bill of rights writing assignment

Final Writing Assignment

Painting of the signing of the Constitution

Who has rights?   What are those rights?  

Now expand your outline into an essay that answers the question: How does the Bill of Rights establish and continue to define the rights we have as Americans?  

Your argument will consist of claims that you can support with evidence. Your essay should reference how the conflict between the Federalists and Anti-Federalists created and shaped the Bill of Rights, what kinds of rights are enumerated within it, and how varying understandings of its meaning have changed over time. While you should include historical facts from this lesson, your argument should also be informed by the conclusions you have drawn from the evidence.

You will have the option to upload your assignment, provide a link, or write the essay in an online editor. Click "Write It" to get started.

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Calderwood Writing Course: U.S. History

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Bill of Rights: The 1st Ten Amendments

What is the bill of rights.

The Bill of Rights is one of the three founding documents . It was strongly influenced by the Virginia Declaration of Rights, written by George Mason as well as English documents such as the Magna Carta, the Petition of Right, the English Bill of Rights, and the Massachusetts Body of Liberties.

PDF: Bill of Rights

Bill of Rights Amendments

First Amendment Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

Second Amendment A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.

Third Amendment No soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.

Fourth Amendment The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Fifth Amendment No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the militia, when in actual service in time of war or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

Sixth Amendment In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the state and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the assistance of counsel for his defense.

Seventh Amendment In suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise reexamined in any court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law.

Eighth Amendment Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.

Ninth Amendment The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

Tenth Amendment The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.

Who Wrote the Bill of Rights

The first ten amendments to the Constitution make up the Bill of Rights. James Madison wrote the amendments as a solution to limit government power and protect individual liberties through the Constitution. For example, the Founders saw the ability to speak and worship freely as a natural right protected by the First Amendment. Congress is prohibited from making laws establishing religion or abridging freedom of speech. The Fourth Amendment safeguards citizens’ right to be free from unreasonable government intrusion in their homes through the requirement of a warrant.

Why was the Bill of Rights added to the Constitution?

The Bill of Rights was added to the Constitution because the Constitution lacked limits on government power. Federalists  advocated for a strong national government. They believed the people and states automatically kept any powers not given to the federal government. Anti-Federalists wanted power to remain with state and local governments and favored a bill of rights to safeguard individual liberty. 

Madison, then a member of the U.S. House of Representatives, altered the Constitution’s text where he thought appropriate. However, several representatives, led by Roger Sherman, objected, saying that Congress had no authority to change the wording of the Constitution. Therefore, Madison’s changes were presented as a list of amendments that would follow Article VII.

When was the Bill of Rights Ratified

The House approved 17 amendments. Of these, the Senate approved 12, which were sent to the states for approval in August 1789. Ten amendments were approved (or ratified). Virginia’s legislature was the final state legislature to ratify the amendments, approving them on December 15, 1791.

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The Bill of Rights and Free Speech

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What is the proper balance between liberty and security? Using primary source documents, writing assignments, discussion prompts and other activities, students will explore this difficult question. This curriculum examines the balance between liberty and security over the last 60 years.

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Gideon v. Wainwright | Homework Help from the Bill of Rights Institute

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Due Process of Law

The principle of due process of law means that the government must follow duly-enacted laws when it seeks to restrict or deny fundamental rights, including a person’s rights to life, liberty, or property. In essence, it means that the government must treat its citizens fairly, following laws and established procedures in everything it does. It is the commitment to this principle that makes the United States, as John Adams once noted, “a government of laws, and not of men.”

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Covers search and seizure, rights of the accused, due process of law, jury trials, and protection from cruel and unusual punishment guaranteed in the Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, and Eighth Amendments.

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State and Local Government

From the Founding generation to the present day, controversy continues regarding the proper division of power between state and national government. What the Founders did not find debatable was the wisdom of dividing power both among and within governments. In short, they considered the federal system to be a critical part of the American constitutional order.

America's Founding Documents

The Bill of Rights: What Does it Say?

The bill of rights.

The Bill of Rights is the first 10 Amendments to the Constitution. It spells out Americans’ rights in relation to their government. It guarantees civil rights and liberties to the individual—like freedom of speech, press, and religion. It sets rules for due process of law and reserves all powers not delegated to the Federal Government to the people or the States. And it specifies that “the enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.”

The First Amendment

The First Amendment provides several rights protections: to express ideas through speech and the press, to assemble or gather with a group to protest or for other reasons, and to ask the government to fix problems. It also protects the right to religious beliefs and practices. It prevents the government from creating or favoring a religion.

The Second Amendment

The Second Amendment protects the right to keep and bear arms.

