Bill of Rights.

The National Archives displays the Bill of Rights as one of the three "Charters of Freedom". The original intent of these first ten Amendments was to restrict Congress from abusing its power. For example, the First Amendment – "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion" – was ratified by the states before all states had, of their own accord, disestablished their official churches.

The Federalist Papers argued that amendments were not necessary to adopt the Constitution. But without the promise in their ratification conventions, Massachusetts, Virginia and New York could not have joined the Union as early as 1789. James Madison, true to his word, managed the proposed amendments through the new House of Representatives in its first session. The amendments that became the Bill of Rights were ten proposals of the twelve that Congress sent out to the states in 1789.[k]

Later in American history, applying the Bill of Rights directly to the states developed only with the Fourteenth Amendment. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges ... of citizens ... nor ... deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny ... the equal protection of the laws. The legal mechanism that courts use today to extend the Bill of Rights against the abuses of state government is called "incorporation". The extent of its application is often at issue in modern jurisprudence.

Generally, the Bill of Rights can be seen as the States addressing three major concerns: individual rights, federal courts and the national government’s relationships with the States.