
from the historical context

00:15:41.120 --> 00:15:44.860
of restricted speech, press,
and religion in Europe

00:15:44.860 --> 00:15:47.610
that the framers wished to
avoid in the United States.

00:15:47.610 --> 00:15:50.100
Freedom of religion
includes both the freedom

00:15:50.100 --> 00:15:53.500
not to participate in religion
and the freedom to practice

00:15:53.500 --> 00:15:55.360
whichever religion you choose.

00:15:55.360 --> 00:15:58.160
Freedom of speech extends to all forms

00:15:58.160 --> 00:16:01.030
of freedom of expression, not just words.

00:16:01.030 --> 00:16:03.840
But there are limits to
what counts as free speech.

00:16:03.840 --> 00:16:05.760
To learn more about the First Amendment,

00:16:05.760 --> 00:16:07.770
visit the National Constitution Center's

00:16:07.770 --> 00:16:10.810
Interactive Constitution
and Khan Academy's resources

00:16:10.810 --> 00:16:12.823
on U.S. government and politics.


Article V of the Constitution

WEBVTT
Kind: captions
Language: en

00:00:00.540 --> 00:00:02.500
- [Kim] Hey this is Kim from Khan Academy,

00:00:02.500 --> 00:00:04.660
and today I'm learning about Article Five

00:00:04.660 --> 00:00:06.160
of the U.S. Constitution,

00:00:06.160 --> 00:00:09.750
which describes the
Constitution's amendment process.

00:00:09.750 --> 00:00:11.340
To learn more about Article Five,

00:00:11.340 --> 00:00:14.500
I talked to two experts,
Professor Michael Rappaport,

00:00:14.500 --> 00:00:16.760
who is the Darling Foundation Professor

00:00:16.760 --> 00:00:19.370
at the University of
San Diego School of Law,

00:00:19.370 --> 00:00:22.070
where he also serves as
the Director of the Center

00:00:22.070 --> 00:00:24.960
for the Study of
Constitutional Originalism.

00:00:24.960 --> 00:00:26.520
And Davis Strauss,

00:00:26.520 --> 00:00:29.150
who's the Gerald Ratner
Distinguished Service Professor

00:00:29.150 --> 00:00:31.780
of Law at the University
of Chicago Law School,

00:00:31.780 --> 00:00:35.040
and author of The Living Constitution.

00:00:35.040 --> 00:00:39.276
Professor Strauss, Article
Five provides this process

00:00:39.276 --> 00:00:42.700
for amending the Constitution.

00:00:42.700 --> 00:00:44.980
Can you take us through
that process a little bit?

00:00:44.980 --> 00:00:45.933
How does it work?

00:00:47.060 --> 00:00:49.218
- [Strauss] A quick
description, the process is

00:00:49.218 --> 00:00:51.035
it's really hard, it's really hard

00:00:51.035 --> 00:00:53.410
to amend the Constitution.

00:00:53.410 --> 00:00:56.260
There are actually a couple
of different processes

00:00:56.260 --> 00:00:59.101
that are laid out in Article Five,

00:00:59.101 --> 00:01:01.540
but only one has ever been used.

00:01:01.540 --> 00:01:03.497
An amendment starts in Congress,

00:01:03.497 --> 00:01:06.240
and two thirds of each House of Congress,

00:01:06.240 --> 00:01:08.460
two thirds of the House of Representatives

00:01:08.460 --> 00:01:09.760
and two thirds of the Senate

00:01:09.760 --> 00:01:11.950
has to approve the amendment.

00:01:11.950 --> 00:01:13.570
And then it goes to the States.

00:01:13.570 --> 00:01:15.625
And three quarters of the States

00:01:15.625 --> 00:01:18.210
have to approve the amendment.

00:01:18.210 --> 00:01:21.480
So you have to have
really strong consensus

00:01:21.480 --> 00:01:24.590
in order to get the
constitution changed that way.

00:01:24.590 --> 00:01:26.220
- [Kim] So Professor Rappaport,

00:01:26.220 --> 00:01:30.490
take us through this process
of amending the Constitution.

00:01:30.490 --> 00:01:32.933
Why did the Framers set it up this way?

00:01:33.901 --> 00:01:35.130
- [Rappaport] The Framers gave a good bit

00:01:35.130 --> 00:01:38.120
of thought to coming up
with an Amendment process

00:01:38.120 --> 00:01:41.222
because they recognized
that the Constitution

00:01:41.222 --> 00:01:43.340
might need to be changed over time,

00:01:43.340 --> 00:01:45.930
either because there were problems with it

00:01:45.930 --> 00:01:47.030
that weren't anticipated,

00:01:47.030 --> 00:01:49.810
or because circumstances
or values changed.

00:01:49.810 --> 00:01:52.900
So there are two steps
to the amendment process.

00:01:52.900 --> 00:01:55.600
For an amendment to go
into the Constitution

00:01:55.600 --> 00:01:56.440
to become part of the Constitution,

00:01:56.440 --> 00:01:59.590
it has to be both proposed and ratified.

00:01:59.590 --> 00:02:04.590
On the proposal side,
the Congress can propose.

00:02:04.910 --> 00:02:08.800
Alternatively, a proposal can come from

00:02:08.800 --> 00:02:12.510
the action of the state legislatures.

00:02:12.510 --> 00:02:14.810
So two thirds of the
state legislatures say,

00:02:14.810 --> 00:02:17.900
we'd like to have a
Constitutional Convention

00:02:17.900 --> 00:02:19.680
propose an amendment.

00:02:19.680 --> 00:02:21.950
So there's two parts of that obviously.

00:02:21.950 --> 00:02:24.480
The state legislatures
have got to want it,

00:02:24.480 --> 00:02:26.410
and then you get the calling

00:02:26.410 --> 00:02:27.870
of a Constitutional Convention.

00:02:27.870 --> 00:02:30.070
Okay, that's the proposal side.

00:02:30.070 --> 00:02:31.730
There's also the ratification side,

00:02:31.730 --> 00:02:33.630
which is a little bit simpler.

00:02:33.630 --> 00:02:36.153
You need three quarters of the States

00:02:36.153 --> 00:02:39.270
to ratify a Constitutional amendment,

00:02:39.270 --> 00:02:42.060
and they can ratify it either through

00:02:42.060 --> 00:02:44.300
the actions of the state legislatures,

00:02:44.300 --> 00:02:48.870
or the actions of state conventions,

00:02:48.870 --> 00:02:52.210
which are special bodies
which would be elected

00:02:52.210 --> 00:02:55.710
in order to decides one question,

00:02:55.710 --> 00:02:57.440
whether or not to ratify

00:02:57.440 --> 00:03:00.080
that proposed Constitutional amendment.

00:03:00.080 --> 00:03:01.090
- [Kim] This is fascinating.

00:03:01.090 --> 00:03:04.800
So I actually had no
idea about the two thirds

00:03:04.800 --> 00:03:07.490
of the state legislatures being able

00:03:07.490 --> 00:03:09.610
to propose a Constitutional amendment.

00:03:09.610 --> 00:03:11.340
How often does that happen?

00:03:11.340 --> 00:03:13.210
- [Rappaport] It has never occurred

00:03:13.210 --> 00:03:16.173
throughout our history,
although a couple of times

00:03:16.173 --> 00:03:19.160
there were actions taken to
sort of move in that direction,

00:03:19.160 --> 00:03:22.934
but we've never actually had
a Constitutional Convention

00:03:22.934 --> 00:03:25.670
that has proposed any amendments.

00:03:25.670 --> 00:03:28.270
It's important to go into why the Framers

00:03:28.270 --> 00:03:30.440
would've set up the
system the way they did.

00:03:30.440 --> 00:03:33.790
The most usual situation
is for the Congress

00:03:33.790 --> 00:03:36.290
to propose the Amendments

00:03:36.290 --> 00:03:39.710
and that's happened in
all of the 27 amendments

00:03:39.710 --> 00:03:43.070
which have been ratified to
become part of our Constitution.

00:03:43.070 --> 00:03:46.930
But what happens if the
Congress is the problem?

00:03:46.930 --> 00:03:48.830
What happens if the Congress is doing,

00:03:48.830 --> 00:03:51.280
is usurping power or they're standing in

00:03:51.280 --> 00:03:52.860
the way of changes that are important,

00:03:52.860 --> 00:03:54.450
or they need to be reformed.

00:03:54.450 --> 00:03:57.500
You can't count on the Congress
to wanna reform itself.

00:03:57.500 --> 00:04:00.810
So what they did was to have
this alternative mechanism

00:04:00.810 --> 00:04:03.047
which would bypass the Congress.

00:04:03.047 --> 00:04:04.840
And that alternative mechanism

00:04:04.840 --> 00:04:07.160
was the Constitutional Convention.

00:04:07.160 --> 00:04:11.690
So the state legislatures
propose, apply for it,

00:04:11.690 --> 00:04:14.030
and then the separate entity,

00:04:14.030 --> 00:04:16.800
the Constitutional
Convention, makes a proposal.

00:04:16.800 --> 00:04:19.010
So they were quite explicit
in discussing this,

00:04:19.010 --> 00:04:21.177
that they wanted this as an
alternative to the Congress.

00:04:21.177 --> 00:04:22.580
- [Kim] So was this on purpose,

00:04:22.580 --> 00:04:25.658
that they made it very difficult
to amend the Constitution?

00:04:25.658 --> 00:04:27.450
- [Strauss] Well it sure seems like it.

00:04:27.450 --> 00:04:29.550
Now, of course we don't know back then

00:04:29.550 --> 00:04:33.505
what they had in mind,
whether they thought, well,

00:04:33.505 --> 00:04:35.070
the House, the Senate, the States,

00:04:35.070 --> 00:04:38.060
they'll sort of be all be run
by the same kind of people

00:04:38.060 --> 00:04:40.110
and they'll kind of agree on things.

00:04:40.110 --> 00:04:41.110
Maybe they thought that.

00:04:41.110 --> 00:04:42.480
We just don't know.

00:04:42.480 --> 00:04:43.760
But whatever they were thinking,

00:04:43.760 --> 00:04:46.370
what they gave us was a
very difficult process

00:04:46.370 --> 00:04:47.960
to get through.

