title: Dutch language

text: More complex inflection is still found in certain lexicalized expressions like "de heer des huizes (literally, "the man of the house"), etc. These are usually remnants of cases (in this instance, the genitive case which is still used in German, cf. "Der Herr des Hauses") and other inflections no longer in general use today. In such lexicalized expressions remnants of strong and weak nouns can be found too, e.g. "in het jaar des Heren (Anno Domini), where "-en" is actually the genitive ending of the weak noun. Similarly in some place names: "'s-Gravenbrakel, 's-Hertogenbosch", etc. (with weak genitives of "graaf" "count", "hertog" "duke"). Also in this case, German retains this feature.


title: Dutch language

text: Dutch shares much of its word order with German. Dutch exhibits subject–object–verb word order, but in main clauses the conjugated verb is moved into the second position in what is known as verb second or V2 word order. This makes Dutch word order almost identical to that of German, but often different from English, which has subject–verb–object word order and has since lost the V2 word order that existed in Old English.


title: Dutch language

text: An example sentence used in some Dutch language courses and textbooks is ""Ik kan mijn pen niet vinden omdat het veel te donker is"", which translates into English word for word as ""I can my pen not find because it far too dark is"", but in standard English word order would be written ""I cannot find my pen because it is far too dark"". If the sentence is split into a main and subclause and the verbs highlighted, the logic behind the word order can be seen.


title: Dutch language

text: Verb infinitives are placed in final position, but the finite, conjugated verb, in this case "kan" (can), is made the second element of the clause.


title: Dutch language

text: In subordinate clauses: ""omdat het veel te donker is"", the verb or verbs always go in the final position.


title: Dutch language

text: In an interrogative main clause the usual word order is: conjugated verb followed by subject; other verbs in final position:


title: Dutch language

text: In the Dutch equivalent of a wh-question the word order is: interrogative pronoun (or expression) + conjugated verb + subject; other verbs in final position:


title: Dutch language

text: In Dutch, the diminutive is used extensively. The nuances of meaning expressed by the diminutive are a distinctive aspect of Dutch, and can be difficult for non-native speakers to master. It is very productive and formed by adding one of the suffixes to the noun in question, depending on the latter's phonological ending:


title: Dutch language

text: The diminutive suffixes "-ke" (from which "-" has derived by palatalization), "-eke", "-ske", "-" (only for words ending -ch, -k, -p, or -s), "-kie" (instead of -kje), and "-pie" (instead of -pje) are used in southern dialects, and the forms ending on - as well in northern urban dialects. Some of these form part of expressions that became standard language, like "een makkie", from ge"mak" = "ease"). The noun joch ("young boy") has, exceptionally, only the diminutive form jochie, also in standard Dutch. The form -ke is also found in many women's given names: Janneke, Marieke, Marijke, Mieke, Meike etc.


title: Dutch language

text: In Dutch, the diminutive is not restricted to nouns, but can be applied to numerals ("met z'n tweetjes", "the two of us"), pronouns ("onderonsje", "tête-à-tête"), verbal particles ("moetje", "shotgun marriage"), and even prepositions ("toetje", "dessert"). Adjectives and adverbs commonly take diminutive forms; the former take a diminutive ending and thus function as nouns, while the latter remain adverbs and always have the diminutive with the "-s" appended, e.g. adjective: groen ("green") → noun: groen"" ("rookie"); adverb: even ("a while") → adverb: even"tjes" ("a little while").


title: Dutch language

text: Some nouns have two different diminutives, each with a different meaning: bloem ("flower") → bloem"pje" (lit. "small flower"), but bloem"etje" (lit. also "small flower", meaning "bouquet"). A few nouns exist solely in a diminutive form, e.g. zeepaardje ("seahorse"), while many, e.g. meisje ("girl"), originally a diminutive of meid ("maid"), have acquired a meaning . A diminutive can sometimes be added to an uncountable noun to refer to a single portion: ijs ("ice", "ice cream") → ijsje ("ice cream treat", "cone of ice cream"), bier ("beer") → biertje. Some diminutive forms only exist in the plural, e.g. kleertjes ("clothing").


title: Dutch language

text: When used to refer to time, the Dutch diminutive form can indicate whether the person in question found it pleasant or not: "een uur"tje" kletsen" ("chatting for a "little" hour.") The diminutive can, however, also be used pejoratively: "Hij was weer eens het "mannetje"". ("He acted as if he was the "little" man.")


title: Dutch language

text: All diminutives (even lexicalised ones like "meisje" "(girl)") have neuter gender and take neuter concords: ""dit" kleine meisje", not ""deze" kleine meisje".


title: Dutch language

text: There are two series of personal pronouns, subject and objects pronouns. The forms on the right-hand sides within each column are the unemphatic forms; those not normally written are given in brackets. Only "ons" and "u" do not have an unemphatic form. The distinction between emphatic and unemphatic pronouns is very important in Dutch. Emphatic pronouns in English use the reflexive pronoun form, but are used to emphasize the subject, not to indicate a direct or indirect object. For example, "I gave (to) myself the money" is reflexive but "I myself gave the money (to someone else) " is emphatic.


title: Dutch language

text: Like English, Dutch has generalised the dative over the accusative case for all pronouns, e.g. NL 'me', 'je', EN 'me', 'you', vs. DE 'mich'/'mir' 'dich'/'dir'. There is one exception: the standard language prescribes that in the third person plural, "hen" is to be used for the direct object, and "hun" for the indirect object. This distinction was artificially introduced in the 17th century by grammarians, and is largely ignored in spoken language and not well understood by Dutch speakers. Consequently, the third person plural forms "hun" and "hen" are interchangeable in normal usage, with "hun" being more common. The shared unstressed form "ze" is also often used as both direct and indirect objects and is a useful avoidance strategy when people are unsure which form to use.


title: Dutch language

text: Dutch shares also with English the presence of h- pronouns, e.g. NL "hij", "hem", "haar", "hen", "hun" and EN "he", "him", "her" vs. DE "er", "ihn", "ihr", "ihnen".


title: Dutch language

text: Like most Germanic languages, Dutch forms noun compounds, where the first noun modifies the category given by the second ("hondenhok" = doghouse). Unlike English, where newer compounds or combinations of longer nouns are often written in open form with separating spaces, Dutch (like the other Germanic languages) either uses the closed form without spaces ("boomhut" = tree house) or inserts a hyphen ("VVD-coryfee" = outstanding member of the VVD, a political party). Like German, Dutch allows arbitrarily long compounds, but the longer they get, the less frequent they tend to be.


title: Dutch language

text: The longest serious entry in the Van Dale dictionary is (ceasefire negotiation). Leafing through the articles of association (Statuten) one may come across a 30-letter (authorisation of representation). An even longer word cropping up in official documents is "ziektekostenverzekeringsmaatschappij" (health insurance company) though the shorter "zorgverzekeraar" (health insurer) is more common.


title: Dutch language

text: Notwithstanding official spelling rules, some Dutch-speaking people, like some Scandinavians and German speakers, nowadays tend to write the parts of a compound separately, a practice sometimes dubbed "de Engelse ziekte" (the English disease).


title: Dutch language

text: Dutch vocabulary is predominantly Germanic in origin, with loanwords accounting for 20%. The main foreign influence on Dutch vocabulary since the 12th century and culminating in the French period has been French and (northern) Oïl languages, accounting for an estimated 6.8% of all words, or more than a third of all loanwords. Latin, which was spoken in the southern Low Countries for centuries and then played a major role as the language of science and religion, follows with 6.1%. High German and Low German were influential until the mid-20th century and account for 2.7%, but they are mostly unrecognizable since many have been "Dutchified": German ' → Dutch '. Dutch has borrowed words from English since the mid-19th century, as a consequence of the increasing power and influence of Britain and the United States. English loanwords are about 1.5%, but continue to increase. Many English loanwords become less visible over time as they are either gradually replaced by calques ("skyscraper" became Dutch "wolkenkrabber") or neologisms ("bucket list" became "loodjeslijst"). Conversely, Dutch contributed many loanwords to English, accounting for 1.3% of its lexicon.


title: Dutch language

text: The main Dutch dictionary is the "Van Dale groot woordenboek der Nederlandse taal", which contains some 268,826 headwords. In the field of linguistics, the 45,000-page "Woordenboek der Nederlandsche Taal" is also widely used. That scholarly endeavour took 147 years to complete and contains all recorded Dutch words from the Early Middle Ages onward.


title: Dutch language

text: Dutch is written using the Latin script. Dutch uses one additional character beyond the standard alphabet, the digraph IJ. It has a relatively high proportion of doubled letters, both vowels and consonants, due to the formation of compound words and also to the spelling devices for distinguishing the many vowel sounds in the Dutch language. An example of five consecutive doubled letters is the word "voorraaddoos" (food storage container). The diaeresis (Dutch: "trema") is used to mark vowels that are pronounced separately when involving a pre- or suffix, and a hyphen is used when the problem occurs in compound words. For example; ""be"ïnvloed" (influenced), de zee"ën" (the seas) but "zee-eend" (scoter; litt: sea duck). Generally, other diacritical marks occur only in loanwords. However, the acute accent can also be used for emphasis or to differentiate between two forms, and its most common use is to differentiate between the indefinite article 'een' /ən/ (a, an) and the numeral 'één' /e:n/ (one).


