Eighth Amendment To The United States Constitution

Eighth Amendment To The United States Constitution

The Eighth Amendment (Amendment VIII) to the United States Constitution is the part of the United States Bill of Rights prohibiting the federal government from imposing excessive bail, excessive fines or cruel and unusual punishments. The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that this amendment's Cruel and Unusual Punishment Clause applies to the states. The phrases employed originated in the English Bill of Rights of 1689.

Read more about Eighth Amendment To The United States Constitution:  Background, Cruel and Unusual Punishments, Evolving Standards of Decency, Excessive Fines, Excessive Bail

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    The United States Constitution has proved itself the most marvelously elastic compilation of rules of government ever written.
    Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945)

    If anyone else has reason to be confident in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, a member of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless.
    Bible: New Testament, Philippians 3:4-6.

    During the Suffragette revolt of 1913 I ... [urged] that what was needed was not the vote, but a constitutional amendment enacting that all representative bodies shall consist of women and men in equal numbers, whether elected or nominated or coopted or registered or picked up in the street like a coroner’s jury. In the case of elected bodies the only way of effecting this is by the Coupled Vote. The representative unit must not be a man or a woman but a man and a woman.
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    Vanessa wanted to be a ballerina. Dad had such hopes for her.... Corin was the academically brilliant one, and a fencer of Olympic standard. Everything was expected of them, and they fulfilled all expectations. But I was the one of whom nothing was expected. I remember a game the three of us played. Vanessa was the President of the United States, Corin was the British Prime Minister—and I was the royal dog.
    Lynn Redgrave (b. 1943)

    Courage, then, for the end draws near! A few more years of persistent, faithful work and the women of the United States will be recognized as the legal equals of men.
    Mary A. Livermore (1821–1905)

    The Constitution of the United States is not a mere lawyers’ document. It is a vehicle of life, and its spirit is always the spirit of the age. Its prescriptions are clear and we know what they are ... but life is always your last and most authoritative critic.
    Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924)