00:04:47.960 --> 00:04:50.766
- [Kim] So how long was it from the period

00:04:50.766 --> 00:04:54.726
when the Constitution was first ratified

00:04:54.726 --> 00:04:58.551
to the First Amendment to the Constitution

00:04:58.551 --> 00:05:00.707
beyond the Bill of Rights?

00:05:00.707 --> 00:05:03.744
- [Rappaport] Okay, so
the first 10 amendments

00:05:03.744 --> 00:05:05.577
were ratified in 1791.

00:05:06.708 --> 00:05:11.708
And then just a mere three years later,

00:05:12.600 --> 00:05:14.037
we had the Eleventh Amendment.

00:05:14.037 --> 00:05:16.670
- [Strauss] It was the
Eleventh Amendment in 1798

00:05:16.670 --> 00:05:19.790
to correct really kind
of a technical problem

00:05:19.790 --> 00:05:21.910
that the Supreme Court did something

00:05:21.910 --> 00:05:25.310
that the Framers really
didn't anticipate it would do,

00:05:25.310 --> 00:05:26.280
didn't want it to do,

00:05:26.280 --> 00:05:30.800
and the Eleventh Amendment
was adopted to correct that.

00:05:30.800 --> 00:05:33.610
The Twelfth Amendment was adopted in 1804

00:05:33.610 --> 00:05:38.320
after the really kind of a
disaster in the election of 1800,

00:05:38.320 --> 00:05:40.560
when there was a tie in
the Electoral College.

00:05:40.560 --> 00:05:44.710
The Framers had not foreseen
the rise of political parties

00:05:44.710 --> 00:05:47.460
and political parties made
the system for electing

00:05:47.460 --> 00:05:51.190
the President they had given
us very difficult to work with.

00:05:51.190 --> 00:05:52.220
But then there was nothing.

00:05:52.220 --> 00:05:53.160
That was 1804.

00:05:53.160 --> 00:05:55.570
Then there was nothing
until after the Civil War.

00:05:55.570 --> 00:05:58.240
And after the Civil War,
there were three amendments,

00:05:58.240 --> 00:06:01.490
then nothing again really
until the Progressive Era

00:06:01.490 --> 00:06:03.230
in the early 20th Century,

00:06:03.230 --> 00:06:05.210
when there were again
a bunch of amendments.

00:06:05.210 --> 00:06:07.400
And then after then, things
had sort of tailed off.

00:06:07.400 --> 00:06:09.400
So we really see these kind of, as I said,

00:06:09.400 --> 00:06:11.580
these kind of waves in our history.

00:06:11.580 --> 00:06:13.790
- [Kim] What do you think
brings those waves on?

00:06:13.790 --> 00:06:16.490
Why are there some eras
when there are lots

00:06:16.490 --> 00:06:18.680
of Constitutional
amendments and other eras

00:06:18.680 --> 00:06:20.068
when there's nothing?

00:06:20.068 --> 00:06:22.370
- [Strauss] Well Kim, here
I'm gonna say something

00:06:22.370 --> 00:06:24.150
that I think some people
will disagree with

00:06:24.150 --> 00:06:26.840
but I think it's right and that is that,

00:06:26.840 --> 00:06:30.300
I don't think the process
of amending the Constitution

00:06:30.300 --> 00:06:33.470
has really been the way
we actually change it.

00:06:33.470 --> 00:06:36.240
I think what happens is just because

00:06:36.240 --> 00:06:38.660
the amendment process is so difficult,

00:06:38.660 --> 00:06:40.899
we've worked out other
ways of changing things.

00:06:40.899 --> 00:06:44.510
And so amendments come along sometimes

00:06:44.510 --> 00:06:46.648
because a change has already happened

00:06:46.648 --> 00:06:48.930
and the people decide, well
let's put it in the Constitution

00:06:48.930 --> 00:06:52.720
just so we can kinda have
official recognition of it.

00:06:52.720 --> 00:06:54.480
But a lot of times changes happen

00:06:54.480 --> 00:06:56.700
and they are a little
bit too controversial

00:06:56.700 --> 00:06:58.530
to get into the Constitution,

00:06:58.530 --> 00:07:01.240
but they seem pretty
solid and pretty secure

00:07:01.240 --> 00:07:04.190
so we just don't, I
guess it's fair to say,

00:07:04.190 --> 00:07:06.310
don't bother to amend the Constitution

00:07:06.310 --> 00:07:07.790
or don't wanna go through the process

00:07:07.790 --> 00:07:09.530
of amending the Constitution.

00:07:09.530 --> 00:07:12.882
- [Rappaport] Very often
people's values may change

00:07:12.882 --> 00:07:17.882
or they may differ from
what's in the Constitution

00:07:17.940 --> 00:07:21.961
and it may take a time or
circumstances may finally

00:07:21.961 --> 00:07:26.447
occur that crystallize this desire

00:07:26.447 --> 00:07:28.980
to change the Constitution,

00:07:28.980 --> 00:07:31.510
and all of a sudden the
opportunity is there

00:07:31.510 --> 00:07:36.159
and people can suddenly pass
a Constitutional amendment.

00:07:36.159 --> 00:07:39.050
It's only gonna occur during
certain circumstances,

00:07:39.050 --> 00:07:42.120
especially when there's
strong support for it.

00:07:42.120 --> 00:07:43.160
- [Kim] Very interesting, yeah.

00:07:43.160 --> 00:07:45.230
So it's unlikely that we're gonna have

00:07:45.230 --> 00:07:48.540
a Constitutional amendment
any time in the near future.

00:07:48.540 --> 00:07:51.124
When was the last
Constitutional amendment?

00:07:51.124 --> 00:07:55.400
- [Rappaport] So the simple
answer to that was in 1971,

00:07:55.400 --> 00:07:57.800
we got the 26th Amendment,

00:07:57.800 --> 00:08:01.310
that was both proposed
and then remarkably,

00:08:01.310 --> 00:08:03.291
it's an all time record,

00:08:03.291 --> 00:08:07.750
proposed and ratified in
three months and eight days.

00:08:07.750 --> 00:08:11.130
And that was the amendment that guaranteed

00:08:11.130 --> 00:08:13.719
the right to vote of 18 year olds.

00:08:13.719 --> 00:08:15.050
- [Kim] Ah, right.

00:08:15.050 --> 00:08:17.660
So it's sort of as a
response to the Vietnam War.

00:08:17.660 --> 00:08:19.080
- [Rappaport] Yes, yes.

00:08:19.080 --> 00:08:23.150
But there actually has been
one additional amendment,

00:08:23.150 --> 00:08:24.820
the 27th Amendment, right?

00:08:24.820 --> 00:08:27.180
So why isn't that the most recent one?

00:08:27.180 --> 00:08:28.500
Well here's the funny thing about it.

00:08:28.500 --> 00:08:31.278
The 27th Amendment was proposed

00:08:31.278 --> 00:08:36.278
as part of the original
Bill of Rights in 1789.

00:08:36.650 --> 00:08:39.980
So this amendment was proposed in 1789,

00:08:39.980 --> 00:08:43.890
ratified in 1992, so it took 202 years.

00:08:43.890 --> 00:08:45.210
- [Kim] Interesting.

00:08:45.210 --> 00:08:46.860
And what's the 27th Amendment about?

00:08:46.860 --> 00:08:48.080
- [Strauss] That has to do

00:08:48.080 --> 00:08:51.410
with Congressional salary increases.

00:08:51.410 --> 00:08:55.300
It basically says if Congress
wants to raise its own salary,

00:08:55.300 --> 00:08:59.150
the increase can't take effect
until the next election.

00:08:59.150 --> 00:09:02.380
So it basically gives the
voters a chance to say,

00:09:02.380 --> 00:09:04.010
hey, we don't like what you did.

00:09:04.010 --> 00:09:05.713
We're gonna vote you out of office

00:09:05.713 --> 00:09:08.630
for increasing your salary.

00:09:08.630 --> 00:09:12.940
- [Kim] So one thing that
strikes me about Article Five

00:09:12.940 --> 00:09:15.623
and just the fact that
the Founders included

00:09:15.623 --> 00:09:18.240
an amendment process altogether,

00:09:18.240 --> 00:09:21.126
it seems very humble and farsighted

00:09:21.126 --> 00:09:26.126
to include a way for the
document itself to evolve,

00:09:26.995 --> 00:09:28.260
in a way.

00:09:28.260 --> 00:09:31.070
Do you think that the Framers approached

00:09:31.070 --> 00:09:33.850
the Constitution with the
idea that there were things

00:09:33.850 --> 00:09:37.590
in the future that they just
wouldn't be able to anticipate?

00:09:37.590 --> 00:09:39.350
- [Strauss] They had before them

00:09:39.350 --> 00:09:42.010
and were acutely aware of the history

00:09:42.010 --> 00:09:44.960
in which efforts to establish
governments had failed

00:09:44.960 --> 00:09:48.900
and they were really
trying to work with that

00:09:48.900 --> 00:09:51.690
and make sure they
didn't do the same thing.

00:09:51.690 --> 00:09:56.370
So they knew what a hard
job they were embarking on.

00:09:56.370 --> 00:09:58.760
And they made it clear,

00:09:58.760 --> 00:10:01.440
there's a famous passage in
which James Madison said,

00:10:01.440 --> 00:10:03.930
look, we know a lot of these provisions

00:10:03.930 --> 00:10:05.440
that we're writing in the Constitution,

00:10:05.440 --> 00:10:07.220
their meaning is unclear

00:10:07.220 --> 00:10:08.500
and their meaning will have to be,

00:10:08.500 --> 00:10:10.100
his phrase was liquidated.

00:10:10.100 --> 00:10:12.500
Which is to say, people have to figure out

00:10:12.500 --> 00:10:15.430
what this means because we
know what we're giving you

00:10:15.430 --> 00:10:17.150
is unclear in some ways.

00:10:17.150 --> 00:10:18.280
So yes, absolutely.

00:10:18.280 --> 00:10:19.310
They knew there were things

00:10:19.310 --> 00:10:21.500
that they could not anticipate.

00:10:21.500 --> 00:10:24.030
The Framers themselves
weren't in agreement

00:10:24.030 --> 00:10:26.030
on what freedom of speech means.

