Weren't the last 9 amendments of the bill of rights already applicable to the states?

Question

before the 14th amendment?

They don't state Congress shall not make any law etc, they all say Shall not be infringed, Soldiers shall not, etc... wasn't this already all-encompassing, with the exception of the first amendment?

It fails to mention the states, but also fails to mention the federal government? Do you know if historically it was meant to apply only to the government?

Answer 1

No, they were not. Many states chose to put similar language in their constitutions, though. The Constitution was originally written to apply to the Federal government only. Since the 14th amendment, the Supreme Court gets to pick and choose which amendments apply to the states and which don't.

Answer 2

Q is not perfectly clear, but I think I know what you're on to. For one thing, the Bill of Rights is only the first ten amendments, so asking about the last nine of them seems silly.

But still, most people today (and apparently back then) didn't interpret the Constitution properly. It was designed to grant limited powers to the government. People didn't think taht was clear enough, so they added a list of powers (aka Rights) that the gov. could not touch. In other words, the constitution was saying gov had only these few powers whereas BoR was saying gov has not these few powers. Ones positive list, the other negative.

The net affect was that the original positive list was forgotten by congress and the only thing that was honored during law making was the negative list (and even that was botched many times). So, the present use and evolution of the document is pretty much like this: Government has all powers except those forbidden to it by the amendments. This would have made the founding fathers sick to their stomachs...the exact opposite of their intent to limit and define government.

Answer 3

Constitution and the bill of rights originally only applied to the Federal government the states where pretty free to do what they wanted some had slavery some did not the 14 clarified the bill of rights onto the states as well as the federal government

Answer 4

At the time, the states each had their own bill of rights protecting citizens from the state. This was extra protection offered citizens to protect them from the FEDERAL govt which was being created and given real powers.

Answer 5

yawhatever