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Critical Analysis Essay On 13th Amendment

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A Critical Commentary on the Tenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution
Introduction
Thomas Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence, “We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us” (“Declaration of Independence”). The Tenth Amendment states, “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people” ("U.S. Constitution - Tenth Amendment"). The founding fathers ratified the Tenth Amendment to prevent a centralized government from taking away individual rights. One of the purposes of the Tenth Amendment is to prevent the federal government from directing the …show more content…

Those discriminatory laws then cause harm. One example is States denying same-sex couples the right to marriage. The States defended their marriage ban using the Tenth Amendment to argue that the Supreme Court should not intervene (Denniston, "Argument"; Denniston, "Same-Sex"; Dorf; Duncan). The States use federalism to prevent the federal government from intervening in their unlawful denial of the right to marriage. The founding fathers intended for the Tenth Amendment to protect individual rights but failed. The Supreme Court eventually held it was unconstitutional for States to deny same-sex couples the right to marriage (United States Supreme Court, "Obergefell v. Hodges." 681). However, the States' misuse of the Tenth Amendment to defend its unconstitutional acts is blatant, and those acts will have negative …show more content…

. . . . the Proposition 8, in its social meaning, sends a message that gay relationships are not to be respected; that they are of secondary value, if of any value at all; that they are certainly not equal to those of heterosexuals. And, to me, that's - - in addition to achieving the literal aims of not allowing gay people to marry, it also sends a strong message about the values of the state; in this case, the constitution itself. And it sends a message that would, in my mind, encourage or at least is consistent with holding prejudicial attitudes. It sends the opposite message, in my mind, and, therefore, would - - I would think, add to that pressure, to that social environment that encourages people, some people, to conceal" (Trial Transcript 854, 862). Dr. Meyer explained how laws that ban same-sex marriage would lead to adverse outcomes under the minority stress model. Dr. Meyer's testimony shows that when states deny same-sex couples the right to marry, the States harm same-sex couples' health. Former Supreme Court justice Kennedy wrote this elegantly in his opinion in Obergefell v. Hodges,
"Their plea is that they do respect it, respect it so deeply that they seek to find its fulfillment for themselves. Their hope is not to be condemned to live in loneliness, excluded from one of civillization's oldest institutions. They ask for equal dignity in the eyes of the law. The constitution grants them that right"

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