The first ten amendments to the Constitution are called what?

The first ten amendments to the Constitution are called the Bill of Rights. They were proposed by the First Congress in September 1789, drafted largely by James Madison drawing on George Mason's 1776 Virginia Declaration of Rights, and ratified by the required three-fourths of the states on December 15, 1791. The amendments were the price of ratification. Anti-Federalists like Patrick Henry and George Mason refused to support the new Constitution unless explicit protections for individual liberty were added, and Federalists like Madison agreed in order to win Virginia, New York, and other holdout states.

The First Amendment guarantees freedom of religion, speech, press, assembly, and the right to petition the government. The Second Amendment protects the right to keep and bear arms. The Third bars the peacetime quartering of soldiers in private homes without consent. The Fourth requires probable cause and warrants for searches and seizures. The Fifth provides the right to a grand jury, bars double jeopardy and self-incrimination, requires due process, and demands just compensation when private property is taken for public use. The Sixth Amendment guarantees a speedy and public trial by an impartial jury, the right to confront witnesses, compulsory process to obtain witnesses, and the right to counsel. The Seventh preserves jury trials in civil cases involving more than twenty dollars. The Eighth bars excessive bail, excessive fines, and cruel and unusual punishments. The Ninth makes clear that listing some rights does not deny the existence of others retained by the people. The Tenth reserves to the states or the people any powers not delegated to the federal government.

Originally these amendments restrained only the federal government, as the Supreme Court held in Barron v. Baltimore in 1833. Beginning with Gitlow v. New York in 1925, the Court used the Fourteenth Amendment's Due Process Clause to extend most Bill of Rights protections against the states one provision at a time, a process called incorporation. By 2010, when McDonald v. City of Chicago incorporated the Second Amendment, almost every protection in the Bill of Rights applied to state and local governments as well. These ten amendments sit at the center of American liberty and remain the most-cited provisions of the Constitution in court decisions.