The Bill of Rights is the name for the first ten amendments to the United States Constitution, which was ratified on December 15, 1791. These ten short promises were written by James Madison to protect individual liberties and to limit the power of the federal government. You can still read the original words today, in faded brown ink on parchment, at the National Archives.

Why did the new nation need these promises? Think back to the colonists’ complaints. Under the King of England, soldiers in bright red coats could knock on a family’s door and move right in, sleeping in their beds and eating at their table. The king’s men could search a home and carry off letters and belongings without a good reason. People could be punished for praying in their own way or for speaking against the government. The Bill of Rights answered those old complaints one by one.

The First Amendment protects freedom of religion, speech, the press, assembly, and the right to petition the government. The Second Amendment protects the right of the people to keep and bear arms. The Third Amendment stops the government from forcing citizens to house soldiers in their private homes during peacetime. The Fourth protects people from unreasonable searches and seizures of their property. The chart below shows all ten amendments in simple words.

Religion sat at the heart of it. Many colonists had crossed a cold, dangerous ocean because they wanted to worship God in their own way, without a king telling them how. That is why the very first freedom named in the very first amendment is the freedom of religion.

Behind these ideas stood an English philosopher named John Locke. Locke taught that people are born free and equal, and that life and liberty are unalienable rights, which means no one can take them away. He said governments exist for one reason: to protect the rights of the people. This was a brand-new way of seeing the world. The people of the 13 colonies had only ever known monarchy, where a king ruled by birth and his word was law. Now the people would rule, and the government would serve them. The American government was always intended to work in the best interest of the people; something that we must remember when we vote.

But there is a harder truth inside this story. Indigenous peoples, African Americans, and women all fought and served during the American Revolution, yet the new Bill of Rights was not written for them. Black soldiers in the Continental Army and state militias were in every major battle of the war. Some enslaved men who fought gained the freedom they were promised. Many others were forced back into slavery by their owners or by local courts once peace returned, receiving little back pay, no land, and no official thank-you. Formal military rules banned women from enlisting as soldiers, but many broke those rules anyway, disguising themselves as men, stepping into combat when men fell, or serving in military camps and frontline support roles. When the war was over, they had no rights at all.

The words were bigger than the men who wrote them. Ten promises on paper: born free and equal, life and liberty for all. Writing them down was the easy part. The work of every generation since, including ours, has been making them true.

The Bill of Rights at a glance

Source: National Archives; National Constitution Center