Which amendment is most closely associated with applying the Bill of Rights to the states?

• A. The 14th Amendment.
• B. The 1st Amendment.
• C. The 4th Amendment.
• D. The 10th Amendment.

Answer: (A)

The key idea here is how the Bill of Rights comes to bind state governments. Originally, the Bill of Rights restricted only the federal government; states could do as they wished with individual rights. The Fourteenth Amendment changed that by saying no state shall deprive anyone of life, liberty, or property without due process, and courts interpreted that due process clause to incorporate many of the federal protections into state law. This process—selective incorporation—means most rights in the Bill of Rights now apply to state and local governments as well as to the federal government. That’s why the Fourteenth Amendment is the mechanism most closely linked to applying the Bill of Rights to the states. The other amendments are part of the Bill of Rights themselves, but they don’t by themselves establish how those rights reach state actors; incorporating them for state action comes through the Fourteenth Amendment.