The
Bill of Rights, also known as the
first ten amendments of
the Constitution, are not always guaranteed to you.
The Constitution, the
Bill of Rights, and the other
amendments only refer to the
federal government. That means that the federal government does not, for example, hold the power to restrict your
freedom of speech.
However, the
reconstruction amendments, the 13th, 14th, and 15th, expanded the protection, specifically the
fourteenth amendmend. The
14th amendment gave birth to the incorporation theory, which incorporates the limits of the federal government to the states. Before then the states could restrict rights with
police power.
The incorporation theory has been used in
case law. The
Supreme Court has been deciding which rights to incorporate. The rights in the
first amendment,
speech,
religion,
assembly, and
petition, as well as most of the bill of rights have been incorporated. The second and third, the
right to bare arms and the
right against the quartering of soldiers, has not been incorporated through case law.