00:10:26.030 --> 00:10:28.830
Some of them enacted,
voted for and got into,

00:10:28.830 --> 00:10:32.220
got enacted laws that restricted speech

00:10:32.220 --> 00:10:34.870
in ways that we would
find intolerable today.

00:10:34.870 --> 00:10:37.140
We'd say they violate the First Amendment,

00:10:37.140 --> 00:10:38.550
but here you had some of the guys

00:10:38.550 --> 00:10:41.040
who drafted the First Amendment
voting for those laws.

00:10:41.040 --> 00:10:43.270
- [Kim] So near the end of Article Five,

00:10:43.270 --> 00:10:47.330
there's this kind of
long-winded clause that says,

00:10:47.330 --> 00:10:51.787
no amendment which may be
made prior to the year 1808

00:10:53.510 --> 00:10:58.079
shall in any manner affect
the first and fourth clauses

00:10:58.079 --> 00:11:00.710
in the Ninth Section of the first Article.

00:11:00.710 --> 00:11:03.390
Now, if I'm cross-referencing
this correctly,

00:11:03.390 --> 00:11:05.420
what they're really saying here is,

00:11:05.420 --> 00:11:08.640
you can't make any
amendments about slavery.

00:11:08.640 --> 00:11:10.163
So why is this here

00:11:10.163 --> 00:11:13.470
and why are they talking
around it so obliquely?

00:11:13.470 --> 00:11:14.560
- [Rappaport] The
interesting thing about this

00:11:14.560 --> 00:11:15.393
is what did they do?

00:11:15.393 --> 00:11:17.663
They basically said, for 20 years,

00:11:17.663 --> 00:11:20.370
there's not gonna be any amendments

00:11:20.370 --> 00:11:23.270
that are going to speak
to the slave trade.

00:11:23.270 --> 00:11:28.270
And the Constitution is very,
let us say, shy about using

00:11:28.659 --> 00:11:33.659
the term slavery or referring to slavery.

00:11:33.670 --> 00:11:38.210
It actually never actually
refers to the term slave.

00:11:38.210 --> 00:11:41.330
There's a variety of thoughts
about what was going on,

00:11:41.330 --> 00:11:44.860
but one very common view about this

00:11:44.860 --> 00:11:47.170
is that the Constitution was sort

00:11:47.170 --> 00:11:49.630
of a little but embarrassed.

00:11:49.630 --> 00:11:50.463
That the Framers were a
little bit embarrassed,

00:11:50.463 --> 00:11:53.290
or at least some of the Framers
were embarrassed about it.

00:11:53.290 --> 00:11:55.240
And so they didn't wanna make reference

00:11:55.240 --> 00:11:56.920
to it too explicitly.

00:11:56.920 --> 00:11:58.460
- [Strauss] They might've
been a little bit worried

00:11:58.460 --> 00:12:01.400
about what the verdict
of history would be.

00:12:01.400 --> 00:12:04.960
So they knew on some level the
sort of demorality of slavery

00:12:04.960 --> 00:12:07.710
but there it is right
there in Article Five

00:12:07.710 --> 00:12:09.780
and there are other places
in the Constitution too

00:12:09.780 --> 00:12:11.680
where they don't use the word,

00:12:11.680 --> 00:12:13.697
but what they're doing
is protecting slavery.

00:12:13.697 --> 00:12:16.311
Now they did add these
amendments to the Constitution

00:12:16.311 --> 00:12:18.675
about slavery and about, as you say,

00:12:18.675 --> 00:12:21.358
equal citizenship and voting.

00:12:21.358 --> 00:12:25.280
But the 14th Amendment
providing equal citizenship,

00:12:25.280 --> 00:12:28.710
that was pretty much
nullified in most respects

00:12:28.710 --> 00:12:30.880
for a large part of our history.

00:12:30.880 --> 00:12:33.360
States found a way to get around that.

00:12:33.360 --> 00:12:35.290
The 15th Amendment was also something

00:12:35.290 --> 00:12:37.290
that was just not very effective

00:12:37.290 --> 00:12:40.990
in preventing African Americans
from being denied the vote.

00:12:40.990 --> 00:12:44.170
And yes, there are provisions
in the Constitution

00:12:44.170 --> 00:12:45.673
that are there and you can evoke them

00:12:45.673 --> 00:12:47.770
and you can rely on them,

00:12:47.770 --> 00:12:50.160
but if you just look at the
text of the Constitution,

00:12:50.160 --> 00:12:51.880
I think you'd get a misleading impression

00:12:51.880 --> 00:12:54.040
about how the Constitution in

00:12:54.040 --> 00:12:55.720
our history has actually worked.

00:12:55.720 --> 00:12:57.890
- [Kim] Now this is a very good point

00:12:57.890 --> 00:13:00.480
because I think one of the
hardest things for students

00:13:00.480 --> 00:13:02.990
of U.S. history to understand is,

00:13:02.990 --> 00:13:06.810
how is it possible that
after the 14th Amendment

00:13:06.810 --> 00:13:10.349
was passed, things like Jim Crow happened.

00:13:10.349 --> 00:13:12.183
And I guess the answer is,

00:13:12.183 --> 00:13:17.183
the Constitution is only
enforced if it's enforced.

00:13:18.815 --> 00:13:20.520
- [Strauss] Kim, that's exactly right.

00:13:20.520 --> 00:13:21.760
It's words on a page.

00:13:21.760 --> 00:13:23.620
You know that the text is fine.

00:13:23.620 --> 00:13:25.370
It can say all the right things,

00:13:25.370 --> 00:13:27.480
but the institutions and the popular will

00:13:28.398 --> 00:13:32.940
have to be in place to make
something of those fine words.

00:13:32.940 --> 00:13:33.773
- [Kim] Interesting.

00:13:33.773 --> 00:13:35.110
So how do you think our
government might be different

00:13:35.110 --> 00:13:39.080
if the Constitution didn't
include this amendment process?

00:13:39.080 --> 00:13:41.420
- [Strauss] I don't think it
would've been that different,

00:13:41.420 --> 00:13:44.880
just because Article Five gives us such

00:13:44.880 --> 00:13:46.470
a hard process to go through.

00:13:46.470 --> 00:13:49.920
Just because it's so hard
to amend the Constitution.

00:13:49.920 --> 00:13:52.900
We figured out other ways to change

00:13:52.900 --> 00:13:54.790
the Constitution in practice,

00:13:54.790 --> 00:13:57.380
even if the words on
the page are the same.

00:13:57.380 --> 00:13:59.850
And I think if there were no Article Five,

00:13:59.850 --> 00:14:02.360
we would've found a way to get to where

00:14:02.360 --> 00:14:04.850
we wanted to get to as a country.

00:14:04.850 --> 00:14:08.410
By those means, by legislation,
by Presidential action,

00:14:08.410 --> 00:14:10.070
by Supreme Court decision

00:14:10.070 --> 00:14:12.270
and just by the people
in their lives saying,

00:14:12.270 --> 00:14:15.663
you know, we need to go in this direction.

00:14:15.663 --> 00:14:18.550
We need to go, say, in the
direction of women's equality.

00:14:18.550 --> 00:14:19.383
And by the way,

00:14:19.383 --> 00:14:22.270
there's no amendment giving
women equal rights either,

00:14:22.270 --> 00:14:23.830
but that's where we've gotten to

00:14:23.830 --> 00:14:25.710
and I think that would've been the pattern

00:14:25.710 --> 00:14:28.180
if there were no formal amendment process.

00:14:28.180 --> 00:14:29.020
- [Rappaport] There's a second way

00:14:29.020 --> 00:14:30.550
in which you could have
Constitutional change,

00:14:30.550 --> 00:14:32.640
which is, you could simply say,

00:14:32.640 --> 00:14:36.210
alright, this Constitution
was pretty good for a while.

00:14:36.210 --> 00:14:38.160
It's now outlived its usefulness.

00:14:38.160 --> 00:14:40.350
Let's have a new Constitution.

00:14:40.350 --> 00:14:42.970
That would seem like a very
radical big thing to do.

00:14:42.970 --> 00:14:46.383
No one, virtually no one proposes
that at the Federal level.

00:14:47.304 --> 00:14:49.500
But in the States, lots of States

00:14:49.500 --> 00:14:50.870
have changed their Constitutions.

00:14:50.870 --> 00:14:52.880
Not simply passed a
Constitutional Amendment

00:14:52.880 --> 00:14:55.880
but just gotten rid of
the whole old Constitution

00:14:55.880 --> 00:14:57.250
and adopted a new one.

00:14:57.250 --> 00:14:58.690
That's happened many times.

00:14:58.690 --> 00:15:01.920
And so if we didn't have a
Constitutional amendment process,

00:15:01.920 --> 00:15:03.520
it's quite possible that that's exactly

00:15:03.520 --> 00:15:06.790
what we would've seen
at the Federal level.

00:15:06.790 --> 00:15:07.780
- [Kim] This is really fascinating

00:15:07.780 --> 00:15:09.120
because we really think a lot

00:15:09.120 --> 00:15:14.120
about what the Framers intended
for certain amendments,

00:15:14.150 --> 00:15:16.970
for example, Freedom of
Speech, Freedom of Religion.

00:15:16.970 --> 00:15:19.001
What did they really mean by those things?

00:15:19.001 --> 00:15:22.650
But if we had just kind
of, every now and again,

00:15:22.650 --> 00:15:23.940
said, okay we're done with that,

00:15:23.940 --> 00:15:25.720
let's do a new Constitution.

00:15:25.720 --> 00:15:28.050
We wouldn't necessarily have that debate.

00:15:28.050 --> 00:15:30.828
We'd just say, okay this is
what we meant at the time.

00:15:30.828 --> 00:15:34.330
- [Rappaport] Famously
Thomas Jefferson said oh,

00:15:34.330 --> 00:15:36.870
it's really not right
to have a Constitution

00:15:36.870 --> 00:15:38.754
that's gonna continue over time

00:15:38.754 --> 00:15:42.790
and bind future generations.

00:15:42.790 --> 00:15:46.960
And so we aught to have a new
Constitution every 19 years

00:15:46.960 --> 00:15:49.200
when there's a new generation.

