United States Bill of Rights

United States Bill Of Rights

The Bill of Rights is the collective name for the first ten amendments to the United States Constitution. These limitations serve to protect the natural rights of liberty and property. They guarantee a number of personal freedoms, limit the government's power in judicial and other proceedings, and reserve some powers to the states and the public. While originally the amendments applied only to the federal government, most of their provisions have since been held to apply to the states by way of the Fourteenth Amendment.

The amendments were introduced by James Madison to the 1st United States Congress as a series of legislative articles. They were adopted by the House of Representatives on August 21, 1789, formally proposed by joint resolution of Congress on September 25, 1789, and came into effect as Constitutional Amendments on December 15, 1791, through the process of ratification by three-fourths of the States. While twelve amendments were passed by Congress, only ten were originally passed by the states. Of the remaining two, one was adopted as the Twenty-seventh Amendment and the other technically remains pending before the states.

Originally, the Bill of Rights implicitly legally protected only white men, excluding American Indians, people considered to be "black" (now described as African Americans), and women. These exclusions were not explicit in the Bill of Rights' text, but were well understood and applied.

The Bill of Rights plays a key role in American law and government, and remains a vital symbol of the freedoms and culture of the nation. One of the first fourteen copies of the Bill of Rights is on public display at the National Archives in Washington, D.C.

Read more about United States Bill Of Rights:  Philadelphia Convention, Ratification Process, Status of The Original 14 Copies, Excluded From The Bill of Rights, Display and Honoring of The Bill of Rights

Famous quotes containing the words bill of rights, united states, united, states, bill and/or rights:

    Is a Bill of Rights a security for [religious liberty]? If there were but one sect in America, a Bill of Rights would be a small protection for liberty.... Freedom derives from a multiplicity of sects, which pervade America, and which is the best and only security for religious liberty in any society. For where there is such a variety of sects, there cannot be a majority of any one sect to oppress and persecute the rest.
    James Madison (1751–1836)

    What the United States does best is to understand itself. What it does worst is understand others.
    Carlos Fuentes (b. 1928)

    It was evident that, both on account of the feudal system and the aristocratic government, a private man was not worth so much in Canada as in the United States; and, if your wealth in any measure consists in manliness, in originality and independence, you had better stay here. How could a peaceable, freethinking man live neighbor to the Forty-ninth Regiment? A New-Englander would naturally be a bad citizen, probably a rebel, there,—certainly if he were already a rebel at home.
    Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)

    Not only [are] our states ... making peace with each other,... you and I, your Majesty, are making peace here, our own peace, the peace of soldiers and the peace of friends.
    Yitzhak Rabin (b. 1922)

    [My one tennis book] was very, very old. It had a picture of Bill Tilden. I looked at the picture and that was how I learned to hold the racket.
    Maria Bueno (b. 1939)

    Close by the Rights of Man, at the least set beside them, are the Rights of the Spirit.
    Victor Hugo (1802–1885)