title: Dutch language

text: Since the 1980s, the Dutch Language Union has been given the mandate to review and make recommendations on the official spelling of Dutch. Spelling reforms undertaken by the union occurred in 1995 and 2005. In the Netherlands, the official spelling is currently given legal basis by the Spelling Act of September 15, 2005. The Spelling Act gives the Committee of Ministers of the Dutch Language Union the authority to determine the spelling of Dutch by ministerial decision. In addition, the law requires that this spelling be followed "at the governmental bodies, at educational institutions funded from the public purse, as well as at the exams for which legal requirements have been established". In other cases, it is recommended, but it is not mandatory to follow the official spelling. The Decree on the Spelling Regulations 2005 of 2006 contains the annexed spelling rules decided by the Committee of Ministers on April 25, 2005. In Flanders, the same spelling rules are currently applied by the Decree of the Flemish Government Establishing the Rules of the Official Spelling and Grammar of the Dutch language of June 30, 2006.


title: Dutch language

text: The "Woordenlijst Nederlandse taal", more commonly known as ""het groene boekje"" (i.e. "the green booklet", because of its color), is the authoritative orthographic word list (without definitions) of the Dutch Language Union; a version with definitions can be had as "Het Groene Woordenboek"; both are published by Sdu.


title: Abbey Road

text: Abbey Road is the eleventh studio album by the English rock band the Beatles. It is the last album the group started recording, although "Let It Be" was the last album completed before the band's break-up in April 1970. It was mostly recorded in April, July and August 1969, and was released on 26 September 1969 in the United Kingdom, and 1 October 1969 in the United States, reaching number one in both countries. A double A-side single from the album, "Something" / "Come Together" was released in October, which also topped the charts in the US.


title: Abbey Road

text: "Abbey Road" incorporates styles such as rock, pop, blues, singer-songwriter, and progressive rock, and makes prominent use of the Moog synthesizer and guitar played through a Leslie speaker unit. It is also notable for having a long medley of songs on side two that have subsequently been covered as one suite by other notable artists. The album was recorded in a more collegial atmosphere than the "Get Back" / "Let It Be" sessions earlier in the year, but there were still significant confrontations within the band, particularly over Paul McCartney's song "Maxwell's Silver Hammer", and John Lennon did not perform on several tracks. By the time the album was released, Lennon had left the group, though this was not publicly announced until McCartney also quit the following year.


title: Abbey Road

text: Although it was an immediate commercial success, it received mixed reviews. Some critics found its music inauthentic and criticised the production's artificial effects. By contrast, critics today view the album as one of the Beatles' best and rank it as one of the greatest albums of all time. George Harrison's two songs on the album, "Something" and "Here Comes the Sun", have been regarded as some of the best he wrote for the group. The album's cover, featuring the group walking across a zebra crossing outside Abbey Road Studios, has become one of the most famous and imitated in the history of recorded music.


title: Abbey Road

text: After the recording sessions for the proposed "Get Back" album, Paul McCartney suggested to music producer George Martin that the group get together and make an album "the way we used to do it", free of the conflict that had begun during sessions for "The Beatles" (also known as the "White Album"). Martin agreed, but on the strict condition that all the group – particularly John Lennon – allow him to produce the record in the same manner as earlier albums and that discipline would be adhered to. No one was entirely sure that the work was going to be the group's last, though George Harrison said "it felt as if we were reaching the end of the line".


title: Abbey Road

text: The first sessions for "Abbey Road" began on 22 February 1969, only three weeks after the "Get Back" sessions, in Trident Studios. There, the group recorded a backing track for "I Want You (She's So Heavy)" with Billy Preston accompanying them on Hammond organ. No further group recording occurred until April because of Ringo Starr's commitments on the film "The Magic Christian". After a small amount of work that month and a session for "You Never Give Me Your Money" on 6 May, the group took an eight-week break before recommencing on 2 July. Recording continued through July and August, and the last backing track, for "Because", was taped on 1 August. Overdubs continued through the month, with the final sequencing of the album coming together on 20 August the last time all four Beatles were present in a studio together.


title: Abbey Road

text: McCartney, Starr and Martin have reported positive recollections of the sessions, while Harrison said, "we did actually perform like musicians again". Lennon and McCartney had enjoyed working together on the non-album single "The Ballad of John and Yoko" in April, sharing friendly banter between takes, and some of this camaraderie carried over to the "Abbey Road" sessions. Nevertheless, there was a significant amount of tension in the group. According to Ian MacDonald, McCartney had an acrimonious argument with Lennon during the sessions. Lennon's wife, Yoko Ono, had become a permanent presence at Beatles' recordings and clashed with other members. Halfway through recording in June, Lennon and Ono were involved in a car accident. A doctor told Ono to rest in bed, so Lennon had one installed in the studio so she could observe the recording process from there.


title: Abbey Road

text: During the sessions, Lennon expressed a desire to have all of his songs on one side of the album, and McCartney's on the other. The album's two halves represented a compromise: Lennon wanted a traditional release with distinct and unrelated songs while McCartney and Martin wanted to continue their thematic approach from "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" by incorporating a medley. Lennon ultimately said that he disliked "Abbey Road" as a whole and felt that it lacked authenticity, calling McCartney's contributions "[music] for the grannies to dig" and not "real songs", and describing the medley as "junk ... just bits of songs thrown together".


title: Abbey Road

text: "Abbey Road" was recorded on eight-track reel-to-reel tape machines rather than the four-track machines that were used for earlier Beatles albums such as "Sgt Pepper", and was the first Beatles album not to be issued in mono. The album makes prominent use of guitar played through a Leslie speaker, and of the Moog synthesizer. The Moog is not merely used as a background effect but sometimes plays a central role, as in "Because", where it is used for the middle eight. It is also prominent on "Maxwell's Silver Hammer" and "Here Comes the Sun". The synthesizer was introduced to the band by Harrison, who acquired one in November 1968 and used it to create his album "Electronic Sound". Starr made more prominent use of the tom-toms on "Abbey Road", later saying the album was "tom-tom madness ... I went nuts on the toms."


title: Abbey Road

text: "Abbey Road" was also the first and only Beatles album to be entirely recorded through a solid-state transistor mixing desk, the TG12345 Mk I, as opposed to earlier thermionic electron vacuum valve-based REDD desks. The TG console also allowed better support for eight-track recording, facilitating the Beatles' considerable use of overdubbing. Emerick recalls that the TG desk used to record the album had individual limiters and compressors on each audio channel and noted that the overall sound was "softer" than the earlier valve desks. In his study of the role of the TG12345 in the Beatles' sound on "Abbey Road", music historian Kenneth Womack observes that "the expansive sound palette and mixing capabilities of the TG12345 enabled George Martin and Geoff Emerick to imbue the Beatles' sound with greater definition and clarity. The warmth of solid-state recording also afforded their music with brighter tonalities and a deeper low end that distinguished "Abbey Road" from the rest of their corpus, providing listeners with an abiding sense that the Beatles' final long-player was markedly different."


title: Abbey Road

text: Alan Parsons worked as an assistant engineer on the album. He later went on to engineer Pink Floyd's landmark album "The Dark Side of the Moon" and produce many popular albums himself with the Alan Parsons Project. John Kurlander also assisted on many of the sessions, and went on to become a successful engineer and producer, most noteworthy for his success on the scores for the "Lord of the Rings" film trilogy.


title: Abbey Road

text: "Come Together" was an expansion of "Let's Get It Together", a song Lennon originally wrote for Timothy Leary's California gubernatorial campaign against Ronald Reagan. A rough version of the lyrics for "Come Together" was written at Lennon's and Ono's second bed-in event in Montreal.


title: Abbey Road

text: Beatles author Jonathan Gould suggested that the song has only a single "pariah-like protagonist" and Lennon was "painting another sardonic self-portrait". MacDonald has suggested that the "juju eyeballs" has been claimed to refer to Dr John and "spinal cracker" to Ono. The song was later the subject of a lawsuit brought against Lennon by Morris Levy because the opening line in "Come Together" – "Here come old flat-top" – was admittedly lifted from a line in Chuck Berry's "You Can't Catch Me". A settlement was reached in 1973 in which Lennon promised to record three songs from Levy's publishing catalogue for his next album.


title: Abbey Road

text: "Come Together" was later released as a double A-side single with "Something". In the liner notes to the compilation album "Love", Martin described the track as "a simple song but it stands out because of the sheer brilliance of the performers".


title: Abbey Road

text: Harrison was inspired to write "Something" during sessions for the White Album by listening to label-mate James Taylor's "Something in the Way She Moves" from his album "James Taylor". After the lyrics were refined during the "Let It Be" sessions (tapes reveal Lennon giving Harrison some songwriting advice during its composition), the song was initially given to Joe Cocker, but was subsequently recorded for "Abbey Road". Cocker's version appeared on his album "Joe Cocker!" that November.


title: Abbey Road

text: "Something" was Lennon's favourite song on the album, and McCartney considered it the best song Harrison had written. Though the song was written by Harrison, Frank Sinatra once commented that it was his favourite Lennon–McCartney composition and "the greatest love song ever written". Lennon contributed piano to the recording and while most of the part was removed, traces of it remain in the final cut, notably on the middle eight, before Harrison's guitar solo.


title: Abbey Road

text: The song was issued as a double A-side single with "Come Together" in October 1969 and topped the US charts for one week, becoming the Beatles' first number-one single that was not a Lennon–McCartney composition. It was also the first Beatles single from an album already released in the UK. Apple's Neil Aspinall filmed a promotional video, which combined separate footage of the Beatles and their wives.


title: Abbey Road

text: "Maxwell's Silver Hammer", McCartney's first song on the album, was first performed by the Beatles during the "Let It Be" sessions (as seen in the film). He wrote the song after the group's trip to India in 1968 and wanted to record it for the White Album, but it was rejected by the others as "too complicated".