00:15:49.200 --> 00:15:52.930
And his close friend, James Madison,

00:15:52.930 --> 00:15:55.750
had to disagree with
him and basically said,

00:15:55.750 --> 00:15:58.370
look I understand why you're saying that,

00:15:58.370 --> 00:16:02.260
but you also have to realize
the incredible disruption

00:16:02.260 --> 00:16:05.481
that would cause every 20 years.

00:16:05.481 --> 00:16:08.280
People wouldn't be able to
rely on the existing rights

00:16:08.280 --> 00:16:09.410
that are in the Constitution

00:16:09.410 --> 00:16:13.180
because they would know in
a certain period of time,

00:16:13.180 --> 00:16:16.600
new ones would be enacted.

00:16:16.600 --> 00:16:17.790
We had that debate.

00:16:17.790 --> 00:16:20.403
Madison won in the sense
that the U.S. Constitution

00:16:20.403 --> 00:16:24.790
is supposed to last
for a long term period.

00:16:24.790 --> 00:16:27.066
There's no 20 year limit on it.

00:16:27.066 --> 00:16:30.250
And one of the things
that's been beneficial

00:16:30.250 --> 00:16:32.850
for the United States as a result of that,

00:16:32.850 --> 00:16:35.280
is that we've inherited
these Constitutional rights

00:16:35.280 --> 00:16:38.350
that people have a lot of reverence for.

00:16:38.350 --> 00:16:40.640
- [Kim] So we've learned
that there are two ways

00:16:40.640 --> 00:16:42.370
to amend the Constitution.

00:16:42.370 --> 00:16:45.380
Through Congress, or through a special

00:16:45.380 --> 00:16:48.450
Constitutional Convention
called by the States.

00:16:48.450 --> 00:16:51.040
Either way, adding an
amendment to the Constitution

00:16:51.040 --> 00:16:52.630
is really difficult to do,

00:16:52.630 --> 00:16:55.740
so much so that the
American people have only

00:16:55.740 --> 00:16:59.270
in special circumstances used
a Constitutional amendment

00:16:59.270 --> 00:17:02.050
to effect social or political change.

00:17:02.050 --> 00:17:04.000
To learn more about Article Five,

00:17:04.000 --> 00:17:05.940
visit the National Constitution Center's

00:17:05.940 --> 00:17:09.100
interactive Constitution
and Khan Academy's resources

00:17:09.100 --> 00:17:10.953
on U.S. Government and politics.


Article VI of the Constitution

WEBVTT
Kind: captions
Language: en

00:00:00.290 --> 00:00:02.380
- [Kim] Hi, this is Kim from Khan Academy

00:00:02.380 --> 00:00:05.080
and today I'm learning
more about Article VI

00:00:05.080 --> 00:00:07.150
of the U.S. Constitution.

00:00:07.150 --> 00:00:09.600
Article VI is as we'll soon see

00:00:09.600 --> 00:00:12.320
kind of a constitutional grab bag.

00:00:12.320 --> 00:00:16.090
It covers debts,
religious tests for office

00:00:16.090 --> 00:00:18.140
and it establishes the Constitution

00:00:18.140 --> 00:00:19.910
as the supreme Law of the Land.

00:00:19.910 --> 00:00:23.885
To learn more about what binds
these diverse ideas together,

00:00:23.885 --> 00:00:26.330
I sought out the help of two experts.

00:00:26.330 --> 00:00:28.460
Kermit Roosevelt is a Professor of Law

00:00:28.460 --> 00:00:31.814
specializing in constitutional
law and conflict of laws

00:00:31.814 --> 00:00:34.360
at the University of
Pennsylvania Law School.

00:00:34.360 --> 00:00:36.860
And Michael Ramsey is Professor of Law

00:00:36.860 --> 00:00:39.940
and Director of International
and Comparative Law programs

00:00:39.940 --> 00:00:43.070
at the University of San
Diego's School of Law.

00:00:43.070 --> 00:00:44.470
So let's start out talking

00:00:44.470 --> 00:00:47.730
about the debts portion of Article VI.

00:00:47.730 --> 00:00:50.060
Professor Roosevelt, why were the framers

00:00:50.060 --> 00:00:52.200
so interested in debt?

00:00:52.200 --> 00:00:54.630
What was the historical
context that led them

00:00:54.630 --> 00:00:57.407
to explicitly address debt in Article IV?

00:00:57.407 --> 00:00:59.600
- [Professor Roosevelt] Well,
debt is important generally

00:00:59.600 --> 00:01:01.880
because nations often
need to borrow money.

00:01:01.880 --> 00:01:04.110
And specifically with the Constitution

00:01:04.110 --> 00:01:06.419
and the Articles of
Confederation, the U.S. government

00:01:06.419 --> 00:01:10.100
had been borrowing money to
pay for the Revolutionary War.

00:01:10.100 --> 00:01:11.960
So there was a question we're moving

00:01:11.960 --> 00:01:14.177
from a sort of loose confederation,

00:01:14.177 --> 00:01:16.302
almost like a treaty between nations,

00:01:16.302 --> 00:01:18.468
under the Articles of Confederation,

00:01:18.468 --> 00:01:21.270
to a single unitary country

00:01:21.270 --> 00:01:24.110
with a stronger national
government under the Constitution.

00:01:24.110 --> 00:01:26.380
And there's a question, is
it still the same country?

00:01:26.380 --> 00:01:28.470
Will the new United States pay the debt?

00:01:28.470 --> 00:01:29.737
So the old United States.

00:01:29.737 --> 00:01:31.830
- [Professor Ramsey] Now,
there's a general principle

00:01:31.830 --> 00:01:35.030
of international law that
a successor government

00:01:35.030 --> 00:01:37.530
undertakes the obligations
of the predecessor.

00:01:37.530 --> 00:01:41.090
So you wouldn't necessarily
think this would be a problem

00:01:41.090 --> 00:01:42.900
but I think they were
particularly concerned

00:01:42.900 --> 00:01:46.970
because the idea of a
republic was a somewhat new,

00:01:46.970 --> 00:01:51.070
and at least in the 18th
century a somewhat unusual one.

00:01:51.070 --> 00:01:54.910
And the change of a republican government

00:01:54.910 --> 00:01:57.830
might cause some worries in Europe

00:01:57.830 --> 00:01:59.430
where this money was owed.

00:01:59.430 --> 00:02:02.390
So I think they just wanted to
reassure all of the creditors

00:02:02.390 --> 00:02:05.890
that even if they were changing
their method of government,

00:02:05.890 --> 00:02:08.701
that that wasn't going to
effect any of the debts.

00:02:08.701 --> 00:02:10.930
- [Kim] What might have
happened had they decided

00:02:10.930 --> 00:02:12.406
not to pay those debts?

00:02:12.406 --> 00:02:13.740
- [Professor Roosevelt]
If they had decided

00:02:13.740 --> 00:02:16.100
not to pay the debts, then other countries

00:02:16.100 --> 00:02:18.090
would probably have been much less willing

00:02:18.090 --> 00:02:20.820
to lend money to the new United States.

00:02:20.820 --> 00:02:21.790
Because they might have thought,

00:02:21.790 --> 00:02:24.351
well you know another change
in government could occur.

00:02:24.351 --> 00:02:25.560
- [Professor Ramsey] There
was substantial question

00:02:25.560 --> 00:02:27.030
throughout the world
whether the United States

00:02:27.030 --> 00:02:30.480
would be able to survive in
the face of all the challenges

00:02:30.480 --> 00:02:32.912
that they had after
gaining their independence.

00:02:32.912 --> 00:02:37.840
So in order to make it
seem that the United States

00:02:37.840 --> 00:02:39.780
was a country that could be trusted,

00:02:39.780 --> 00:02:42.040
a country that could be
expected to stick around

00:02:42.040 --> 00:02:45.530
and not collapse in the chaos
or revert to colonial status,

00:02:45.530 --> 00:02:46.990
one of the most important things for them

00:02:46.990 --> 00:02:50.280
was to show that the
debts would be honored.

00:02:50.280 --> 00:02:51.950
Because a failure to honor debts

00:02:51.950 --> 00:02:55.329
would suggest that the
country did not in fact

00:02:55.329 --> 00:02:59.680
have true sovereignty and was
not prepared to be an actor

00:02:59.680 --> 00:03:02.051
on the international stage
that could be trusted.

00:03:02.051 --> 00:03:02.884
- [Professor Roosevelt]
Another interesting thing

00:03:02.884 --> 00:03:04.840
to contrast this to is
the treatment of debts

00:03:04.840 --> 00:03:06.270
after the Civil War.

00:03:06.270 --> 00:03:08.937
Where of course the United
States, the federal government,

00:03:08.937 --> 00:03:11.540
paid its own debts but there's a provision

00:03:11.540 --> 00:03:13.870
in the 14th amendment
explicitly repudiating

00:03:13.870 --> 00:03:15.100
the Confederate debt.

00:03:15.100 --> 00:03:17.515
So if you loaned money to the
Confederate States of America,

00:03:17.515 --> 00:03:19.320
you're never getting that back.

00:03:19.320 --> 00:03:21.763
Because we didn't treat
that as a valid government

00:03:21.763 --> 00:03:24.181
that would be continued going forward.

00:03:24.181 --> 00:03:25.797
- [Professor Ramsey] Another
thing that it illustrates

00:03:25.797 --> 00:03:29.060
is that the Constitution in some respects

00:03:29.060 --> 00:03:31.300
was a visionary document
that was concerned

00:03:31.300 --> 00:03:33.580
with the long term future
of the United States

00:03:33.580 --> 00:03:36.796
but in other respects, it
responded to very immediate,

00:03:36.796 --> 00:03:40.460
practical problems that the
framers faced in their day.

00:03:40.460 --> 00:03:42.610
They were thinking about
not just the future

00:03:42.610 --> 00:03:45.180
of the country for the ages,
they were thinking about that

00:03:45.180 --> 00:03:47.086
but they weren't thinking just about that.

00:03:47.086 --> 00:03:49.342
They were also thinking
about reassuring France

00:03:49.342 --> 00:03:52.660
with respect to the debts that
existed right at that moment.

00:03:52.660 --> 00:03:55.890
- [Kim] So there's a lot
going on in Article VI

00:03:55.890 --> 00:03:59.190
and specifically it talks
about the Constitution

00:03:59.190 --> 00:04:01.699
as the supreme Law of the Land.

