Social Sciences and History / Unit 7 SSH 0627 short lesson, about 20 seconds
Liberties Against Rights: Two Different Guarantees
Captions available
The idea
Civil liberties are limitations on government's power, designed to secure personal freedoms; civil rights are guarantees of equal treatment by government authorities. The Bill of Rights is the liberties document; the Fourteenth Amendment's equal protection clause is the rights anchor.
In practice
A search's limit is a liberty; equal schooling, a right.
Where people slip
Common-law rights rest on precedent, not the Constitution.
Your place on the trail
Every lesson rests on earlier ones and opens later ones. Tap any to jump.
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