The Bill of Rights

The Bill of Rights is the first ten amendments to the Constitution, ratified together in 1791. They protect individual liberties against the federal government and, through later incorporation, against the states.

The Bill of Rights was the price of ratification. Several states approved the Constitution only on the understanding that a written list of protected liberties would be added immediately. James Madison, originally skeptical of a bill of rights, drafted the amendments in the First Congress and steered them through to ratification by the states in 1791. The ten amendments fall into rough groupings. The First Amendment protects expressive and religious liberty. The Second Amendment protects the right to keep and bear arms. The Third bars the quartering of troops. The Fourth protects against unreasonable searches and seizures. The Fifth, Sixth, and Eighth Amendments lay out the rights of criminal defendants and the limits of punishment. The Seventh preserves jury trial in civil cases. The Tenth Amendment reserves to the states all powers not delegated to the federal government. The Ninth declares that the listed rights do not exhaust the rights retained by the people. For most of American history, these protections bound only the federal government. Barron v. Baltimore in 1833 confirmed this reading. The Fourteenth Amendment, ratified in 1868, eventually became the vehicle by which most of the Bill of Rights was applied against the states. Through a doctrine called selective incorporation, the Supreme Court has held that almost every provision of the Bill of Rights now restrains state and local governments as well. The Bill of Rights does not create the liberties it lists. It declares them and forbids the government to violate them.