00:04:01.699 --> 00:04:04.013
So what's important about that statement?

00:04:04.013 --> 00:04:05.550
- [Professor Roosevelt]
What's important about that

00:04:05.550 --> 00:04:09.200
is that it means the
Constitution is our highest law.

00:04:09.200 --> 00:04:13.620
It prevails over any other
kind of law in a conflict.

00:04:13.620 --> 00:04:15.068
So one thing that that means

00:04:15.068 --> 00:04:18.270
is the Constitution is
supreme over state law.

00:04:18.270 --> 00:04:20.270
And then the Constitution actually goes on

00:04:20.270 --> 00:04:22.570
to talk about that a little bit more.

00:04:22.570 --> 00:04:24.300
But it also means the
Constitution is supreme

00:04:24.300 --> 00:04:25.330
over federal law.

00:04:25.330 --> 00:04:27.610
So everyone is bound by the Constitution.

00:04:27.610 --> 00:04:30.462
The states can't go against
it, congress can't go past it,

00:04:30.462 --> 00:04:33.600
the president can't violate
constitutional restrictions.

00:04:33.600 --> 00:04:35.630
The Constitution is really the last word.

00:04:35.630 --> 00:04:37.878
It's the pinnacle or the keystone

00:04:37.878 --> 00:04:40.357
of the arch of American democracy.

00:04:40.357 --> 00:04:42.099
- [Professor Ramsey] And
that's why we can say

00:04:42.099 --> 00:04:44.770
that things are unconstitutional,

00:04:44.770 --> 00:04:48.310
that laws are unconstitutional
and therefore invalid.

00:04:48.310 --> 00:04:51.471
And most importantly, it's
why the Supreme Court can say

00:04:51.471 --> 00:04:56.061
that laws are
unconstitutional and invalid.

00:04:56.061 --> 00:05:01.061
It creates a superior
law that limits the laws

00:05:01.620 --> 00:05:04.200
that can be passed by the
other parts of the government.

00:05:04.200 --> 00:05:08.218
It creates a hierarchy
of laws and in doing so,

00:05:08.218 --> 00:05:11.951
it assures that we have
a single set of rules

00:05:11.951 --> 00:05:16.810
that applies to all the states
and to the federal government

00:05:16.810 --> 00:05:19.660
and it can't be changed
except by an amendment.

00:05:19.660 --> 00:05:21.530
Which is relatively difficult to do.

00:05:21.530 --> 00:05:22.930
There's a procedure in the Constitution

00:05:22.930 --> 00:05:24.380
for how you can amend the Constitution

00:05:24.380 --> 00:05:28.270
but until amending, the
Constitution as written

00:05:28.270 --> 00:05:30.690
is our superior law.

00:05:30.690 --> 00:05:35.690
And that was different from
the way that the framers,

00:05:36.010 --> 00:05:38.490
the rules the framers were used
to under the English system,

00:05:38.490 --> 00:05:41.190
where they didn't have
a written Constitution.

00:05:41.190 --> 00:05:44.100
They had an unwritten
Constitution but that Constitution

00:05:44.100 --> 00:05:46.934
was subject to change by Parliament.

00:05:46.934 --> 00:05:48.700
- [Kim] So has this supremacy

00:05:48.700 --> 00:05:51.523
of the Constitution been tested over time?

00:05:52.746 --> 00:05:54.250
- [Professor Roosevelt]
There haven't been a lot

00:05:54.250 --> 00:05:57.810
of claims that the
Constitution is not supreme.

00:05:57.810 --> 00:05:59.883
So generally speaking, everyone gives

00:05:59.883 --> 00:06:03.020
at least lip service to this idea.

00:06:03.020 --> 00:06:04.590
What's been tested is more the question

00:06:04.590 --> 00:06:07.440
of who gets to decide what
the Constitution means

00:06:07.440 --> 00:06:09.930
and when something conflicts with it.

00:06:09.930 --> 00:06:12.550
So if you want the Constitution

00:06:12.550 --> 00:06:14.760
and federal law to be supreme,

00:06:14.760 --> 00:06:16.890
probably you would want to have someone

00:06:16.890 --> 00:06:18.770
in the federal government deciding

00:06:18.770 --> 00:06:21.120
when there's a conflict
say with state law.

00:06:21.120 --> 00:06:23.573
And the forms that resistance
has taken over the years

00:06:23.573 --> 00:06:26.150
are more states saying

00:06:26.150 --> 00:06:28.490
not you know we can go
against the Constitution,

00:06:28.490 --> 00:06:29.980
we're above the Constitution,

00:06:29.980 --> 00:06:32.450
but states saying we don't
think what we're doing

00:06:32.450 --> 00:06:33.820
violates the Constitution.

00:06:33.820 --> 00:06:36.320
Right, and you the Supreme
Court, you think it does

00:06:36.320 --> 00:06:37.522
but you're wrong.

00:06:37.522 --> 00:06:39.640
- [Professor Ramsey] In the 19th century,

00:06:39.640 --> 00:06:41.500
just before the Civil War,

00:06:41.500 --> 00:06:44.730
the Supreme Court decided
in the Dread Scott case

00:06:44.730 --> 00:06:46.820
that African Americans
could not be citizens

00:06:46.820 --> 00:06:49.823
to the United States even
if they were freed slaves.

00:06:50.760 --> 00:06:55.339
And President Lincoln
believed that that was wrong.

00:06:55.339 --> 00:06:57.992
He said that there was
nothing in the Constitution

00:06:57.992 --> 00:07:02.070
that denied the ability
of them to be citizens.

00:07:02.070 --> 00:07:03.640
And he said that the Supreme Court

00:07:03.640 --> 00:07:06.690
had misinterpreted the Constitution

00:07:06.690 --> 00:07:09.620
and he would not accept
the Supreme Court's ruling

00:07:09.620 --> 00:07:10.730
in that regard.

00:07:10.730 --> 00:07:14.120
Later, in the 20th century,
the Supreme Court held

00:07:14.120 --> 00:07:16.800
that the Constitution barred segregation

00:07:16.800 --> 00:07:19.140
particularly in schools

00:07:19.140 --> 00:07:21.314
in the Brown versus
Board of Education case.

00:07:21.314 --> 00:07:25.210
But many southern governors
and other institutions

00:07:25.210 --> 00:07:27.210
throughout the south thought

00:07:27.210 --> 00:07:29.325
that the Supreme Court
had gotten that one wrong.

00:07:29.325 --> 00:07:33.710
And they refused to abide by
what the Supreme Court had said

00:07:33.710 --> 00:07:35.370
the Constitution means.

00:07:35.370 --> 00:07:36.650
- [Professor Roosevelt]
What they said was not

00:07:36.650 --> 00:07:39.280
the Constitution doesn't bind us

00:07:39.280 --> 00:07:41.050
but we know what the Constitution means

00:07:41.050 --> 00:07:43.230
better than you Supreme
Court, you're wrong,

00:07:43.230 --> 00:07:46.048
you're making this up, it's
political, it's not judging.

00:07:46.048 --> 00:07:48.380
- [Kim] Another thing that
Article VI talks about

00:07:48.380 --> 00:07:50.222
is religious tests.

00:07:50.222 --> 00:07:53.120
Why were the framers so interested

00:07:53.120 --> 00:07:55.480
in preventing religious
tests in government?

00:07:55.480 --> 00:07:58.923
What sort of historical evils
were they trying to prevent?

00:07:59.897 --> 00:08:00.730
- [Professor Roosevelt]
So this is connected

00:08:00.730 --> 00:08:03.520
to the basic idea of the
separation of church and state.

00:08:03.520 --> 00:08:04.452
And you separate church and state

00:08:04.452 --> 00:08:07.080
really to protect both of those things.

00:08:07.080 --> 00:08:09.300
So you want to protect
religion from being corrupted

00:08:09.300 --> 00:08:10.723
by political considerations

00:08:10.723 --> 00:08:13.236
but you also want to protect
your political system

00:08:13.236 --> 00:08:16.847
from being a battle ground
between rivaled religions.

00:08:16.847 --> 00:08:19.440
- [Professor Ramsey] So
where this comes from is

00:08:19.440 --> 00:08:21.155
that in England, they had had a series

00:08:21.155 --> 00:08:23.640
of what they called Test Acts.

00:08:23.640 --> 00:08:27.960
And what the Test Acts did was it required

00:08:27.960 --> 00:08:31.090
that for people to be eligible
for government offices

00:08:31.090 --> 00:08:35.350
that the people had to be
members of the Church of England.

00:08:35.350 --> 00:08:38.700
And that other religious groups,

00:08:38.700 --> 00:08:41.060
they were barred by the Test Acts

00:08:41.060 --> 00:08:42.957
from holding government office.

00:08:42.957 --> 00:08:47.957
So actually, many of
those minority religions,

00:08:48.100 --> 00:08:50.120
many adherence of those ended up coming

00:08:50.120 --> 00:08:53.420
to the American Colonies
to gain some measure

00:08:53.420 --> 00:08:55.330
of religious freedom.

00:08:55.330 --> 00:08:57.544
The pilgrims were an example of that.

00:08:57.544 --> 00:09:02.090
There was a Catholic colony in Maryland.

00:09:02.090 --> 00:09:06.070
And just generally speaking,
many of the people,

00:09:06.070 --> 00:09:08.807
many of the colonists who came over

00:09:08.807 --> 00:09:12.160
were people who were not part

00:09:12.160 --> 00:09:15.040
of the main established church in England.

00:09:15.040 --> 00:09:18.320
And so you can see why
they would not want to have

00:09:18.320 --> 00:09:20.060
something like the Test Acts.

00:09:20.060 --> 00:09:21.980
And they wanted to make clear

00:09:21.980 --> 00:09:24.580
that in the new national government

00:09:25.659 --> 00:09:28.412
that any religion, or no religion

00:09:28.412 --> 00:09:33.150
would be allowed for
government office holders.

00:09:33.150 --> 00:09:34.010
- [Kim] Do you think it's true

00:09:34.010 --> 00:09:36.480
that we don't have
religious tests or oaths

00:09:36.480 --> 00:09:37.770
in the United States?

00:09:37.770 --> 00:09:40.120
How about the practice
of swearing on a Bible

00:09:40.120 --> 00:09:42.477
during the presidential inauguration?

