Most everyone, knows that the first 10 Amendments to the Constitution, which were ratified in 1791, are collectively known as the Bill of Rights. Those rights are of immense importance to the people, for from those Bill of Rights, we are provided with our freedom of religion, of speech, of press, of petition, and of assembly, as well as each of us is accorded due process of law as well as equality under the law; in addition to many other rights so enumerated by those Amendments, or as reserved to the people, as per the Tenth Amendment.
Yet, as in many things, there is the law so written, and then there is the law so enforced; of which, these two things are not the same, whatsoever. For the most part, the Bill of Rights, were pretty much not part of judicial court cases for the first one hundred years of its existence, and so, it was not then until the 20th century that actual court cases, addressing one’s freedom of religion, of press, of petition, of due process, began to really be adjudicated by the judicial branch.
The prevailing reason why the Bill of Rights was pretty much ignored for so long, has an awful lot to do with the fact that those that were in power throughout the government of the United States, didn’t expressly identify typically with those that were denied some part of their Bill of rights, because these other people, often represented a milieu or a class of people, that the governing class did not come from or pretty much cared not to address, and hence they were for all intents and purposes, without a voice to champion their cause.
However, progressive voices began to come to the forefront of the United States, and they knew that denying the whole people, and especially those that were disenfranchised, was anathema to what the Constitution and the Bill of Rights was supposed to really represent. This thus meant that concentrated actions by those with a legal background began to be made in order to put to the courts, seminal cases that would adjudicate the meaning of those Bill of Rights.
So then, a lot of the rights that the general public has obtained in recent history, really goes back to this nation finally leaving up to its creed of its Constitution along with the Amendments to it. After all, governments, even good governments, have a strong tendency to just want the general public to be obedient to its dictates; whereas, those that have read and have truly comprehended the Bill of Rights, have a strong desire to see that those rights are lived and are breathed in through everyday interactions so done for the betterment, benefit, and the good welfare of the people.
Those then, that have been part of that battle to secure those rights so provided to the whole of the people, deserve our appreciation, for rights without corresponding action, are nearly the same as rights that have never been implemented; and for any government to believe that it is of, for, and by the people, they then need to treat those people as their co-equals as opposed to treating them as if they are subjects.