title: Abbey Road

text: The recording was fraught with tension between band members, as McCartney annoyed others by insisting on a perfect performance. The track was the first Lennon was invited to work on following his car accident, but he hated it and declined to do so. According to engineer Geoff Emerick, Lennon said it was "more of Paul's granny music" and left the session. He spent the next two weeks with Ono and did not return to the studio until the backing track for "Come Together" was laid down on 21 July. Harrison was also tired of the song, saying "we had to play it over and over again until Paul liked it. It was a real drag". Starr was more sympathetic to the song. "It was granny music", he admitted, "but we needed stuff like that on our album so other people would listen to it". Longtime roadie Mal Evans played the anvil sound in the chorus. This track also makes use of Harrison's Moog synthesizer, played by McCartney.


title: Abbey Road

text: "Oh! Darling" was written by McCartney in the doo-wop style, like contemporary work by Frank Zappa. It was tried at the "Get Back" sessions, and a version appears on "Anthology 3". It was subsequently re-recorded in April, with overdubs in July and August.


title: Abbey Road

text: McCartney attempted recording the lead vocal only once a day. He said: "I came into the studios early every day for a week to sing it by myself because at first my voice was too clear. I wanted it to sound as though I'd been performing it on stage all week." Lennon thought he should have sung it, remarking that it was more his style.


title: Abbey Road

text: As was the case with most of the Beatles' albums, Starr sang lead vocal on one track. "Octopus's Garden" is his second and last solo composition released on any album by the band. It was inspired by a trip with his family to Sardinia aboard Peter Sellers's yacht after Starr left the band for two weeks during the sessions for the White Album. Starr received a full songwriting credit and composed most of the lyrics, although the song's melodic structure was partly written in the studio by Harrison. The pair would later collaborate as writers on Starr's solo singles "It Don't Come Easy", "Back Off Boogaloo" and "Photograph".


title: Abbey Road

text: "I Want You (She's So Heavy)" was written by Lennon about his relationship with Ono, and he made a deliberate choice to keep the lyrics simple and concise. Author Tom Maginnis writes that the song had a progressive rock influence, with its unusual length and structure, repeating guitar riff, and white noise effects, though he noted the "I Want You" section has a straightforward blues structure.


title: Abbey Road

text: The finished song is a combination of two different recording attempts. The first attempt occurred in February 1969, almost immediately after the "Get Back/Let It Be" sessions with Billy Preston. This was subsequently combined with a second version made during the "Abbey Road" sessions proper in April. The two sections together ran to nearly eight minutes, making it the Beatles' second-longest released track. Lennon used Harrison's Moog synthesizer with a white noise setting to create a "wind" effect that was overdubbed on the second half of the track. During the final edit, Lennon told Emerick to "cut it right there" at 7 minutes and 44 seconds, creating a sudden, jarring silence that concludes the first side of "Abbey Road" (the recording tape would have run out within 20 seconds as it was). The final mixing and editing of the track occurred on 20 August 1969, the last day all four Beatles were together in the studio.


title: Abbey Road

text: "Here Comes the Sun" was written by Harrison in Eric Clapton's garden in Surrey during a break from stressful band business meetings. The basic track was recorded on 7 July 1969. Harrison sang lead and played acoustic guitar, McCartney provided backing vocals and played bass and Starr played the drums. Lennon was still recovering from his car accident and did not perform on the track. Martin provided an orchestral arrangement in collaboration with Harrison, who overdubbed a Moog synthesizer part on 19 August, immediately before the final mix.


title: Abbey Road

text: Though not released as a single, the song attracted attention and critical praise, and was included on the compilation "1967–1970". It has been featured several times on BBC Radio 4's "Desert Island Discs", having been chosen by Sandie Shaw, Jerry Springer, Boris Johnson and Elaine Paige. "The Daily Telegraph"<nowiki>'</nowiki>s Martin Chilton said it was "almost impossible not to sing along to". Since digital downloads have become eligible to chart, it reached number 56 in 2010 after the Beatles' back catalogue was released on iTunes. It is also the most streamed Beatles song on Spotify.


title: Abbey Road

text: Harrison recorded a guitar solo for this track that did not appear in the final mix. It was rediscovered in 2012, and footage of Martin and Harrison's son Dhani listening to it in the studio was released on the DVD of "".


title: Abbey Road

text: "Because" was inspired by Lennon listening to Ono playing Ludwig van Beethoven's "Moonlight Sonata" on the piano. He recalled he was "lying on the sofa in our house, listening to Yoko play ... Suddenly, I said, 'Can you play those chords backward?' She did, and I wrote 'Because' around them." The track features three-part harmonies by Lennon, McCartney and Harrison, which were then triple-tracked to give nine voices in the final mix. The group considered the vocals to be some of the hardest and most complex they attempted. Harrison played the Moog synthesizer, and Martin played the harpsichord that opens the track.


title: Abbey Road

text: The remainder of side two consists of a 16-minute medley of eight tracks consisting of a number of short songs and song fragments (known during the recording sessions as "The Long One"), recorded over July and August and blended into a suite by McCartney and Martin. Some songs were written (and originally recorded in demo form) during sessions for the White Album and "Get Back" / "Let It Be", which later appeared on "Anthology 3". While the idea for the medley was McCartney's, Martin claims credit for some structure, adding he "wanted to get John and Paul to think more seriously about their music".


title: Abbey Road

text: The first track recorded for the medley was the opening number, "You Never Give Me Your Money". McCartney has claimed that the band's dispute over Allen Klein and what McCartney viewed as Klein's empty promises were the inspiration for the song's lyrics. However, MacDonald doubts this, given that the backing track, recorded on 6 May at Olympic Studios, predated the worst altercations between Klein and McCartney. The track is a suite of varying styles, ranging from a piano-led ballad at the start to arpeggiated guitars at the end. Both Harrison and Lennon provided guitar solos with Lennon playing the solos at the end of the track.


title: Abbey Road

text: This song transitions into Lennon's "Sun King" which, like "Because", showcases Lennon, McCartney and Harrison's triple-tracked harmonies. Following it are Lennon's "Mean Mr. Mustard" (written during the Beatles' 1968 trip to India) and "Polythene Pam". These in turn are followed by four McCartney songs, "She Came In Through the Bathroom Window" (written after a fan entered McCartney's residence via his bathroom window), "Golden Slumbers" (based on Thomas Dekker's 17th-century poem set to new music), "Carry That Weight" (reprising elements from "You Never Give Me Your Money", and featuring chorus vocals from all four Beatles), and closing with "The End".


title: Abbey Road

text: "The End" features Starr's only drum solo in the Beatles' catalogue (the drums are mixed across two tracks in "true stereo", unlike most releases at that time where they were hard panned left or right). Fifty-four seconds into the song are 18 bars of lead guitar: the first two bars are played by McCartney, the second two by Harrison, and the third two by Lennon, and the sequence is repeated two more times. Harrison suggested the idea of a guitar solo in the track, Lennon decided they should trade solos and McCartney elected to go first. The solos were cut live against the existing backing track in one take. Immediately after Lennon's third and final solo, the piano chords of the final part of the song begin. The song ends with the memorable final line, "And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make". This section was taped separately from the first, and required the piano to be re-recorded by McCartney, which was done on 18 August. An alternative version of the song, with Harrison's lead guitar solo played against McCartney's (and Starr's drum solo heard in the background), appears on the "Anthology 3" album and the 2012 digital-only compilation album "Tomorrow Never Knows".


title: Abbey Road

text: Musicologist Walter Everett interprets that most of the lyrics on side two's medley deal with "selfishness and self-gratification – the financial complaints in 'You Never Give Me Your Money,' the miserliness of Mr. Mustard, the holding back of the pillow in 'Carry That Weight,' the desire that some second person will visit the singer's dreams – perhaps the 'one sweet dream' of 'You Never Give Me Your Money'? – in 'The End.'" Everett adds that the medley's "selfish moments" are played in the context of the tonal centre of A, while "generosity" is expressed in songs where C major is central. The medley concludes with a "great compromise in the 'negotiations'" in "The End", which serves as a structurally balanced coda. In response to the repeated A-major choruses of "love you", McCartney sings in realisation that there is as much self-gratifying love ("the love you take") as there is of the generous love ("the love you make"), in A major and C major, respectively.


title: Abbey Road

text: "Her Majesty" was recorded by McCartney on 2 July when he arrived before the rest of the group at Abbey Road. It was originally included in a rough mix of the side two medley (and officially available in this form for the first time on the album's 3CD Super Deluxe edition box set), appearing between "Mean Mr. Mustard" and "Polythene Pam". McCartney disliked the way the medley sounded when it included "Her Majesty", so he asked for it to be cut. The second engineer, John Kurlander, had been instructed by George Martin not to throw out anything, so after McCartney left, he attached the track to the end of the master tape after 20 seconds of silence. The tape box bore an instruction to leave "Her Majesty" off the final product, but the next day when mastering engineer Malcolm Davies received the tape, he (also trained not to throw anything away) cut a playback lacquer of the whole sequence, including "Her Majesty". The Beatles liked this effect and included it on the album.


title: Abbey Road

text: "Her Majesty" opens with the final, crashing chord of "Mean Mr. Mustard", while the final note remained buried in the mix of "Polythene Pam", as a result of being snipped off the reel during a rough mix of the medley on 30 July. The medley was subsequently mixed again from scratch although the song was not touched again and still appears in its rough mix on the album.


title: Abbey Road

text: Original US and UK pressings of "Abbey Road" do not list "Her Majesty" on the album's cover nor on the record label, making it a hidden track. The song title appears on the inlay card and disc of the 1987 remastered CD reissue, as track 17. It also appears on the sleeve, booklet and disc of the 2009 remastered CD reissue, but not on the cover or record label of the 2012 vinyl reissue.


title: Abbey Road

text: Three days after the session for "I Want You (She's So Heavy)", Harrison recorded solo demos of "All Things Must Pass" (which became the title track of his 1970 triple album), "Something" and "Old Brown Shoe". The latter was re-recorded by the Beatles in April 1969 and issued as the B-side to "The Ballad of John and Yoko" the following month. All three of these Harrison demos were later featured on "Anthology 3".