00:09:42.477 --> 00:09:43.740
- [Professor Roosevelt] Well
the practice of swearing

00:09:43.740 --> 00:09:46.160
on a Bible is very
interesting as is the fact

00:09:46.160 --> 00:09:48.675
that when the president
recites the oath of office,

00:09:48.675 --> 00:09:50.982
every president going
back to George Washington

00:09:50.982 --> 00:09:54.530
has added on to the end
of it, so help me God.

00:09:54.530 --> 00:09:55.930
There's actually an
oath in the Constitution

00:09:55.930 --> 00:09:59.020
the president has to swear to preserve,

00:09:59.020 --> 00:10:00.483
protect and defend the Constitution

00:10:00.483 --> 00:10:03.370
but the Constitution
doesn't say so help me God.

00:10:03.370 --> 00:10:05.800
The presidents just add
that on on their own.

00:10:05.800 --> 00:10:08.140
And actually that sort
of illustrates the way

00:10:08.140 --> 00:10:11.023
in which the Constitution treats religion.

00:10:11.023 --> 00:10:14.400
Which is it can't be part of government

00:10:14.400 --> 00:10:16.190
in an official sense.

00:10:16.190 --> 00:10:18.620
But we know that members of
government are also people

00:10:18.620 --> 00:10:21.068
and they have religious beliefs
that are important to them

00:10:21.068 --> 00:10:25.260
and we don't demand that
they exclude religion

00:10:25.260 --> 00:10:27.149
from their lives, we just demand

00:10:27.149 --> 00:10:30.150
that it be separated from
government authority.

00:10:30.150 --> 00:10:33.740
So you can swear on a
Bible if you want to,

00:10:33.740 --> 00:10:35.690
you don't have to.

00:10:35.690 --> 00:10:37.530
You can swear on some
other religious book.

00:10:37.530 --> 00:10:38.640
We had a member of congress

00:10:38.640 --> 00:10:40.628
take an oath of office on a Quran.

00:10:40.628 --> 00:10:44.850
So individual government
officials are allowed to

00:10:44.850 --> 00:10:49.340
include religion in so far as
it's about them personally.

00:10:49.340 --> 00:10:50.570
You know, what you think is appropriate

00:10:50.570 --> 00:10:52.110
to mark this occasion.

00:10:52.110 --> 00:10:54.960
What solemnifies this oath for you.

00:10:54.960 --> 00:10:55.887
You can do that.

00:10:55.887 --> 00:10:59.660
But we can't require
it and they can't make

00:10:59.660 --> 00:11:01.990
the exercise of their
power religious in nature.

00:11:01.990 --> 00:11:05.130
So you can't, you know
as a government official,

00:11:05.130 --> 00:11:08.400
exercise your power on religious grounds.

00:11:08.400 --> 00:11:10.870
- [Kim] Something that
strikes me about Article VI

00:11:10.870 --> 00:11:14.200
is that is addresses so
many different things.

00:11:14.200 --> 00:11:16.760
Do you have a sense of why

00:11:16.760 --> 00:11:21.100
debts and constitutional
supremacy and religious tests

00:11:21.100 --> 00:11:23.203
are all in one article?

00:11:24.724 --> 00:11:26.320
- [Professor Ramsey] The
Article VI, as you said,

00:11:26.320 --> 00:11:27.930
is a little bit of a grab bag.

00:11:27.930 --> 00:11:30.680
It's not entirely clear
how these different pieces

00:11:30.680 --> 00:11:32.810
of Article VI relate to each other.

00:11:32.810 --> 00:11:35.300
And I think they were just
things that the framers

00:11:35.300 --> 00:11:38.740
wanted in the Constitution
and didn't know for sure

00:11:38.740 --> 00:11:40.099
where else to put them.

00:11:40.099 --> 00:11:41.070
- [Professor Roosevelt]
I'm not exactly sure

00:11:41.070 --> 00:11:42.833
why the debts are there.

00:11:43.930 --> 00:11:46.319
If I had to say something about Article VI

00:11:46.319 --> 00:11:49.120
it would be it's sort of the glue

00:11:49.120 --> 00:11:52.240
that holds the constitutional
architecture together.

00:11:52.240 --> 00:11:56.740
So maybe the debts are in
there to explain the continuity

00:11:56.740 --> 00:11:58.650
between the U.S. government

00:11:58.650 --> 00:12:00.110
under the Articles of Confederation

00:12:00.110 --> 00:12:02.014
and U.S. government
under the Constitution.

00:12:02.014 --> 00:12:04.950
Then the supremacy clause explains

00:12:04.950 --> 00:12:06.600
how all of the different parts

00:12:06.600 --> 00:12:09.670
of the federal system are
supposed to fit together.

00:12:09.670 --> 00:12:11.460
And what the supremacy clause is saying

00:12:11.460 --> 00:12:14.500
is the Constitution is above all of them.

00:12:14.500 --> 00:12:16.180
The Constitution connects them all.

00:12:16.180 --> 00:12:18.586
Everyone has to abide by the Constitution.

00:12:18.586 --> 00:12:20.560
And it tells you, you
know the Constitution

00:12:20.560 --> 00:12:22.563
is the highest law, then
you've got federal law

00:12:22.563 --> 00:12:24.880
and then below that is state law

00:12:24.880 --> 00:12:26.270
so that if there's a conflict

00:12:26.270 --> 00:12:27.590
between federal law and state law,

00:12:27.590 --> 00:12:28.820
the federal law is gonna win.

00:12:28.820 --> 00:12:31.420
And then the last part of Article VI

00:12:31.420 --> 00:12:33.520
is sort of doing the same thing.

00:12:33.520 --> 00:12:35.970
Because what holds a country together?

00:12:35.970 --> 00:12:39.610
What binds people into a single people?

00:12:39.610 --> 00:12:41.480
In a lot of countries at
the time of the founding,

00:12:41.480 --> 00:12:42.370
it was religion.

00:12:42.370 --> 00:12:43.615
Right, religion was the glue

00:12:43.615 --> 00:12:45.500
that held the society together

00:12:45.500 --> 00:12:46.916
and if you weren't a
member of that religion,

00:12:46.916 --> 00:12:49.814
you were an outsider, you
were a second class citizen,

00:12:49.814 --> 00:12:51.493
you would be shunned

00:12:51.493 --> 00:12:55.370
and not given equal rights in some ways.

00:12:55.370 --> 00:12:58.271
The last clause of Article VI
says something sort of similar

00:12:58.271 --> 00:13:00.730
about America except it explicitly says

00:13:00.730 --> 00:13:02.890
it's not religion that binds us together.

00:13:02.890 --> 00:13:04.483
Right, no religious tests can be required

00:13:04.483 --> 00:13:07.390
but you do have to take an oath.

00:13:07.390 --> 00:13:08.860
What do you have to pledge to support?

00:13:08.860 --> 00:13:10.950
You have to pledge to
support the Constitution.

00:13:10.950 --> 00:13:12.551
So there again is telling
you the Constitution

00:13:12.551 --> 00:13:14.440
is what we all have in common.

00:13:14.440 --> 00:13:15.686
That's what makes us Americans.

00:13:15.686 --> 00:13:19.720
That really is the glue that
binds our society together.

00:13:19.720 --> 00:13:22.332
- [Kim] So we've learned
that Article VI is,

00:13:22.332 --> 00:13:24.770
as Professor Roosevelt put it,

00:13:24.770 --> 00:13:27.280
the glue that binds the country together.

00:13:27.280 --> 00:13:28.420
In assuming the debts

00:13:28.420 --> 00:13:30.786
from the era of the
Articles of Confederation,

00:13:30.786 --> 00:13:35.260
Article VI established the
continuity of U.S. government.

00:13:35.260 --> 00:13:38.657
It also placed the
Constitution, not religion,

00:13:38.657 --> 00:13:41.910
as the supreme law of the United States.

00:13:41.910 --> 00:13:43.670
To learn more about Article VI,

00:13:43.670 --> 00:13:45.660
visit the National Constitution Center's

00:13:45.660 --> 00:13:47.075
Interactive Constitution

00:13:47.075 --> 00:13:49.160
and Khan Academy's resources

00:13:49.160 --> 00:13:50.760
on U.S. government and politics.


The Constitution, Bill of Rights, and Landmark Supreme Court Cases - Course Trailer

WEBVTT
Kind: captions
Language: en

00:00:00.230 --> 00:00:02.450
- The Constitution of the United States

00:00:02.450 --> 00:00:04.760
is a crucial document to understand

00:00:04.760 --> 00:00:06.490
if you're a United States citizen.

00:00:06.490 --> 00:00:09.950
And, frankly, for almost
anyone on the planet,

00:00:09.950 --> 00:00:12.760
obviously the United States
is an influential country,

00:00:12.760 --> 00:00:15.850
but beyond that, many of
the countries out there

00:00:15.850 --> 00:00:18.230
constitutions are actually based

00:00:18.230 --> 00:00:20.780
on the United States Constitution.

00:00:20.780 --> 00:00:23.750
So in these lessons
we're going to dive deep.

00:00:23.750 --> 00:00:26.580
We're actually going to
read the Constitution.

00:00:26.580 --> 00:00:29.330
And, as you'll see, we will read alongside

00:00:29.330 --> 00:00:32.030
some of the top experts of
the United States Constitution

00:00:32.030 --> 00:00:33.430
in the world.

00:00:33.430 --> 00:00:35.310
But we'll do it in a
way that you'll realize

00:00:35.310 --> 00:00:37.750
that you too can be something of an expert

00:00:37.750 --> 00:00:39.400
on the United States Constitution.

00:00:39.400 --> 00:00:42.330
We're gonna go through all
of the various articles

00:00:42.330 --> 00:00:44.060
and sections of the Constitution.

00:00:44.060 --> 00:00:46.570
And you'll find that it's
an intriguing document

00:00:46.570 --> 00:00:49.610
that has incredible relevance, even today.

00:00:49.610 --> 00:00:52.950
We're also going to talk
about how the judicial system,

00:00:52.950 --> 00:00:54.710
in particular the Supreme Court,

00:00:54.710 --> 00:00:57.250
has interpreted the
United States Constitution

00:00:57.250 --> 00:01:00.590
and how that has had a
whole chain of side effects

00:01:00.590 --> 00:01:02.480
on our everyday lives.