The Third Amendment

The Third Amendment prevents government from forcing homeowners to allow soldiers to use their homes . Before the Revolutionary War, laws gave British soldiers the right to take over private homes.

The Fourth Amendment

The Fourth Amendment bars the government from unreasonable search and seizure of an individual or their private property.

The Fifth Amendment

The Fifth Amendment provides several protections for people accused of crimes. It states that serious criminal charges must be started by a grand jury .  A person cannot be tried twice for the same offense ( double jeopardy ) or have property taken away without just compensation . People have the right against self-incrimination and cannot be imprisoned without due process of law (fair procedures and trials).

The Sixth Amendment

The Sixth Amendment provides additional protections to people accused of crimes, such as the right to a speedy and public trial, trial by an impartial jury in criminal cases, and to be informed of criminal charges. Witnesses must face the accused, and the accused is allowed his or her own witnesses and to be represented by a lawyer. 

The Seventh Amendment

The Seventh Amendment extends the right to a jury trial in Federal civil cases.

The Eighth Amendment

The Eighth Amendment bars excessive bail and fines and cruel and unusual punishment.

The Ninth Amendment

The Ninth Amendment states that listing specific rights in the Constitution does not mean that people do not have other rights that have not been spelled out.

The Tenth Amendment

The Tenth Amendment says that the Federal Government only has those powers delegated in the Constitution. If it isn’t listed, it belongs to the states or to the people.

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Bill of Rights

By: History.com Editors

Updated: July 28, 2023 | Original: October 27, 2009

After the Declaration of Independence in 1776, the Founding Fathers turned to the composition of the states’ and then the federal Constitution. Although a Bill of Rights to protect the citizens was not initially deemed important, the Constitution’s supporters realized it was crucial to achieving ratification. Thanks largely to the efforts of James Madison , the Bill of Rights—the first ten amendments to the U.S. Constitution —were ratified on December 15, 1791.

Influence of Magna Carta

The roots of the Bill of Rights lie deep in Anglo-American history. In 1215 England’s King John, under pressure from rebellious barons, put his seal to Magna Carta , which protected subjects against royal abuses of power. Among Magna Carta’s more important provisions are its requirement that proceedings and prosecutions be according to “the law of the land”–the forerunner of “due process of law”–and a ban on the sale, denial, or delay of justice.

In response to arbitrary actions of Charles I, Parliament in 1628 adopted the Petition of Right, condemning unlawful imprisonments and also providing that there should be no tax “without common consent of parliament.” In 1689, capping the Glorious Revolution (which placed William and Mary on the throne), Parliament adopted the Bill of Rights. Not only does its name anticipate the American document of a century later, the English Bill of Rights anticipates some of the American bill’s specific provisions—for example, the Eighth Amendment’s ban on excessive bail and fines and on cruel and unusual punishment.

The idea of written documents protecting individual liberties took early root in England’s American colonies. Colonial charters (such as the 1606 Charter for Virginia ) declared that those who migrated to the New World should enjoy the same “privileges, franchises, and immunities” as if they lived in England. In the years leading up to the break with the mother country (especially after the Stamp Act of 1765), Americans wrote tracts and adopted resolutions resting their claim of rights on Magna Carta, on the colonial charters, and on the teachings of natural law.

Constitutional Convention

Once independence had been declared in 1776, the American states turned immediately to the writing of state constitutions and state bills of rights. In Williamsburg, George Mason was the principal architect of Virginia 's Declaration of Rights. That document, which wove Lockean notions of natural rights with concrete protections against specific abuses, was the model for bills of rights in other states and, ultimately, for the federal Bill of Rights. (Mason’s declaration was also influential in the framing , in 1789, of France’s Declaration of Rights of Man and the Citizen).

In 1787, at the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, Mason remarked that he “wished the plan had been prefaced by a Bill of Rights.” Elbridge Gerry moved for the appointment of a committee to prepare such a bill, but the delegates, without debate, defeated the motion. They did not oppose the principle of a bill of rights; they simply thought it unnecessary, in light of the theory that the new federal government would be one of enumerated powers only. Some of the Framers were also skeptical of the utility of what James Madison called “parchment barriers” against majorities; they looked, for protection, to structural arrangements such as separation of powers and checks and balances .

Opponents of ratification quickly seized upon the absence of a bill of rights and Federalists, especially Madison, soon realized that they must offer to add amendments to the Constitution after its ratification. Only by making such a pledge were the Constitution’s supporters able to achieve ratification in such closely divided states as New York and Virginia.

