Constitutional Amendments That Will Definitely be on the 2023 AP Gov Exam

First Amendment

First Amendment

• Free Exercise & Establishment clauses

• Freedom of speech and press

Second Amendment

• The right to bear arms

• One of the individual liberties

Fourth Amendment

• Unlawful searches and seizures

• What’s more important, public safety or individual rights?

Fifth Amendment (pair with 6, as they’re the origin of Miranda Rights)

• protection from self-incrimination; defendants don’t have to testify if questioning is bound to be self-incriminating

Sixth Amendment (pair with 5, as they’re the origin of Miranda Rights)

• right to a speedy public trial

• right to a lawyer

• right to an impartial jury

• right to know charges and any evidence

• right to know the accusers’ identities

Eighth Amendment

• protects against cruel and unusual punishments

• implications for the death penalty

Fourteenth Amendment (THE BIG ONE)

• selective incorporation

• Civil rights:

  • Equal Protection Clause: Laws must treat all individuals equally

  • Due process Clause: No one can get their natural rights taken away without going through the proper fair procedures of law first

Expansion of Political Participation: Fifteenth (15th) Amendment

Black suffrage

Expansion of Political Participation: Seventeenth (17th) Amendment

direct election of Senators

Expansion of Political Participation: Nineteenth (19th) Amendment

Women’s suffrage

Expansion of Political Participation: Twenty-second (22nd) Amendment

President can only serve 2 terms or for 10 years

Expansion of Political Participation: Twenty-fourth (24th) Amendment

Abolition of poll taxes

Expansion of Political Participation: Twenty-sixth (26th) Amendment

Lowered voting minimum age to 18