00:01:02.480 --> 00:01:03.880
And last but not least,

00:01:03.880 --> 00:01:06.980
we're going to talk about
what rights and liberties

00:01:06.980 --> 00:01:09.420
are protected by the Bill of Rights

00:01:09.420 --> 00:01:11.600
inside of the United States Constitution.

00:01:11.600 --> 00:01:13.800
So let's go on this journey together.

00:01:13.800 --> 00:01:15.870
Whether you live in the United States

00:01:15.870 --> 00:01:18.030
and really just wanna understand

00:01:18.030 --> 00:01:19.750
the government that you live in

00:01:19.750 --> 00:01:23.390
or you're just a curious
mind wanting to understand

00:01:23.390 --> 00:01:26.100
how a government can be structured,

00:01:26.100 --> 00:01:28.510
these lessons will answer your questions.

00:01:28.510 --> 00:01:31.990
And if you wanna learn
more and get deep practice

00:01:31.990 --> 00:01:33.105
with immediate feedback,

00:01:33.105 --> 00:01:33.938
(computer chiming)

00:01:33.938 --> 00:01:35.310
I encourage you to look at these lessons

00:01:35.310 --> 00:01:37.353
on khanacademy.org.


Slope, x-intercept, y-intercept meaning in context

WEBVTT
Kind: captions
Language: en

00:00:00.390 --> 00:00:02.460
- [Instructor] We're told
Glen drained the water

00:00:02.460 --> 00:00:04.440
from his baby's bathtub.

00:00:04.440 --> 00:00:06.610
The graph below shows the relationship

00:00:06.610 --> 00:00:09.510
between the amount of water
left in the tub in liters

00:00:09.510 --> 00:00:12.540
and how much time had passed in minutes

00:00:12.540 --> 00:00:14.940
since Glen started draining the tub.

00:00:14.940 --> 00:00:16.800
And then they ask us a few questions.

00:00:16.800 --> 00:00:20.300
How much water was in the tub
when Glen started draining?

00:00:20.300 --> 00:00:21.900
How much water drains every minute?

00:00:21.900 --> 00:00:22.980
Every two minutes?

00:00:22.980 --> 00:00:25.650
How long does it take for
the tub to drain completely?

00:00:25.650 --> 00:00:28.410
Pause this video and see if
you can answer any or all

00:00:28.410 --> 00:00:31.740
of these questions based on
this graph right over here.

00:00:31.740 --> 00:00:32.860
All right, now let's do it together.

00:00:32.860 --> 00:00:34.820
And let's start with this first question.

00:00:34.820 --> 00:00:38.320
How much water was in the tub
when Glen started draining?

00:00:38.320 --> 00:00:40.400
So what we see here is
when we're talking about

00:00:40.400 --> 00:00:42.630
when Glen started draining,

00:00:42.630 --> 00:00:44.880
that would be at time t equals zero.

00:00:44.880 --> 00:00:46.930
So time t equals zero is right over here.

00:00:46.930 --> 00:00:48.850
And then so how much water is in the tub?

00:00:48.850 --> 00:00:50.590
It's right over there.

00:00:50.590 --> 00:00:53.130
And this point, when
you're looking at a graph,

00:00:53.130 --> 00:00:54.430
often has a special label.

00:00:54.430 --> 00:00:56.040
If you view this as the y-axis,

00:00:56.040 --> 00:00:57.840
the vertical axis as the y-axis

00:00:57.840 --> 00:00:59.940
and the horizontal axis as the x-axis,

00:00:59.940 --> 00:01:01.050
although when you're measuring time,

00:01:01.050 --> 00:01:03.120
sometimes people will call it the t-axis.

00:01:03.120 --> 00:01:06.600
But for the sake of this video,
let's call this the x-axis.

00:01:06.600 --> 00:01:09.600
This point at which you
intersect the y-axis

00:01:09.600 --> 00:01:12.610
that tells you what is y when x is zero?

00:01:12.610 --> 00:01:15.590
Or what is the water in
the tub when time is zero?

00:01:15.590 --> 00:01:19.700
So this tells you, the y-intercept
here tells you how much,

00:01:19.700 --> 00:01:24.700
in this case, how much water
we started off with in the tub.

00:01:25.000 --> 00:01:28.490
And we can see it's 15 liters

00:01:28.490 --> 00:01:30.810
if I'm reading that graph correctly.

00:01:30.810 --> 00:01:32.510
How much water drains every minute?

00:01:32.510 --> 00:01:33.630
Every two minutes?

00:01:33.630 --> 00:01:34.463
Pause this video.

00:01:34.463 --> 00:01:36.480
How would you think about that?

00:01:36.480 --> 00:01:38.970
All right, so they're
really asking about a rate.

00:01:38.970 --> 00:01:42.110
What's the rate at which
water's draining every minute?

00:01:42.110 --> 00:01:44.730
So let's see if we can find
two points on this graph

00:01:44.730 --> 00:01:45.660
that look pretty clear.

00:01:45.660 --> 00:01:48.120
So right over there at time one minute,

00:01:48.120 --> 00:01:51.250
looks like there's 12
liters in it, in the tub.

00:01:51.250 --> 00:01:54.330
And then at time two minutes,
think there's nine liters.

00:01:54.330 --> 00:01:58.740
So it looks like as one minute passes,

00:01:58.740 --> 00:02:01.440
so we go plus one minute,

00:02:01.440 --> 00:02:04.960
plus one minute, what happens
to the water in the tub?

00:02:04.960 --> 00:02:08.730
Well, it looks like the water
in the tub goes down by,

00:02:08.730 --> 00:02:11.100
went from 12 liters to nine liters.

00:02:11.100 --> 00:02:13.733
So negative three liters.

00:02:14.590 --> 00:02:16.740
And this is a line, so
that should keep happening.

00:02:16.740 --> 00:02:19.720
So if we forward another plus one minute,

00:02:19.720 --> 00:02:21.910
we should go down another three liters,

00:02:21.910 --> 00:02:24.030
and that is exactly what is happening.

00:02:24.030 --> 00:02:26.130
So it looks like the tub is draining

00:02:26.130 --> 00:02:27.560
three liters per minute.

00:02:27.560 --> 00:02:28.500
So draining

00:02:31.010 --> 00:02:34.983
three liters per minute.

00:02:36.300 --> 00:02:37.750
And so if they say every two minutes,

00:02:37.750 --> 00:02:40.160
well, if you're doing three
liters per every one minute,

00:02:40.160 --> 00:02:42.290
then you're going to do twice
as much every two minutes.

00:02:42.290 --> 00:02:47.290
So six liters every two minutes.

00:02:47.290 --> 00:02:49.610
Two minutes.

00:02:49.610 --> 00:02:51.070
But all of this, the second question,

00:02:51.070 --> 00:02:53.770
we were able to answer
by looking at the slope.

00:02:53.770 --> 00:02:56.230
So in this context, y-intercept
to help us figure out,

00:02:56.230 --> 00:02:57.690
well, where did we start off?

00:02:57.690 --> 00:02:59.320
The slope is telling us the rate

00:02:59.320 --> 00:03:02.930
at which the water in
this case is changing.

00:03:02.930 --> 00:03:04.310
And then they ask us how long does it take

00:03:04.310 --> 00:03:06.220
for the tub to drain completely?

00:03:06.220 --> 00:03:09.100
Pause this video and see
if you can answer that.

00:03:09.100 --> 00:03:12.070
Well, the situation in which
the tub has drained completely,

00:03:12.070 --> 00:03:14.020
that means the there's
no water left in the tub.

00:03:14.020 --> 00:03:16.340
So that means that our y-value,

00:03:16.340 --> 00:03:18.490
our water value is down at zero.

00:03:18.490 --> 00:03:21.090
And that happens on the
graph right over there.

00:03:21.090 --> 00:03:24.980
And this point where the
graph intersects the x-axis,

00:03:24.980 --> 00:03:28.110
that's known as the x-intercept.

00:03:28.110 --> 00:03:29.320
And in this context, it says,

00:03:29.320 --> 00:03:33.930
hey, at what x-value do we not
have any of the y-value left?

00:03:33.930 --> 00:03:35.880
The water has run out.

00:03:35.880 --> 00:03:38.470
And we see that happens
at an x-value of five,

00:03:38.470 --> 00:03:40.660
but that's giving us the time in minutes.

00:03:40.660 --> 00:03:43.080
So that happens at five minutes.

00:03:43.080 --> 00:03:46.890
After five minutes, all
of the water has drained.

00:03:46.890 --> 00:03:49.400
And that makes us a lot of sense.

00:03:49.400 --> 00:03:50.870
If you have 15 liters

00:03:50.870 --> 00:03:53.120
and you're draining three
liters every minute,

00:03:53.120 --> 00:03:55.710
it makes sense that it takes five minutes

00:03:55.710 --> 00:03:58.083
to drain all 15 liters.


Slope and intercept meaning from a table

WEBVTT
Kind: captions
Language: en

00:00:00.510 --> 00:00:02.750
- [Instructor] We're told
that Felipe feeds his dog

00:00:02.750 --> 00:00:06.820
the same amount every day
from a large bag of dog food.

00:00:06.820 --> 00:00:09.410
Two weeks after initially opening the bag,

00:00:09.410 --> 00:00:12.760
he decided to start weighing
how much food remained

00:00:12.760 --> 00:00:14.760
in the bag on a weekly basis.

00:00:14.760 --> 00:00:16.350
Here's some of his data.

00:00:16.350 --> 00:00:20.840
So we see after 14 days,
there's 14 kilograms remaining.

00:00:20.840 --> 00:00:23.290
Then after another seven days pass by,

00:00:23.290 --> 00:00:25.800
so now we're at 21 days
from the beginning,

00:00:25.800 --> 00:00:27.920
there's only 10.5 kilograms left.

00:00:27.920 --> 00:00:32.310
Then after 28 days there
are seven kilograms left.

00:00:32.310 --> 00:00:34.960
All right, so we are going
to try to use this data

00:00:34.960 --> 00:00:36.900
to start answering some
interesting questions,

00:00:36.900 --> 00:00:39.550
and maybe we'll also try to
visualize it with a graph.