James Madison Drafts Amendments

In the First Congress, Madison undertook to fulfill his promise. Carefully sifting amendments from proposals made in the state ratifying conventions, Madison steered his project through the shoals of indifference on the part of some members (who thought the House had more important work to do) and outright hostility on the part of others (Antifederalists who hoped for a second convention to hobble the powers of the federal government). In September 1789 the House and Senate accepted a conference report laying out the language of proposed amendments to the Constitution.

Within six months of the time the amendments–the Bill of Rights–had been submitted to the states, nine had ratified them. Two more states were needed; Virginia’s ratification, on December 15, 1791, made the Bill of Rights part of the Constitution. (Ten amendments were ratified; two others, dealing with the number of representatives and with the compensation of senators and representatives, were not.)

On their face, it is obvious that the amendments apply to actions by the federal government, not to actions by the states. In 1833, in Barron v. Baltimore, Chief Justice John Marshall confirmed that understanding. Barron had sued the city for damage to a wharf, resting his claim on the Fifth Amendment’s requirement that private property not be taken for public use “without just compensation.” Marshall ruled that the Fifth Amendment was intended “solely as a limitation on the exercise of power by the government of the United States, and is not applicable to the legislation of the states.”

Post-Bill of Rights Amendments

The Civil War and Reconstruction brought, in their wake, the Fourteenth Amendment, which declares, among other things, that no state shall “deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.” In those few words lay the seed of a revolution in American constitutional law. That revolution began to take form in 1947, in Justice Hugo Black’s dissent in Adamson v. California. Reviewing the history of the Fourteenth Amendment’s adoption, Black concluded that history “conclusively demonstrates” that the amendment was meant to ensure that “no state could deprive its citizens of the privileges and protections of the Bill of Rights.”

Justice Black’s “wholesale incorporation” theory has never been adopted by the Supreme Court . During the heyday of the Warren Court, in the 1960s, however, the justices embarked on a process of “selective incorporation.” In each case, the Court asked whether a specific provision of the Bill of Rights was essential to “fundamental fairness”; if it was, then it must apply to the states as it does to the federal government. 

Through this process, nearly all the important provisions of the Bill of Rights now apply to the states. A partial list would include the First Amendment’s rights of speech, press, and religion; the Fourth Amendment’s protection against unreasonable searches and seizures; the Fifth Amendment’s privilege against self-incrimination; and the Sixth Amendment’s right to counsel, to a speedy and public trial, and to trial by jury.

The original Constitution has been amended a number of times—for example, to provide for direct election of senators and to give the vote to eighteen-year-olds . The Bill of Rights, however, has never been amended. There is, of course, sharp debate over Supreme Court interpretation of specific provisions, especially where social interests (such as the control of traffic in drugs) seem to come into tension with provisions of the Bill of Rights (such as the Fourth Amendment). Such debate notwithstanding, there is no doubt that the Bill of Rights, as symbol and substance, lies at the heart of American conceptions of individual liberty, limited government and the rule of law.

The Bill of Rights

Amendment I Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

Amendment II A well-regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.

Amendment III No soldier shall, in time of peace, be quartered in any house without the consent of the owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.

Amendment IV The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Amendment V No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the militia, when in actual service in time of war or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use without just compensation.

Amendment VI In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the assistance of counsel for his defense.

Amendment VII In suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury shall be otherwise reexamined in any court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law.

Amendment VIII Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.

Amendment IX The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

Amendment X The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

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The first amendment, lesson plans, bill of rights.

This lesson, which includes a pre-lesson and several post-lesson ideas, is designed to be used in conjunction with the National Constitution Center’s Bill of Rights show, which is available as part of themed museum packages for groups and the Traveling History & Civics Program for schools. Together, they provide students with first-hand experience about one of our nation’s most important documents. In this lesson, students begin by learning about the specific rights and freedoms protected by the Bill of Rights.

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Bill of Rights

Primary tabs.

• First Amendment [Religion, Speech, Press, Assembly, Petition (1791)] (see explanation )
• Second Amendment [Right to Bear Arms (1791)] (see explanation )
• Third Amendment [Quartering of Troops (1791)] (see explanation )
• Fourth Amendment [Search and Seizure (1791)] (see explanation )
• Fifth Amendment [Grand Jury, Double Jeopardy, Self-Incrimination, Due Process (1791)] (see explanation )
• Sixth Amendment [Criminal Prosecutions - Jury Trial, Right to Confront and to Counsel (1791)] (see explanation )
• Seventh Amendment [Common Law Suits - Jury Trial (1791)] (see explanation )
• Eighth Amendment [Excess Bail or Fines, Cruel and Unusual Punishment (1791)] (see explanation )
• Ninth Amendment [Non-Enumerated Rights (1791)] (see explanation )
• Tenth Amendment [Rights Reserved to States or People (1791)] (see explanation )

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