The Second Bill of Rights was proposed by United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt during his. In his address, Roosevelt suggested that the nation had come to recognise and should now implement, a second "bill of rights". Roosevelt argued that the "political rights" guaranteed by the Constitution and the Bill of Rights had "proved inadequate to assure us equality in the pursuit of happiness". His remedy was to declare an "economic bill of rights" to guarantee these specific rights:
These rights have come to be known as economic rights. Roosevelt stated that having such rights would guarantee American security and that the United States' place in the world depended upon how far the rights had been carried into practice. This safety has been described as a state of physical welfare, as well as "economic security, social security, and moral security" by American legal scholar Cass Sunstein. The implementation of these ideals into a global context has been viewed as a continuation of the war effort, in which the success of these proposed values within the U.S were vital to securing global peace.
Background
In the runup to the Second World War, the United States had suffered through the Great Depression following the Wall Street Crash of 1929. Roosevelt's election at the end of 1932 was based on a commitment to reform the economy and society through a "New Deal" program. The first indication of a commitment to government guarantees of social and economic rights came in an address to the Commonwealth Club on September 23, 1932 during his campaign. The speech was written with Adolf A. Berle, a professor of corporate law at Columbia University. A key passage read: Throughout Roosevelt's presidency, he returned to the same theme continually over the course of the New Deal. Also in the Atlantic Charter, an international commitment was made as the Allies thought about how to "win the peace" following victory in the Second World War. The U.S' commitment to non-interventionism in World War II ending with the 1941 Lend-Lease act, and later Pearl Harbour attacks resulted in the mobilisation of the war state. The generous terms of the act, in conjunction with the economic growth of the U.S were key in allowing the U.S to establish new global order with the help of Allied powers in the aftermath of war. This motivation to establish a new global order provided the infrastructure for the implementation of an international standard of human rights, seen with the Second Bill of Rights and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Akira Iriye's proposition that the U.S desired to transform the post war Pacific after their own image is representative of the wider desire to raise global standards to that of the US, feeding into ideals of American Exceptionalism. The effect of wider democratisation and social reform is divulged upon in Francis Fukuyama'sThe End of History and the Last Man.
Roosevelt's speech
During Roosevelt's January 11, 1944 message to the Congress on the State of the Union, he said the following:
Legacy
The propositions made by Roosevelt have gone largely unfulfilled. An article featured in the Democratic Left academic journal titled "Corporations Are Destroying Our Economy, Our Environment, and Our Children's Future" provides insight onto how the significance of the bill is largely selective, and has been reduced through "unbridled capitalism". The commodification of education, health care and other areas fundamental to the realisation of Roosevelt's goals is described as being responsible for maintaining vast inequality pervasive within the U.S. This commodification could be representative of the prevalence of libertarian-ism as an ideology within the U.S. Prominent figures such as Friederich Hayek and Milton Friedman have become re-known for their aversion to increased government spending on social reform.
Found footage
Roosevelt presented the to the public on radio as a fireside chat from the White House:
Today I sent my Annual Message to the Congress, as required by the Constitution. It has been my custom to deliver these Annual Messages in person, and they have been broadcast to the Nation. I intended to follow this same custom this year. But like a great many other people, I have had the "flu", and although I am practically recovered, my doctor simply would not let me leave the White House to go up to the Capitol. Only a few of the newspapers of the United States can print the Message in full, and I am anxious that the American people be given an opportunity to hear what I have recommended to the Congress for this very fateful year in our history — and the reasons for those recommendations. Here is what I said...
He asked that newsreel cameras film the last portion of the address, concerning the Second Bill of Rights. This footage was believed lost until it was uncovered in 2008 in South Carolina by Michael Moore while researching the film . The footage shows Roosevelt's Second Bill of Rights address in its entirety as well as a shot of the eight rights printed on a sheet of paper.
