What was the Bill of Rights?

The Bill of Rights is the collective name for the first ten amendments to the United States Constitution, ratified together when Virginia became the eleventh state to approve them on December 15, 1791. The amendments enumerate fundamental civil rights and limit the power of the federal government against individual citizens. James Madison drafted them in the First Congress, drawing on George Mason's Virginia Declaration of Rights of June 12, 1776, on the English Bill of Rights of 1689, on the proposals submitted by state ratifying conventions during the 1787 to 1790 ratification debate, and on his own reading of common law tradition.

He proposed 17 amendments on June 8, 1789 in a speech to the House of Representatives. Congress reduced them to 12 and sent them to the states on September 25, 1789. Ten were ratified by December 15, 1791.

The amendments cover the following ground. The First Amendment protects the freedoms of religion (with its Establishment and Free Exercise clauses), speech, press, peaceable assembly, and petition. The Second Amendment protects the right of the people to keep and bear arms in connection with a well regulated militia, a right the Supreme Court applied to individual ownership in District of Columbia v. Heller (2008) and against the states in McDonald v. Chicago (2010). The Third Amendment prohibits quartering troops in private homes during peacetime. The Fourth Amendment protects against unreasonable searches and seizures and requires warrants supported by probable cause. The Fifth Amendment includes the rights against self incrimination, against double jeopardy, to due process, to compensation for property taken for public use, and to grand jury indictment for capital crimes. The Sixth Amendment guarantees rights to a speedy public trial, an impartial jury, notice of charges, confrontation of witnesses, compulsory process for defense witnesses, and assistance of counsel. The Seventh Amendment guarantees jury trial in civil cases involving more than $20. The Eighth Amendment prohibits excessive bail, excessive fines, and cruel and unusual punishments. The Ninth Amendment provides that the enumeration of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people. The Tenth Amendment reserves to the states or to the people powers not delegated to the federal government.

The Bill of Rights originally bound only the federal government, as the Supreme Court ruled in Barron v. Baltimore (1833), but the Fourteenth Amendment of 1868 has been used through selective incorporation to apply most of its protections to the states. Two of Madison's original 12 amendments did not pass with the others. The first, on apportionment, was never ratified. The second, on congressional pay, was ratified more than 200 years later in 1992 as the Twenty-Seventh Amendment.