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The United States Supreme Court has interpreted the constitutional guarantees contained in amendments to the constitution. Among these Guaranteed rights are the freedoms of religion, speech, and press, along with the right of protection against illegal search an ....

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.... Polygamy was allowed in the teachings of the church, but prohibited by a federal lab banning the practice in the United States. Reynolds when convicted argued that the federal law violated his constitutional right to the free exercise of his religious beliefs. The Supreme Court did not agree with Reynolds claiming that congress was not without the power to punish violations of social duties or subversive of good order. The court said that to place religious belief superior to the law of the land, would in affect permit every citizen to become a law unto himself. Government would exist only in name under such circumstances. The ruling in this ca ....