title: Abbey Road

text: During the sessions for the medley, McCartney recorded "Come and Get It", playing all the instruments. It was assumed to be a demo recording for another artist but McCartney later said that he originally intended to put it on "Abbey Road". It was instead covered by Badfinger, while McCartney's original recording appeared on "Anthology 3".


title: Abbey Road

text: The original backing track to "Something", featuring a piano-led coda, and "You Never Give Me Your Money", which leads into a fast rock-n-roll jam session, have appeared on bootlegs.


title: Abbey Road

text: Apple Records creative director Kosh designed the album cover. It is the only original UK Beatles album sleeve to show neither the artist name nor the album title on its front cover, which was Kosh's idea, despite EMI claiming the record would not sell without this information. He later explained that "we didn't need to write the band's name on the cover…. They were the most famous band in the world". The front cover was a photograph of the group on a zebra crossing based on ideas that McCartney sketched and taken on 8 August 1969 outside EMI Studios on Abbey Road. At 11:35 that morning, photographer Iain Macmillan was given only ten minutes to take the photo while he stood on a step-ladder and a policeman held up traffic behind the camera. Macmillan took six photographs, which McCartney examined with a magnifying glass before deciding which would be used on the album sleeve.


title: Abbey Road

text: In the image selected by McCartney, the group walk across the street in single file from left to right, with Lennon leading, followed by Starr, McCartney, and Harrison. McCartney is barefoot and out of step with the others. Except for Harrison, the group are wearing suits designed by Tommy Nutter. A white Volkswagen Beetle is to the left of the picture, parked next to the zebra crossing, which belonged to one of the people living in the block of flats across from the recording studio. After the album was released, the number plate (LMW 281F) was repeatedly stolen from the car. In 2004, news sources published a claim made by retired American salesman Paul Cole that he was the man standing on the pavement to the right of the picture.


title: Abbey Road

text: In mid-1969, Lennon formed a new group, the Plastic Ono Band, in part because the Beatles had rejected his song "Cold Turkey". While Harrison worked with such artists as Leon Russell, Doris Troy, Preston and Delaney & Bonnie through to the end of the year, McCartney took a hiatus from the group after his daughter Mary was born on 28 August. On 20 September, Lennon told McCartney, Starr, and business manager Allen Klein (Harrison was not present) he was leaving the group, (or in his words, he wanted a divorce) six days before "Abbey Road" was released. Apple released "Something" backed with "Come Together" in the US on 6 October 1969. Release of the single in the UK followed on 31 October, while Lennon released the Plastic Ono Band's "Cold Turkey" the same month.


title: Abbey Road

text: The Beatles did little promotion of "Abbey Road" directly, and no public announcement was made of the band's split until McCartney announced he was leaving the group in April 1970. By this time, the "Get Back" project (by now retitled "Let It Be") had been re-examined, with overdubs and mixing sessions continuing into 1970. Therefore, "Let It Be" became the last album to be finished and released by the Beatles, although its recording had begun before "Abbey Road".


title: Abbey Road

text: "Abbey Road" sold four million copies in its first two months of release. In the UK, the album debuted at number one, where it remained for 11 weeks before being displaced for one week by the Rolling Stones' "Let It Bleed". The following week (which was Christmas), "Abbey Road" returned to the top for another six weeks (completing a total of 17 weeks) before being replaced by "Led Zeppelin II". Altogether, it spent 81 weeks on the UK albums chart. Reaction overseas was similar. In the US, the album spent 11 weeks at number one on the "Billboard" Top LPs chart. It was the National Association of Recording Merchandisers (NARM) best-selling album of 1969. In Japan, it was one of the longest-charting albums to date, remaining in the top 100 for 298 weeks during the 1970s.


title: Abbey Road

text: "Abbey Road" initially received mixed reviews from music critics, who criticised the production's artificial sounds and viewed its music as inauthentic. William Mann of "The Times" said that the album will "be called gimmicky by people who want a record to sound exactly like a live performance", although he considered it to be "teem[ing] with musical invention" and added: "Nice as Come Together and Harrison's Something are – they are minor pleasures in the context of the whole disc ... Side Two is marvellous ..." Ed Ward of "Rolling Stone" called the album "complicated instead of complex" and felt that the Moog synthesizer "disembodies and artificializes" the band's sound, adding that they "create a sound that could not possibly exist outside the studio". While he found the medley on side two to be their "most impressive music" since "Rubber Soul", Nik Cohn of "The New York Times" said that, "individually", the album's songs are "nothing special". Albert Goldman of "Life" magazine wrote that "Abbey Road" "is not one of the Beatles' great albums" and, despite some "lovely" phrases and "stirring" segues, side two's suite "seems symbolic of the Beatles' latest phase, which might be described as the round-the-clock production of disposable music effects".


title: Abbey Road

text: Conversely, Chris Welch wrote in "Melody Maker": "the truth is, their latest LP is just a natural born gas, entirely free of pretension, deep meanings or symbolism ... While production is simple compared to past intricacies, it is still extremely sophisticated and inventive." Derek Jewell of "The Sunday Times" found the album "refreshingly terse and unpretentious", and although he lamented the band's "cod-1920s jokes (Maxwell's Silver Hammer) and ... Ringo's obligatory nursery arias (Octopus's Garden)", he considered that "Abbey Road" "touches higher peaks than did their last album".<ref name="Fricke/Mojo">Fricke, David (2003). "Road to Nowhere". In "Mojo: The Beatles' Final Years Special Edition". London: Emap. p. 112.</ref> John Mendelsohn, writing for "Rolling Stone", called it "breathtakingly recorded" and praised side two especially, equating it to "the whole of "Sgt. Pepper"" and stating, "That the Beatles can unify seemingly countless musical fragments and lyrical doodlings into a uniformly wonderful suite ... seems potent testimony that no, they've far from lost it, and no, they haven't stopped trying."


title: Abbey Road

text: While covering the Rolling Stones' 1969 American tour for "The Village Voice", Robert Christgau reported from a meeting with Greil Marcus in Berkeley that "opinion has shifted against the Beatles. Everyone is putting down "Abbey Road"." Shortly afterwards, in Los Angeles, he wrote that his colleague Ellen Willis had grown to love the record, adding: "Damned if she isn't right – flawed but fine. Because the world is round it turns her on. Charlie Watts tells us he likes it too."


title: Abbey Road

text: Many critics have since cited "Abbey Road" as the Beatles' greatest album. In a retrospective review, Nicole Pensiero of "PopMatters" called it "an amazingly cohesive piece of music, innovative and timeless". Mark Kemp of "Paste" viewed the album as being "among The Beatles' finest works, even if it foreshadows the cigarette-lighter-waving arena rock that technically skilled but critically maligned artists from Journey to Meatloaf would belabor throughout the '70s and '80s". Neil McCormick of "The Daily Telegraph" dubbed it the Beatles' "last love letter to the world" and praised its "big, modern sound", calling it "lush, rich, smooth, epic, emotional and utterly gorgeous".


title: Abbey Road

text: AllMusic's Richie Unterberger felt that the album shared "Sgt. Pepper"s "faux-conceptual forms", but had "stronger compositions", and wrote of its standing in the band's catalogue: "Whether "Abbey Road" is the Beatles' best work is debatable, but it's certainly the most immaculately produced (with the possible exception of "Sgt. Pepper") and most tightly constructed." Ian MacDonald gave a mixed opinion of the album, noting that several tracks had been written at least a year previously, and would possibly have been unsuitable without being integrated into the medley on side two. He did, however, praise the production, particularly the sound of Starr's bass drum.


title: Abbey Road

text: "Abbey Road" received high rankings in several "best albums in history" polls by critics and publications. It was voted number 8 in Colin Larkin's "All Time Top 1000 Albums" 3rd Edition (2000). "Time" included it in their 2006 list of the All-Time 100 Albums. In 2009, readers of "Rolling Stone" named "Abbey Road" the greatest Beatles album. In 2020, the magazine ranked the album at number 5 on its list of the "500 Greatest Albums of All Time", the highest Beatles record on the list; a previous version of the list from 2012 had ranked it at number 14. The album was also included in the book "1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die".


title: Abbey Road

text: The image of the Beatles on the Abbey Road crossing has become one of the most famous and imitated in recording history. The crossing is a popular destination for Beatles fans, and a webcam has operated there since 2011. In December 2010, the crossing was given grade II listed status for its "cultural and historical importance"; the Abbey Road studios themselves had been given similar status earlier in the year.


title: Abbey Road

text: Shortly after the album's release, the cover became part of the "Paul is dead" theory that was spreading across college campuses in the US. According to followers of the rumour, the cover depicted the Beatles walking out of a cemetery in a funeral procession. The procession was led by Lennon dressed in white as a religious figure; Starr was dressed in black as the undertaker; McCartney, out of step with the others, was a barefoot corpse; and Harrison dressed in denim was the gravedigger. The left-handed McCartney is holding a cigarette in his right hand, indicating that he is an imposter, and part of the number plate on the Volkswagen parked on the street is 281F (misread as 28IF), meaning that McCartney would have been 28 if he had lived – despite the fact that he was only 27 at the time of the photo and subsequent release of the record. The escalation of the "Paul is dead" rumour became the subject of intense analysis on mainstream radio and contributed to "Abbey Road"s commercial success in the US. Lennon was interviewed in London by New York's WMCA, and he ridiculed the rumour but conceded that it was invaluable publicity for the album.


