Double Jeopardy Constitutional Clauses Legislative ActsKey TermsAmendmentsCivil Rights Compliments of the James Madison Center, JMU

The Congress shall have power... To regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states, and with the Indian tribes. The Congress shall have power... To regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states, and with the Indian tribes.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.

nor shall any state … deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

make no law respecting the establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof …

nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

Suspended literacy tests. Empowered federal officials to register voters. Empowered federal officials to count ballots.

Title II bans discrimination in public places on basis of race, color, national origin, or religion.

Bans age discrimination for jobs unless age is related to job performance.

States need not recognize same-sex marriages

Strengthens the federal government’s power to conduct surveillance, perform searches, and detain individuals in order to combat terrorism.

protections against discrimination

Supreme Court guideline that excludes the use of illegally obtained evidence in a criminal trial.

Southern method of excluding blacks from exercising suffrage by requiring payment of a tax prior to voting.

advocacy of the overthrow of the government

the right of government to take private property for the public good. Fair compensation must be paid to the owner of such property.

Unreasonable searches and seizures

Reserved powers

Cruel and unusual punishment

A public and a speedy trial

Women’s suffrage

Banned by the 24 th Amendment

Southern laws that excluded blacks from exercising suffrage by restricting the right to vote only to those whose grandfathers had voted before 1865.

Southern laws that required racial segregation in places of public accommodation.

primary election in which Southern states allowed only whites to vote.

To justify such discrimination, states must show that the law bears some relation to important governmental objectives. Law cannot be based upon archaic or old notions about women being of the fairer sex.