00:00:39.550 --> 00:00:41.560
So the first thing that
we might try to tackle

00:00:41.560 --> 00:00:46.010
is well how much food was
in the bag to begin with

00:00:46.010 --> 00:00:47.400
if we assume that he's using

00:00:47.400 --> 00:00:50.280
the same amount of food every week.

00:00:50.280 --> 00:00:52.020
So pause this video and see
if you can figure that out.

00:00:52.020 --> 00:00:54.180
How much food was in the bag to begin with

00:00:54.180 --> 00:00:56.960
if we assume that Felipe
is feeding his dog

00:00:56.960 --> 00:00:58.603
the same amount every week?

00:00:59.740 --> 00:01:01.650
Okay now there's several ways to do this,

00:01:01.650 --> 00:01:03.710
but to help us visualize this,

00:01:03.710 --> 00:01:06.550
let me see if I can graph
the data that we have

00:01:06.550 --> 00:01:10.170
and then see what would happen
as we approach the beginning

00:01:10.170 --> 00:01:14.000
of this, of what's going
on here, the dog feeding,

00:01:14.000 --> 00:01:16.520
and maybe as we go to the end as well.

00:01:16.520 --> 00:01:20.600
So let's see, this is my
x-axis, this is my y-axis.

00:01:20.600 --> 00:01:23.910
I'm going to make x-axis
measure the passage of the days,

00:01:23.910 --> 00:01:27.320
so number of days on the x-axis.

00:01:27.320 --> 00:01:30.520
And on the y-axis I'm going to measure,

00:01:30.520 --> 00:01:35.520
I'm gonna measure food remaining,
and that is in kilograms.

00:01:36.740 --> 00:01:40.820
And let's see, it looks like
maybe if my scale goes up to,

00:01:40.820 --> 00:01:45.820
let's make this five, 10, 15, 20,

00:01:49.860 --> 00:01:53.040
and then 25, I can make
it a little higher, 25,

00:01:53.040 --> 00:01:54.260
I think this will be sufficient.

00:01:54.260 --> 00:01:56.580
And then we wanna go up to 28 days,

00:01:56.580 --> 00:01:58.210
and it looks like they're
measuring everything

00:01:58.210 --> 00:01:59.690
on a weekly basis, so let's say

00:01:59.690 --> 00:02:02.973
that this is seven, 14, 21, and then 28.

00:02:08.650 --> 00:02:10.720
And they gave us some data points.

00:02:10.720 --> 00:02:15.010
So after 14 days, there's
14 kilograms remaining,

00:02:15.010 --> 00:02:18.810
so 14 days, there's 14
kilograms remaining,

00:02:18.810 --> 00:02:20.420
right over there.

00:02:20.420 --> 00:02:23.890
After 21 days, there's
10.5 kilograms remaining,

00:02:23.890 --> 00:02:28.680
21 days, 10.5 is right about there.

00:02:28.680 --> 00:02:33.620
After 28 days there's
seven kilograms remaining,

00:02:33.620 --> 00:02:37.050
so after 28 days, seven kilograms.

00:02:37.050 --> 00:02:38.500
And we're assuming the rate

00:02:38.500 --> 00:02:40.940
of the dog food usage is the same,

00:02:40.940 --> 00:02:43.320
that he's feeding his dog
the same amount every week.

00:02:43.320 --> 00:02:46.570
And so this would describe a line,

00:02:46.570 --> 00:02:49.330
that the rate is going to
be the slope of that line,

00:02:49.330 --> 00:02:51.080
and then if we can plot this line,

00:02:51.080 --> 00:02:54.800
if we know where that line
intersects the x and y-axes,

00:02:54.800 --> 00:02:56.400
we might be able to figure
out some other things.

00:02:56.400 --> 00:02:57.870
So actually let me draw a line here,

00:02:57.870 --> 00:03:00.750
let me see if I can use
this little line tool

00:03:00.750 --> 00:03:05.750
to connect the dots in a reasonable way.

00:03:07.060 --> 00:03:12.053
So let's say it looks something
like that, that's our line,

00:03:13.170 --> 00:03:17.383
that'll describe how quickly
he is using his dog food.

00:03:18.400 --> 00:03:20.460
So let me make sure that this dot is,

00:03:20.460 --> 00:03:22.570
should be on the line as well.

00:03:22.570 --> 00:03:24.510
Now let's try to answer
that first question,

00:03:24.510 --> 00:03:26.530
and think about how we might do it.

00:03:26.530 --> 00:03:29.530
How much food was in
the bag to begin with?

00:03:29.530 --> 00:03:31.850
So what point here
represents how much food

00:03:31.850 --> 00:03:33.340
was in the bag to begin with?

00:03:33.340 --> 00:03:36.320
Well that's the amount of
food remaining at day zero,

00:03:36.320 --> 00:03:37.720
at the beginning of this,

00:03:37.720 --> 00:03:40.450
so that would be this
point right over here,

00:03:40.450 --> 00:03:44.500
would describe how much food
was in the bag to begin with.

00:03:44.500 --> 00:03:48.212
This would be the y-intercept,
y-intercept is when

00:03:48.212 --> 00:03:52.500
our x value is equal to
zero, what is our y value.

00:03:52.500 --> 00:03:54.030
And when we just look at it, the graph,

00:03:54.030 --> 00:03:55.530
it looks like it's a little bit over 20,

00:03:55.530 --> 00:03:57.480
but we could find the exact value

00:03:57.480 --> 00:03:59.910
by thinking about the slope,
which is thinking about

00:03:59.910 --> 00:04:02.580
the rate at which the dog
food is being depleted.

00:04:02.580 --> 00:04:07.580
We can see that every week,
every week that goes by,

00:04:08.060 --> 00:04:10.230
or every seven days that goes by,

00:04:10.230 --> 00:04:14.140
it looks like we use 3.5 kilograms.

00:04:14.140 --> 00:04:15.360
Or another way to think about it,

00:04:15.360 --> 00:04:19.920
every two weeks it looks like
we use an entire kilogram.

00:04:19.920 --> 00:04:21.520
So let me put it this way,

00:04:21.520 --> 00:04:26.520
when we go plus 14 days, plus 14 days,

00:04:27.330 --> 00:04:32.330
it looks like we use up, or the
food remaining goes does by,

00:04:34.760 --> 00:04:39.760
goes down every two weeks it
goes down by seven kilograms,

00:04:40.020 --> 00:04:42.660
seven kilograms, negative seven kilograms.

00:04:42.660 --> 00:04:44.990
So if we wanna figure
out this exact value,

00:04:44.990 --> 00:04:46.760
we just have to reverse things.

00:04:46.760 --> 00:04:50.270
If we are going back 14 days,

00:04:50.270 --> 00:04:53.430
then we are going to
go up seven kilograms.

00:04:53.430 --> 00:04:56.610
So if we were at 14, up seven kilograms,

00:04:56.610 --> 00:05:00.640
this right over here is
the point zero comma 21.

00:05:00.640 --> 00:05:03.810
So how much food did Felipe
start with in the bag?

00:05:03.810 --> 00:05:07.590
21 kilograms, and we got
that from the y-intercept.

00:05:07.590 --> 00:05:09.510
Now another question is how much

00:05:09.510 --> 00:05:11.830
is Felipe feeding his dog everyday.

00:05:11.830 --> 00:05:14.323
Pause this video and see
if you can figure that out.

00:05:15.420 --> 00:05:17.870
Well we know every 14 days

00:05:17.870 --> 00:05:20.750
he's feeding the dog seven kilograms,

00:05:20.750 --> 00:05:23.070
so one way to think about it is,

00:05:23.070 --> 00:05:24.810
and we're really looking at the slope here

00:05:24.810 --> 00:05:27.330
to figure out the rate at
which he's feeding his dog.

00:05:27.330 --> 00:05:31.910
So the slope is equal
to our change in the y,

00:05:31.910 --> 00:05:34.610
so negative seven kilograms,

00:05:34.610 --> 00:05:39.510
every our change in the x, every 14 days,

00:05:39.510 --> 00:05:42.750
and so seven over 14 is
the same thing as 1/2,

00:05:42.750 --> 00:05:47.750
so this is equal to negative
1/2 of a kilogram per day.

00:05:48.020 --> 00:05:50.750
So this tells us everyday
the food remaining

00:05:50.750 --> 00:05:52.740
is going down half a kilogram,

00:05:52.740 --> 00:05:54.430
so that means he's feeding his dog,

00:05:54.430 --> 00:05:57.350
assuming his dog is eating
the food and finishing it,

00:05:57.350 --> 00:06:00.360
that his dog is eating
half a kilogram a day.

00:06:00.360 --> 00:06:01.950
And if we wanted to ask another question,

00:06:01.950 --> 00:06:04.290
how many days will the bag last?

00:06:04.290 --> 00:06:06.320
How would you think about that?

00:06:06.320 --> 00:06:09.170
And we know it's going
to be out here someplace,

00:06:09.170 --> 00:06:11.690
if we just continue that line,

00:06:11.690 --> 00:06:13.320
because this point right over here,

00:06:13.320 --> 00:06:15.480
where our line intersects the x-axis,

00:06:15.480 --> 00:06:17.763
that would be our x-intercept,

00:06:20.150 --> 00:06:23.320
that is the x value when
our y value is zero,

00:06:23.320 --> 00:06:24.810
and our y is the amount of food remaining.

00:06:24.810 --> 00:06:28.160
So we wanna know what day do
we have no food remaining.

00:06:28.160 --> 00:06:29.380
And we could try to estimate it,

00:06:29.380 --> 00:06:31.050
or we could figure out it exactly.

00:06:31.050 --> 00:06:34.120
We know that every 14 days
we use up seven kilograms.

00:06:34.120 --> 00:06:37.970
So if we are at seven, as
we are right over here,

00:06:37.970 --> 00:06:39.810
and we go 14 days in the future,

00:06:39.810 --> 00:06:43.640
we should use up the
remaining contents of the bag,

00:06:43.640 --> 00:06:46.430
so plus 14 days we're going

00:06:46.430 --> 00:06:49.740
to use up the remaining seven kilograms.

00:06:49.740 --> 00:06:52.920
And so this should happen
14 days after the 28th day,

00:06:52.920 --> 00:06:55.553
so this is going to be the 42nd day.