title: Abbey Road

text: The cover image has been parodied on several occasions, including by Booker T. & the M.G.'s "McLemore Avenue" (1970), Kanye West's "Late Orchestration" (2006) and by McCartney on his 1993 live album "Paul Is Live". On the cover of its October 1977 issue, the satirical magazine "National Lampoon" depicted the four Beatles flattened along the zebra crossing, with a road roller driving away up the street. The Red Hot Chili Peppers' "The Abbey Road E.P." parodies the cover, with the band walking near-naked across a similar zebra crossing. In 2003, several US poster companies airbrushed McCartney's cigarette out of the image without permission from Apple or McCartney. In 2013, Kolkata Police launched a traffic safety awareness advertisement against jaywalking, using the cover and a caption that read: "If they can, why can't you?"


title: Abbey Road

text: The songs on "Abbey Road" have been covered many times and the album itself has been covered in its entirety. One month after "Abbey Road"s release, George Benson recorded a cover version of the album called "The Other Side of Abbey Road". Later in 1969 Booker T. & the M.G.'s recorded "McLemore Avenue" (the location in Memphis of Stax Records) which covered the "Abbey Road" songs and had a similar cover photo.


title: Abbey Road

text: While matching albums such as "Sgt. Pepper" in terms of popularity, "Abbey Road" failed to repeat the Beatles' earlier achievements in galvanising their rivals to imitate them. In author Peter Doggett's description, "Too contrived for the rock underground to copy, too complex for the bubblegum pop brigade to copy, the album influenced no one – except [Paul McCartney]", who spent years trying to emulate its scope in his solo career. Writing for "Classic Rock" in 2014, Jon Anderson of the progressive rock band Yes said his group were constantly influenced by the Beatles from "Revolver" onwards, but it was the feeling that side two was "one complete idea" that inspired him to create long-form pieces of music.<ref name="Anderson/CR"></ref>


title: Abbey Road

text: Several artists have covered some or all of the side-two medley, including Phil Collins (for the Martin/Beatles tribute album "In My Life"), The String Cheese Incident, Transatlantic and Tenacious D (who performed the medley with Phish keyboardist Page McConnell). Furthur, a jam band including former Grateful Dead members Bob Weir and Phil Lesh, played the entire "Abbey Road" album during its Spring Tour 2011. It began with a "Come Together" opener at Boston on 4 March and ended with the entire medley in New York City on 15 March, including "Her Majesty" as an encore.


title: Abbey Road

text: In June 1970, Allen Klein reported that "Abbey Road" was the Beatles' best-selling album in the US with sales of about five million. By 1992, "Abbey Road" had sold nine million copies. The album became the ninth-most downloaded on the iTunes Store a week after it was released there on 16 November 2010. A CNN report stated it was the best-selling vinyl album of 2011. It is the first album from the 1960s to sell over five million albums since 1991 when Nielsen SoundScan began tracking sales. In the US, the album had sold 7,177,797 copies by the end of the 1970s. , the album had sold over 31 million copies worldwide and is one of the band's best-selling albums. In October 2019, "Abbey Road" re-entered the UK charts, again hitting number one.


title: Abbey Road

text: "Abbey Road" has remained in print since its first release in 1969. The original album was released on 26 September in the UK and 1 October in the US on Apple Records. It was reissued as a limited edition picture disc on vinyl in the US by Capitol on 27 December 1978, while a CD reissue of the album was released in 1987, with a remastered version appearing in 2009. The remaster included additional photographs with additional liner notes and the first, limited edition, run also included a short documentary about the making of the album.


title: Abbey Road

text: In 2001, "Abbey Road" was certified 12× platinum by the RIAA. The album continues to be reissued on vinyl. It was included as part of the Beatles' "Collector's Crate" series in September 2009 and saw a remastered LP release on 180-gram vinyl in 2012.


title: Abbey Road

text: A of the album, which featured new mixes by Giles Martin, was released in September 2019 to celebrate the original album's 50th anniversary.


title: Abbey Road

text: As of October 2019, "Abbey Road" has sold 2,240,608 pure sales in United Kingdom and overall all consumed sales stand at 2,327,230 units. Post 1994 sales stand at 827,329.


title: Constitution of the United States

text: The Constitution of the United States is the supreme law of the United States of America. It superseded the Articles of Confederation, the nation's first constitution, in 1789. Originally comprising seven articles, it delineates the national frame of government. Its first three articles embody the doctrine of the separation of powers, whereby the federal government is divided into three branches: the legislative, consisting of the bicameral Congress (Article I); the executive, consisting of the president and subordinate officers (Article II); and the judicial, consisting of the Supreme Court and other federal courts (Article III). Article IV, Article V, and Article VI embody concepts of federalism, describing the rights and responsibilities of state governments, the states in relationship to the federal government, and the shared process of constitutional amendment. Article VII establishes the procedure subsequently used by the 13 states to ratify it. It is regarded as the oldest written and codified national constitution in force.


title: Constitution of the United States

text: Since the constitution came into force in 1789, it has been amended 27 times, including one amendment that repealed a previous one, in order to meet the needs of a nation that has profoundly changed since the 18th century. In general, the first ten amendments, known collectively as the Bill of Rights, offer specific protections of individual liberty and justice and place restrictions on the powers of government within the U.S. states. The majority of the 17 later amendments expand individual civil rights protections. Others address issues related to federal authority or modify government processes and procedures. Amendments to the United States Constitution, unlike ones made to many constitutions worldwide, are appended to the document. The original U.S. Constitution was written on five pages of parchment.


title: Constitution of the United States

text: According to the United States Senate: "The Constitution's first three words—"We the People"—affirm that the government of the United States exists to serve its citizens. For over two centuries the Constitution has remained in force because its framers wisely separated and balanced governmental powers to safeguard the interests of majority rule and minority rights, of liberty and equality, and of the federal and state governments." The first permanent constitution, it is interpreted, supplemented, and implemented by a large body of federal constitutional law, and has influenced the constitutions of other nations.


title: Constitution of the United States

text: From September 5, 1774, to March 1, 1781, the Continental Congress functioned as the provisional government of the United States. Delegates to the First (1774) and then the Second (1775–1781) Continental Congress were chosen largely through the action of committees of correspondence in various colonies rather than through the colonial governments of the Thirteen Colonies.


title: Constitution of the United States

text: The Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union was the first constitution of the United States. It was drafted by the Second Continental Congress from mid-1776 through late 1777, and ratification by all 13 states was completed by early 1781. The Articles of Confederation gave little power to the central government. The Confederation Congress could make decisions but lacked enforcement powers. Implementation of most decisions, including modifications to the Articles, required unanimous approval of all 13 state legislatures.


title: Constitution of the United States

text: Although, in a way, the Congressional powers in Article 9 made the "league of states as cohesive and strong as any similar sort of republican confederation in history", the chief problem was, in the words of George Washington, "no money". The Continental Congress could print money but it was worthless. Congress could borrow money but could not pay it back. No state paid all their U.S. taxes; some paid nothing. A few paid an amount equal to interest on the national debt owed to their citizens, but no more. No interest was paid on debt owed foreign governments. By 1786, the United States would default on outstanding debts as their dates came due.


title: Constitution of the United States

text: Internationally, the United States had little ability to defend its sovereignty. Most of the troops in the 625-man United States Army were deployed facing (but not threatening) British forts on American soil. They had not been paid; some were deserting and others threatening mutiny. Spain closed New Orleans to American commerce; U.S. officials protested, but to no effect. Barbary pirates began seizing American ships of commerce; the Treasury had no funds to pay their ransom. If any military crisis required action, the Congress had no credit or taxing power to finance a response.


title: Constitution of the United States

text: Domestically, the Articles of Confederation was failing to bring unity to the diverse sentiments and interests of the various states. Although the Treaty of Paris (1783) was signed between Great Britain and the U.S., and named each of the American states, various states proceeded to violate it. New York and South Carolina repeatedly prosecuted Loyalists for wartime activity and redistributed their lands. Individual state legislatures independently laid embargoes, negotiated directly with foreign authorities, raised armies, and made war, all violating the letter and the spirit of the Articles.


title: Constitution of the United States

text: In September 1786, during an inter–state convention to discuss and develop a consensus about reversing the protectionist trade barriers that each state had erected, James Madison questioned whether the Articles of Confederation was a binding compact or even a viable government. Connecticut paid nothing and "positively refused" to pay U.S. assessments for two years. A rumor had it that a "seditious party" of New York legislators had opened a conversation with the Viceroy of Canada. To the south, the British were said to be openly funding Creek Indian raids on Georgia, and the state was under martial law. Additionally, during Shays' Rebellion (August 1786June 1787) in Massachusetts, Congress could provide no money to support an endangered constituent state. General Benjamin Lincoln was obliged to raise funds from Boston merchants to pay for a volunteer army.


title: Constitution of the United States

text: Congress was paralyzed. It could do nothing significant without nine states, and some legislation required all 13. When a state produced only one member in attendance, its vote was not counted. If a state's delegation was evenly divided, its vote could not be counted towards the nine-count requirement. The Congress of the Confederation had "virtually ceased trying to govern". The vision of a "respectable nation" among nations seemed to be fading in the eyes of revolutionaries such as George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, and Rufus King. Their dream of a republic, a nation without hereditary rulers, with power derived from the people in frequent elections, was in doubt.


title: Constitution of the United States

text: On February 21, 1787, the Confederation Congress called a convention of state delegates at Philadelphia to propose revisions to the Articles. Unlike earlier attempts, the convention was not meant for new laws or piecemeal alterations, but for the "sole and express purpose of revising the Articles of Confederation". The convention was not limited to commerce; rather, it was intended to "render the federal constitution adequate to the exigencies of government and the preservation of the Union." The proposal might take effect when approved by Congress and the states.


title: Constitution of the United States

text: On the appointed day, May 14, 1787, only the Virginia and Pennsylvania delegations were present, and so the convention's opening meeting was postponed for lack of a quorum. A quorum of seven states met and deliberations began on May 25. Eventually twelve states were represented; 74 delegates were named, 55 attended and 39 signed. The delegates were generally convinced that an effective central government with a wide range of enforceable powers must replace the weaker Congress established by the Articles of Confederation.


