ABSTRACT
Current popular expectations, traditional practices, statutes, and constitutions combine to provide a regime of limited government. The enmeshing of the several means of expression or sources of restraints on government is illustrated by penalties for violating the laws of the United States. Constitutional provisions limiting governmental authority differ in generality of language and in point of impact. One's conception of civil rights must not be limited to the guarantees that are stated in constitutions. The constitutional provisions that are regarded as fundamental—guaranteeing religious freedom, freedom of expression, right of assembly, equal protection, fair trial, and others—provide a foundation for the status and claims to fair treatment that the people have in mind when the people speak of civil rights. Today the common, political, and scholarly talk about civil rights is mainly concerned with avoidance of discrimination, freedom of expression, indifference of government to religion, and equitable and considerate treatment by government when one comes into its hands.
