Page 63 - SpringBoard_CloseReading_Workshop_Grade6_Flipbook

Close Reading of informational Texts in social studies/history (continued)
key ideas and deTails
What freedoms are described in the First Amendment, and what are some of the ways Americans have exercised these freedoms?
From
The United States Constitution—Preamble and First Amendment
Preamble
1 We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish
Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
First Amendment
2 Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting
the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
From
The Words We Live By: Your Annotated Guide to the Constitution by Linda R. Monk
1 The first three words of the Constitution are the most important. They clearly state that the people—not the king, not the legislature, not the courts—are the true rulers in American government. This principle is known as a popular sovereignty.
2 But who are “We the People”? This question troubled the nation for centuries. As Lucy Stone, one of America’s first advocates for women’s rights, asked in 1853: “‘We the People’? Which ‘We the People’? The women were not included.” Neither were white males who did not own property, American Indians, or African Americans—slave or free. Justice Thurgood Marshall, the first African American member of the Supreme Court, described the limitation:
3 For a sense of the evolving nature of the Constitution, we need look no further than the first three words of the document’s preamble: ‘We the People.’ When the Founding Fathers used this phrase in 1787, they did not have in mind the majority of America’s citizens . . .
4 The men who gathered in Philadelphia in 1787 could not . . . have imagined, nor would they have accepted, that the document they were drafting would one day be construed by a Supreme Court to which had been appointed a woman and the descendent of an African slave.
5 Through the Amendment process, more and more Americans were eventually included in the Constitution’s definition of “We the People.” After the Civil War, the
key ideas and deTails
The text discusses popular sovereignty—the idea that the people have the power in America. How exactly do the people have the power
to make changes in our government?
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SpringBoard® English Language Arts Grade 6
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