Promoting and Protecting Minority Rights

The founding fathers of the United States Constitution suspected that through democracy, a government ruled by the majority, the majority could easily become tyrannical in its usage of unrestricted power. That is, in denying or denoting the rights of certain minority groups. These fathers included Thomas Jefferson who stated in his 1801 Inaugural Address for President of the United States, “All, too, will bear in mind this sacred principle, that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will to be rightful must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect, and to violate would be oppression.” Despite the possibility of defying majority rule resulting in some disastrous upsets, the government's most ardent responsibility should lie more in its responsibility to protect minority rights rather than to abide by majority rule. Since, of any possible outcome, the worst would be a situation in which a minority group is denied rights, not due to simple social complication, but instead due to a general lack of government protection.

While a democracy is based on majority rule, minority rights must not be disregarded. One of the principles of democracy includes a minority receiving equal opportunity to become a majority, and thereby providing competition for the majority of the time. Competition has potential to force a majority to become a minority, needing the protection of its rights to provide opportunity for it to become a majority again. Furthermore, the smallest minority is the individual. By protecting minority rights from majority oppression, the individual is protected and vice versa. For example, individual rights of expression and speech ...

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...certain minority group: african-americans.

Yarbrough, Tinsley. "U.S. GOVERNMENT > Introduction to the U.S. System > Democracy Papers ." 美國在台協會 - é¦–é . N.p., n.d. Web. 21 Oct. 2013.

Yarbrough intimately and accurately describes the trials of the “African American Experience”. These trials include, but are not limited to slavery, denial to suffrage, and the retraction of equality through governmental policy. Yarbrough is thorough in the description of this experience, refusing to allow sheer opinion to even decimate fact. He “African American Experience” is a big part of minority rights being that african americans’ entire “experience” consisted of the government failing or prevailing in protecting their basic rights guaranteed by the constitution of the United States.