title: Constitution of the United States

text: On May 31, the Convention devolved into a "Committee of the Whole" to consider the Virginia Plan. On June 13, the Virginia resolutions in amended form were reported out of committee. The New Jersey Plan was put forward in response to the Virginia Plan.


title: Constitution of the United States

text: A "Committee of Eleven" (one delegate from each state represented) met from July 2 to 16 to work out a compromise on the issue of representation in the federal legislature. All agreed to a republican form of government grounded in representing the people in the states. For the legislature, two issues were to be decided: how the votes were to be allocated among the states in the Congress, and how the representatives should be elected. In its report, now known as the Connecticut Compromise (or "Great Compromise"), the committee proposed proportional representation for seats in the House of Representatives based on population (with the people voting for representatives), and equal representation for each State in the Senate (with each state's legislators generally choosing their respective senators), and that all money bills would originate in the House.


title: Constitution of the United States

text: The Great Compromise ended the stalemate between "patriots" and "nationalists", leading to numerous other compromises in a spirit of accommodation. There were sectional interests to be balanced by the Three-Fifths Compromise; reconciliation on Presidential term, powers, and method of selection; and jurisdiction of the federal judiciary.


title: Constitution of the United States

text: On July 24, a "Committee of Detail"—John Rutledge (South Carolina), Edmund Randolph (Virginia), Nathaniel Gorham (Massachusetts), Oliver Ellsworth (Connecticut), and James Wilson (Pennsylvania)—was elected to draft a detailed constitution reflective of the Resolutions passed by the convention up to that point. The Convention recessed from July 26 to August 6 to await the report of this "Committee of Detail". Overall, the report of the committee conformed to the resolutions adopted by the convention, adding some elements. A twenty-three article (plus preamble) constitution was presented.


title: Constitution of the United States

text: From August 6 to September 10, the report of the committee of detail was discussed, section by section and clause by clause. Details were attended to, and further compromises were effected. Toward the close of these discussions, on September 8, a "Committee of Style and Arrangement"—Alexander Hamilton (New York), William Samuel Johnson (Connecticut), Rufus King (Massachusetts), James Madison (Virginia), and Gouverneur Morris (Pennsylvania)—was appointed to distill a final draft constitution from the twenty-three approved articles. The final draft, presented to the convention on September 12, contained seven articles, a preamble and a closing endorsement, of which Morris was the primary author. The committee also presented a proposed letter to accompany the constitution when delivered to Congress.


title: Constitution of the United States

text: The final document, engrossed by Jacob Shallus, was taken up on Monday, September 17, at the convention's final session. Several of the delegates were disappointed in the result, a makeshift series of unfortunate compromises. Some delegates left before the ceremony and three others refused to sign. Of the thirty-nine signers, Benjamin Franklin summed up, addressing the convention: "There are several parts of this Constitution which I do not at present approve, but I am not sure I shall never approve them." He would accept the Constitution, "because I expect no better and because I am not sure that it is not the best".


title: Constitution of the United States

text: The advocates of the Constitution were anxious to obtain unanimous support of all twelve states represented in the convention. Their accepted formula for the closing endorsement was "Done in Convention, by the unanimous consent of the States present." At the end of the convention, the proposal was agreed to by eleven state delegations and the lone remaining delegate from New York, Alexander Hamilton.


title: Constitution of the United States

text: Transmitted to the Congress of the Confederation, then sitting in New York City, it was within the power of Congress to expedite or block ratification of the proposed constitution. The new frame of government that the Philadelphia Convention presented was nominally a revision but was actually a wholesale replacement for the Articles of Confederation, leaving not a word of the original. After several days of debate, Congress voted to transmit the document to the thirteen states for ratification according to the process outlined in its Article VII. Each state legislature was to call elections for a "Federal Convention" to ratify the new constitution, rather than consider ratification itself; a departure from the constitutional practice of the time, designed to expand the franchise in order to more clearly embrace "the people". According to the proposed constitution's own terms it was to come into force among the States so acting upon the approval of nine (i.e. two-thirds of the 13) states. This scheme abandoned the amendment process for the Articles of Confederation which, under Article XIII thereof, could be amended only by unanimous vote of all the states.


title: Constitution of the United States

text: Three members of the Convention—Madison, Gorham, and King—were also Members of Congress. They proceeded at once to New York, where Congress was in session, to placate the expected opposition. Aware of their vanishing authority, Congress, on September 28, after some debate, resolved unanimously to submit the constitution to the States for action, "in conformity to the resolves of the Convention", but with no recommendation either for or against its adoption.


title: Constitution of the United States

text: Two parties soon developed, one in opposition, the Anti-Federalists, and one in support, the Federalists, of the constitution; and the constitution was debated, criticized, and expounded upon clause by clause. Hamilton, Madison, and Jay, under the name of Publius, wrote a series of commentaries, now known as "The Federalist Papers", in support of ratification in the state of New York, at that time a hotbed of anti-Federalism. These commentaries on the constitution, written during the struggle for ratification, have been frequently cited by the Supreme Court as an authoritative contemporary interpretation of the meaning of its provisions. The dispute over additional powers for the central government was close, and in some states, ratification was effected only after a bitter struggle in the state convention itself.


title: Constitution of the United States

text: On June 21, 1788, the constitution had been ratified by the minimum of nine states required under Article VII. Towards the end of July, and with eleven states then having ratified, the process of organizing the new government began. The Continental Congress, which still functioned at irregular intervals, passed a resolution on September 13, 1788, to put the new constitution into operation with the eleven states that had then ratified it. The federal government began operations under the new form of government on March 4, 1789. However, the initial meeting of each chamber of Congress had to be adjourned due to lack of a quorum. George Washington was inaugurated as the nation's first president weeks later, on April 30. The final two states both ratified the constitution subsequently: North Carolina on November 21, 1789, and Rhode Island on May 29, 1790.


title: Constitution of the United States

text: Several ideas in the constitution were new. These were associated with the combination of consolidated government along with federal relationships with constituent states.


title: Constitution of the United States

text: The Due Process Clause of the constitution was partly based on common law and on Magna Carta (1215), which had become a foundation of English liberty against arbitrary power wielded by a ruler.


title: Constitution of the United States

text: Among the most prominent political theorists of the late eighteenth century were William Blackstone, John Locke, and Montesquieu.


title: Constitution of the United States

text: Both the influence of Edward Coke and William Blackstone were evident at the convention. In his "Institutes of the Lawes of England", Edward Coke interpreted Magna Carta protections and rights to apply not just to nobles, but to all British subjects. In writing the Virginia Charter of 1606, he enabled the King in Parliament to give those to be born in the colonies all rights and liberties as though they were born in England. William Blackstone's "Commentaries on the Laws of England" were the most influential books on law in the new republic.


title: Constitution of the United States

text: British political philosopher John Locke following the Glorious Revolution (1688) was a major influence expanding on the contract theory of government advanced by Thomas Hobbes. Locke advanced the principle of consent of the governed in his "Two Treatises of Government". Government's duty under a social contract among the sovereign people was to serve the people by protecting their rights. These basic rights were life, liberty and property.


title: Constitution of the United States

text: Montesquieu's influence on the framers is evident in Madison's "Federalist No. 47" and Hamilton's "Federalist No. 78". Jefferson, Adams, and Mason were known to read Montesquieu. Supreme Court Justices, the ultimate interpreters of the constitution, have cited Montesquieu throughout the Court's history. (See, "e.g.", ) Montesquieu emphasized the need for balanced forces pushing against each other to prevent tyranny (reflecting the influence of Polybius's 2nd century BC treatise on the checks and balances of the Roman Republic). In his "The Spirit of Law", Montesquieu argues that the separation of state powers should be by its service to the people's liberty: legislative, executive and judicial.


title: Constitution of the United States

text: A substantial body of thought had been developed from the literature of republicanism in the United States, including work by John Adams and applied to the creation of state constitutions.


title: Constitution of the United States

text: The constitution was a federal one, and was influenced by the study of other federations, both ancient and extant.


title: Constitution of the United States

text: The United States Bill of Rights consists of 10 amendments added to the Constitution in 1791, as supporters of the Constitution had promised critics during the debates of 1788. The English Bill of Rights (1689) was an inspiration for the American Bill of Rights. Both require jury trials, contain a right to keep and bear arms, prohibit excessive bail and forbid "cruel and unusual punishments". Many liberties protected by state constitutions and the Virginia Declaration of Rights were incorporated into the Bill of Rights.


title: Constitution of the United States

text: Neither the Convention which drafted the Constitution nor the Congress which sent it to the 13 states for ratification in the autumn of 1787, gave it a lead caption. To fill this void, the document was most often titled "A frame of Government" when it was printed for the convenience of ratifying conventions and the information of the public. This "Frame of Government" consisted of a preamble, seven articles and a signed closing endorsement.


title: Constitution of the United States

text: The preamble to the Constitution serves as an introductory statement of the document's fundamental purposes and guiding principles. It neither assigns powers to the federal government, nor does it place specific limitations on government action. Rather, it sets out the origin, scope, and purpose of the Constitution. Its origin and authority is in "We the People of the United States". This echoes the Declaration of Independence. "One people" dissolved their connection with another, and assumed among the powers of the earth, a sovereign nation-state. The scope of the Constitution is twofold. First, "to form a more perfect Union" than had previously existed in the "perpetual Union" of the Articles of Confederation. Second, to "secure the blessings of liberty", which were to be enjoyed by not only the first generation but for all who came after, "our posterity".


