The Constitutional Topics pages at the USConstitution.net site are presented to delve deeper into topics than can be provided on the Glossary Page or in the FAQ pages. This Topic Page concerns Constitutional Rights and Responsibilities.

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Generally speaking, governments are set up to make society a better, more orderly place to live. They do so by providing rules for conduct, by providing punishments for disobeying the rules, and by providing services to the citizenry. These tasks are typical of all governments. For example, in ancient Rome, murder, robbery, rebellion, and treason were all illegal - a common punishment, especially for slaves and non-citizens, was death by crucifixion. The Roman government also provided public entertainment as well as water and sewage services. Today, there are many things that are crimes, with various fines and jail terms, and sometimes even death, defined as penalties. And the services that are provided are myriad, from road maintenance to food stamps.

To do all of these things, governments must be vested with a certain degree of power. It is this power that can be most dangerous to the liberties of the people. To find out who committed a certain crime, police must be able to question suspects and witnesses, and be able to search for evidence. In a society where the government is omnipotent, the powers of the police to detain, question, and search, are unlimited. In fact, the power to determine guilt would be unlimited.

When the Framers of the Constitution met to to establish a new form of government, they were very careful about the powers they gave the government. Many of the Framers were political scholars, and the speeches given at the Convention are sprinkled with references to governments from ancient times right up to the then-current ones in Europe.

The Framers were concerned with a few things over all. They wanted to create a