Today, December 15, is Bill of Rights Day. The Bill of Rights Day didn’t exist until Franklin D. roosevelt’s presidency — President Roosevelt made it a national holiday in 1941 — one the document’s 150th anniversary.
The Bill of Rights is the first ten amendments to the United States Constitution. These ten amendments were adopted in 1791 in order to protect individual rights and limit the federal government’s power. The Bill of Rights is made up of amendments that guarantee fundamental rights such as freedom of speech, religion, and the press, the right to carry arms, the right to a fair and quick trial, protection from unreasonable search and seizure, and protection from harsh and unusual punishment.
At the time the Constitution was being written, many Americans were concerned about the new federal government’s potential abuse of power. The modifications, or amendments, to the Constitution were intended to protect individual liberty while also preventing the government from exceeding its authority. The original intent of the Bill of Rights was to limit the federal government’s powers and preserve individual liberty from federal overreach — it did not, however, apply to state governments. Of course, this meant that state governments could violate individual rights in ways that the federal government couldn’t.
The Bill of Rights wasn’t applied to the individual states until the twentieth century — and — that only happened because of a series of Supreme Court decisions. The process of applying the Bill of Rights to the states is known as “incorporation.” It began in 1925 with the case of Gitlow v. New York, that extended the First Amendment’s free speech and press protections to the states. Following that judgement, the Supreme Court gradually incorporated other Bill of Rights provisions. Throughout the twentieth century, the Bill of Rights became an increasingly essential aspect of American philosophy of law.
The Bill of Rights also didn’t apply to all Americans when it was first enacted. Certain groups of people, like slaves and Native Americans, were not covered. Even after incorporation, certain groups of individuals continued to be denied full protection under the Bill of Rights.
The Bill of Rights is one of the most important and enduring documents in American history and the original document is on display at the National Archives in Washington, D.C.
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