title: Constitution of the United States

text: Article I describes the Congress, the legislative branch of the federal government. Section 1, reads, "All legislative powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives." The article establishes the manner of election and the qualifications of members of each body. Representatives must be at least 25 years old, be a citizen of the United States for seven years, and live in the state they represent. Senators must be at least 30 years old, be a citizen for nine years, and live in the state they represent.


title: Constitution of the United States

text: The Supreme Court has sometimes broadly interpreted the Commerce Clause and the Necessary and Proper Clause in Article One to allow Congress to enact legislation that is neither expressly allowed by the enumerated powers nor expressly denied in the limitations on Congress. In "McCulloch v. Maryland" (1819), the Supreme Court read the Necessary and Proper Clause to permit the federal government to take action that would "enable [it] to perform the high duties assigned to it [by the Constitution] in the manner most beneficial to the people", even if that action is not itself within the enumerated powers. Chief Justice Marshall clarified: "Let the end be legitimate, let it be within the scope of the Constitution, and all means which are appropriate, which are plainly adapted to that end, which are not prohibited, but consist with the letter and spirit of the Constitution, are Constitutional."


title: Constitution of the United States

text: Article II describes the office, qualifications, and duties of the President of the United States and the Vice President. The President is head of the executive branch of the federal government, as well as the nation's head of state and head of government.


title: Constitution of the United States

text: Article two is modified by the 12th Amendment which tacitly acknowledges political parties, and the 25th Amendment relating to office succession. The president is to receive only one compensation from the federal government. The inaugural oath is specified to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution.


title: Constitution of the United States

text: The president is the Commander in Chief of the United States Armed Forces, as well as of state militias when they are mobilized. The president makes treaties of a two-thirds quorum of the Senate. To administer the federal government, the president commissions all the offices of the federal government as Congress directs; and may require the opinions of its principal officers and make "recess appointments" for vacancies that may happen during the recess of the Senate. The president ensures the laws are faithfully executed and may grant reprieves and pardons with the exception of Congressional impeachment. The president reports to Congress on the State of the Union, and by the Recommendation Clause, recommends "necessary and expedient" national measures. The president may convene and adjourn Congress under special circumstances.


title: Constitution of the United States

text: Section 4 provides for the removal of the president and other federal officers. The president is removed on impeachment for, and conviction of, treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.


title: Constitution of the United States

text: Article III describes the court system (the judicial branch), including the Supreme Court. The article describes the kinds of cases the court takes as original jurisdiction. Congress can create lower courts and an appeals process, and enacts law defining crimes and punishments. Article Three also protects the right to trial by jury in all criminal cases, and defines the crime of treason.


title: Constitution of the United States

text: Section 1 vests the judicial power of the United States in federal courts, and with it, the authority to interpret and apply the law to a particular case. Also included is the power to punish, sentence, and direct future action to resolve conflicts. The Constitution outlines the U.S. judicial system. In the Judiciary Act of 1789, Congress began to fill in details. Currently, Title 28 of the U.S. Code describes judicial powers and administration.


title: Constitution of the United States

text: As of the First Congress, the Supreme Court justices rode circuit to sit as panels to hear appeals from the district courts. In 1891, Congress enacted a new system. District courts would have original jurisdiction. Intermediate appellate courts (circuit courts) with exclusive jurisdiction heard regional appeals before consideration by the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court holds discretionary jurisdiction, meaning that it does not have to hear every case that is brought to it.


title: Constitution of the United States

text: To enforce judicial decisions, the Constitution grants federal courts both criminal contempt and civil contempt powers. Other implied powers include injunctive relief and the habeas corpus remedy. The Court may imprison for contumacy, bad-faith litigation, and failure to obey a writ of mandamus. Judicial power includes that granted by Acts of Congress for rules of law and punishment. Judicial power also extends to areas not covered by statute. Generally, federal courts cannot interrupt state court proceedings.


title: Constitution of the United States

text: Clause1 of Section2 authorizes the federal courts to hear actual cases and controversies only. Their judicial power does not extend to cases that are hypothetical, or which are proscribed due to standing, mootness, or ripeness issues. Generally, a case or controversy requires the presence of adverse parties who have some interest genuinely at stake in the case.


title: Constitution of the United States

text: Clause 2 of Section 2 provides that the Supreme Court has original jurisdiction in cases involving ambassadors, ministers, and consuls, for all cases respecting foreign nation-states, and also in those controversies which are subject to federal judicial power because at least one state is a party. Cases arising under the laws of the United States and its treaties come under the jurisdiction of federal courts. Cases under international maritime law and conflicting land grants of different states come under federal courts. Cases between U.S. citizens in different states, and cases between U.S. citizens and foreign states and their citizens, come under federal jurisdiction. The trials will be in the state where the crime was committed.


title: Constitution of the United States

text: No part of the Constitution expressly authorizes judicial review, but the Framers did contemplate the idea, and precedent has since established that the courts could exercise judicial review over the actions of Congress or the executive branch. Two conflicting federal laws are under "pendent" jurisdiction if one presents a strict constitutional issue. Federal court jurisdiction is rare when a state legislature enacts something as under federal jurisdiction. To establish a federal system of national law, considerable effort goes into developing a spirit of comity between federal government and states. By the doctrine of 'Res judicata', federal courts give "full faith and credit" to State Courts. The Supreme Court will decide Constitutional issues of state law only on a case-by-case basis, and only by strict Constitutional necessity, independent of state legislators' motives, their policy outcomes or its national wisdom.


title: Constitution of the United States

text: Section 3 bars Congress from changing or modifying Federal law on treason by simple majority statute. This section also defines treason, as an overt act of making war or materially helping those at war with the United States. Accusations must be corroborated by at least two witnesses. Congress is a political body and political disagreements routinely encountered should never be considered as treason. This allows for nonviolent resistance to the government because opposition is not a life or death proposition. However, Congress does provide for other lesser subversive crimes such as conspiracy.


title: Constitution of the United States

text: Article IV outlines the relations among the states and between each state and the federal government. In addition, it provides for such matters as admitting new states and border changes between the states. For instance, it requires states to give "full faith and credit" to the public acts, records, and court proceedings of the other states. Congress is permitted to regulate the manner in which proof of such acts may be admitted. The "privileges and immunities" clause prohibits state governments from discriminating against citizens of other states in favor of resident citizens. For instance, in criminal sentencing, a state may not increase a penalty on the grounds that the convicted person is a non-resident.


title: Constitution of the United States

text: It also establishes extradition between the states, as well as laying down a legal basis for freedom of movement and travel amongst the states. Today, this provision is sometimes taken for granted, but in the days of the Articles of Confederation, crossing state lines was often arduous and costly. The Territorial Clause gives Congress the power to make rules for disposing of federal property and governing non-state territories of the United States. Finally, the fourth section of Article Four requires the United States to guarantee to each state a republican form of government, and to protect them from invasion and violence.


title: Constitution of the United States

text: Article V outlines the process for amending the Constitution. Eight state constitutions in effect in 1787 included an amendment mechanism. Amendment-making power rested with the legislature in three of the states and in the other five it was given to specially elected conventions. The Articles of Confederation provided that amendments were to be proposed by Congress and ratified by the unanimous vote of all 13 state legislatures. This proved to be a major flaw in the Articles, as it created an insurmountable obstacle to constitutional reform. The amendment process crafted during the Philadelphia Constitutional Convention was, according to The Federalist No. 43, designed to establish a balance between pliancy and rigidity:


title: Constitution of the United States

text: There are two steps in the amendment process. Proposals to amend the Constitution must be properly adopted and ratified before they change the Constitution. First, there are two procedures for adopting the language of a proposed amendment, either by (a) Congress, by two-thirds majority in both the Senate and the House of Representatives, or (b) national convention (which shall take place whenever two-thirds of the state legislatures collectively call for one). Second, there are two procedures for ratifying the proposed amendment, which requires three-fourths of the states' (presently 38 of 50) approval: (a) consent of the state legislatures, or (b) consent of state ratifying conventions. The ratification method is chosen by Congress for each amendment. State ratifying conventions were used only once, for the Twenty-first Amendment.


title: Constitution of the United States

text: Presently, the Archivist of the United States is charged with responsibility for administering the ratification process under the provisions of 1U.S. Code . The Archivist submits the proposed amendment to the states for their consideration by sending a letter of notification to each Governor. Each Governor then formally submits the amendment to their state's legislature. When a state ratifies a proposed amendment, it sends the Archivist an original or certified copy of the state's action. Ratification documents are examined by the Office of the Federal Register for facial legal sufficiency and an authenticating signature.


title: Constitution of the United States

text: Article Five ends by shielding certain clauses in the new frame of government from being amended. Article One, Section 9, Clause1 prevents Congress from passing any law that would restrict the importation of slaves into the United States prior to 1808, plus the fourth clause from that same section, which reiterates the Constitutional rule that direct taxes must be apportioned according to state populations. These clauses were explicitly shielded from Constitutional amendment prior to 1808. On January 1, 1808, the first day it was permitted to do so, Congress approved legislation prohibiting the importation of slaves into the country. On February 3, 1913, with ratification of the Sixteenth Amendment, Congress gained the authority to levy an income tax without apportioning it among the states or basing it on the United States Census. The third textually entrenched provision is Article One, Section 3, Clauses 1, which provides for equal representation of the states in the Senate. The shield protecting this clause from the amendment process ("no state, without its consent, shall be deprived of its equal Suffrage in the Senate") is less absolute but it is permanent.


title: Constitution of the United States

text: Article VI establishes that the Constitution and all federal laws and treaties made in accordance with it have supremacy over state laws, and that "the judges in every state shall be bound thereby, any thing in the laws or constitutions of any state notwithstanding." It validates national debt created under the Articles of Confederation and requires that all federal and state legislators, officers, and judges take oaths or affirmations to support the Constitution. This means that the states' constitutions and laws should not conflict with the laws of the federal constitution and that in case of a conflict, state judges are legally bound to honor the federal laws and constitution over those of any state. Article Six also states "no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States."


