User:Bruce M. Tindall/My sandbox

The first ten amendments to the U.S. Constitution are collectively known as the Bill of Rights. They specify a set of rights belonging to individuals, states, and the people at large -- in some cases, by positive guarantees of certain rights, and in other cases, by restrictions on certain actions by the Federal government. Some (but not all) of the provisions of the Bill of Rights now also apply to state governments, according to the courts' interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment, which was ratified in 1868. In other cases involving the Fourteenth Amendment, courts have held that corporations are legal "persons" and enjoy some of the same rights that the Bill of Rights guarantees to individuals.