What is a bill of rights?

A bill of rights is a written document that lists specific individual freedoms and protections that government must respect, providing both a public statement of fundamental liberties and a legal basis for enforcing them in court. The form has a long history. The English Bill of Rights of 1689, enacted by Parliament after the Glorious Revolution, limited the powers of the crown and listed rights of subjects, including freedom from royal taxation without parliamentary consent, freedom from cruel and unusual punishment, the right to petition the king, and the right to bear arms within the law.

Several American colonies issued declarations of rights during the Revolutionary era. The Virginia Declaration of Rights, drafted by George Mason and adopted in June 1776, declared that all men are by nature equally free and independent and possess inherent rights that they cannot deprive their posterity of. It guaranteed freedom of religion, freedom of the press, jury trials, and many other protections. Other states issued similar documents.

The federal Bill of Rights, the first ten amendments to the U.S. Constitution ratified in 1791, drew on these state declarations. Anti-Federalists in the ratification debates of 1787 and 1788 had insisted that without an explicit bill of rights, the proposed Constitution gave the new federal government too much power. Federalists like Alexander Hamilton initially objected, arguing in Federalist No. 84 that listing specific rights was unnecessary and might suggest that unlisted rights were unprotected. James Madison, originally skeptical, became the principal drafter of the federal Bill of Rights as a member of the First Congress. He drew on Mason's Virginia Declaration, on suggestions submitted by state ratifying conventions, and on his own reading of English liberties.

The federal Bill of Rights protects freedom of religion, speech, press, assembly, petition, the right to bear arms, freedom from quartering of soldiers, freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures, due process, just compensation for takings, jury trial, the rights of the accused in criminal cases, freedom from cruel and unusual punishment, and powers reserved to the states or the people. Many countries have adopted bills of rights of their own, and modern human rights documents like the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948 and the European Convention on Human Rights of 1950 share the form.