title: Constitution of the United States

text: Article VII describes the process for establishing the proposed new frame of government. Anticipating that the influence of many state politicians would be Antifederalist, delegates to the Philadelphia Convention provided for ratification of the Constitution by popularly elected ratifying conventions in each state. The convention method also made it possible that judges, ministers and others ineligible to serve in state legislatures, could be elected to a convention. Suspecting that Rhode Island, at least, might not ratify, delegates decided that the Constitution would go into effect as soon as nine states (two-thirds rounded up) ratified. Each of the remaining four states could then join the newly-formed union by ratifying.


title: Constitution of the United States

text: The signing of the United States Constitution occurred on September 17, 1787, when 39 delegates to the Constitutional Convention endorsed the constitution created during the convention. In addition to signatures, this closing endorsement, the Constitution's eschatocol, included a brief declaration that the delegates' work has been successfully completed and that those whose signatures appear on it subscribe to the final document. Included are a statement pronouncing the document's adoption by the states present, a formulaic dating of its adoption, and the signatures of those endorsing it. Additionally, the convention's secretary, William Jackson, added a note to verify four amendments made by hand to the final document, and signed the note to authenticate its validity.


title: Constitution of the United States

text: The language of the concluding endorsement, conceived by Gouverneur Morris and presented to the convention by Benjamin Franklin, was made intentionally ambiguous in hopes of winning over the votes of dissenting delegates. Advocates for the new frame of government, realizing the impending difficulty of obtaining the consent of the states needed to make it operational, were anxious to obtain the unanimous support of the delegations from each state. It was feared that many of the delegates would refuse to give their individual assent to the Constitution. Therefore, in order that the action of the convention would appear to be unanimous, the formula, "Done in convention by the unanimous consent of the states present..." was devised.


title: Constitution of the United States

text: The document is dated: "the Seventeenth Day of September in the Year of our Lord" 1787, and "of the Independence of the United States of America the Twelfth." This two-fold epoch dating serves to place the Constitution in the context of the religious traditions of Western civilization and, at the same time, links it to the regime principles proclaimed in the Declaration of Independence. This dual reference can also be found in the Articles of Confederation and the Northwest Ordinance.


title: Constitution of the United States

text: The closing endorsement serves an authentication function only. It neither assigns powers to the federal government nor does it provide specific limitations on government action. It does, however, provide essential documentation of the Constitution's validity, a statement of "This is what was agreed to." It records who signed the Constitution, and when and where.


title: Constitution of the United States

text: The procedure for amending the Constitution is outlined in Article Five (see above). The process is overseen by the archivist of the United States. Between 1949 and 1985, it was overseen by the administrator of General Services, and before that by the secretary of state.


title: Constitution of the United States

text: Under Article Five, a proposal for an amendment must be adopted either by two-thirds of both houses of Congress or by a national convention that had been requested by two-thirds of the state legislatures. Once the proposal has passed by either method, Congress must decide whether the proposed amendment is to be ratified by state legislatures or by state ratifying conventions. The proposed amendment along with the method of ratification is sent to the Office of the Federal Register, which copies it in slip law format and submits it to the states. To date, the convention method of proposal has never been tried and the convention method of ratification has only been used once, for the Twenty-first Amendment.


title: Constitution of the United States

text: A proposed amendment becomes an operative part of the Constitution as soon as it is ratified by three-fourths of the States (currently 38 of the 50 states). There is no further step. The text requires no additional action by Congress or anyone else after ratification by the required number of states. Thus, when the Office of the Federal Register verifies that it has received the required number of authenticated ratification documents, it drafts a formal proclamation for the Archivist to certify that the amendment is valid and has become part of the nation's frame of government. This certification is published in the "Federal Register" and "United States Statutes at Large" and serves as official notice to Congress and to the nation that the ratification process has been successfully completed.


title: Constitution of the United States

text: The Constitution has twenty-seven amendments. Structurally, the Constitution's original text and all prior amendments remain untouched. The precedent for this practice was set in 1789, when Congress considered and proposed the first several Constitutional amendments. Among these, Amendments 1–10 are collectively known as the Bill of Rights, and Amendments 13–15 are known as the Reconstruction Amendments. Excluding the Twenty-seventh Amendment, which was pending before the states for , the longest pending amendment that was successfully ratified was the Twenty-second Amendment, which took . The Twenty-sixth Amendment was ratified in the shortest time, days. The average ratification time for the first twenty-six amendments was 1year, 252 days; for all twenty-seven, 9years, 48 days.


title: Constitution of the United States

text: The First Amendment (1791) prohibits Congress from obstructing the exercise of certain individual freedoms: freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of assembly, and right to petition. Its Free Exercise Clause guarantees a person's right to hold whatever religious beliefs they want, and to freely exercise that belief, and its Establishment Clause prevents the federal government from creating an official national church or favoring one set of religious beliefs over another. The amendment guarantees an individual's right to express and to be exposed to a wide range of opinions and views. It was intended to ensure a free exchange of ideas, even unpopular ones. It also guarantees an individual's right to physically gather or associate with others in groups for economic, political or religious purposes. Additionally, it guarantees an individual's right to petition the government for a redress of grievances.


title: Constitution of the United States

text: The Second Amendment (1791) protects the right of individuals to keep and bear arms. Although the Supreme Court has ruled that this right applies to individuals, not merely to collective militias, it has also held that the government may regulate or place some limits on the manufacture, ownership and sale of firearms or other weapons. Requested by several states during the Constitutional ratification debates, the amendment reflected the lingering resentment over the widespread efforts of the British to confiscate the colonists' firearms at the outbreak of the Revolutionary War. Patrick Henry had rhetorically asked, shall we be stronger, "when we are totally disarmed, and when a British Guard shall be stationed in every house?"


title: Constitution of the United States

text: The Third Amendment (1791) prohibits the federal government from forcing individuals to provide lodging to soldiers in their homes during peacetime without their consent. Requested by several states during the Constitutional ratification debates, the amendment reflected the lingering resentment over the Quartering Acts passed by the British Parliament during the Revolutionary War, which had allowed British soldiers to take over private homes for their own use.


title: Constitution of the United States

text: The Fourth Amendment (1791) protects people against unreasonable searches and seizures of either self or property by government officials. A search can mean everything from a frisking by a police officer or to a demand for a blood test to a search of an individual's home or car. A seizure occurs when the government takes control of an individual or something in the possession of the individual. Items that are seized often are used as evidence when the individual is charged with a crime. It also imposes certain limitations on police investigating a crime and prevents the use of illegally obtained evidence at trial.


title: Constitution of the United States

text: The Fifth Amendment (1791) establishes the requirement that a trial for a major crime may commence only after an indictment has been handed down by a grand jury; protects individuals from double jeopardy, being tried and put in danger of being punished more than once for the same criminal act; prohibits punishment without due process of law, thus protecting individuals from being imprisoned without fair procedures; and provides that an accused person may not be compelled to reveal to the police, prosecutor, judge, or jury any information that might incriminate or be used against him or her in a court of law. Additionally, the Fifth Amendment also prohibits government from taking private property for public use without "just compensation", the basis of eminent domain in the United States.


title: Constitution of the United States

text: The Sixth Amendment (1791) provides several protections and rights to an individual accused of a crime. The accused has the right to a fair and speedy trial by a local and impartial jury. Likewise, a person has the right to a public trial. This right protects defendants from secret proceedings that might encourage abuse of the justice system, and serves to keep the public informed. This amendment also guarantees a right to legal counsel if accused of a crime, guarantees that the accused may require witnesses to attend the trial and testify in the presence of the accused, and guarantees the accused a right to know the charges against them. In 1966, the Supreme Court ruled that, with the Fifth Amendment, this amendment requires what has become known as the "Miranda" warning.


title: Constitution of the United States

text: The Seventh Amendment (1791) extends the right to a jury trial to federal civil cases, and inhibits courts from overturning a jury's findings of fact. Although the Seventh Amendment itself says that it is limited to "suits at common law", meaning cases that triggered the right to a jury under English law, the amendment has been found to apply in lawsuits that are similar to the old common law cases. For example, the right to a jury trial applies to cases brought under federal statutes that prohibit race or gender discrimination in housing or employment. Importantly, this amendment guarantees the right to a jury trial only in federal court, not in state court.


title: Constitution of the United States

text: The Eighth Amendment (1791) protects people from having bail or fines set at an amount so high that it would be impossible for all but the richest defendants to pay and also protects people from being subjected to cruel and unusual punishment. Although this phrase originally was intended to outlaw certain gruesome methods of punishment, it has been broadened over the years to protect against punishments that are grossly disproportionate to or too harsh for the particular crime. This provision has also been used to challenge prison conditions such as extremely unsanitary cells, overcrowding, insufficient medical care and deliberate failure by officials to protect inmates from one another.


title: Constitution of the United States

text: The Ninth Amendment (1791) declares that individuals have other fundamental rights, in addition to those stated in the Constitution. During the Constitutional ratification debates Anti-Federalists argued that a Bill of Rights should be added. The Federalists opposed it on grounds that a list would necessarily be incomplete but would be taken as explicit and exhaustive, thus enlarging the power of the federal government by implication. The Anti-Federalists persisted, and several state ratification conventions refused to ratify the Constitution without a more specific list of protections, so the First Congress added what became the Ninth Amendment as a compromise. Because the rights protected by the Ninth Amendment are not specified, they are referred to as "unenumerated". The Supreme Court has found that unenumerated rights include such important rights as the right to travel, the right to vote, the right to privacy, and the right to make important decisions about one's health care or body.