Little-Acorn
Gold Member
PART of the Bill of Rights.Then you had the 14th amendment which applied the bill of rights upon the states.
For instance, the 1st amendment was originally intended to restrict only the Federal government ("Congress shall make no law...."). But the 2nd amendment, which does not restrict itself the way the 1st does, was originally intended to restrict all govts in the U.S.
When the 14th was enacted, it expanded the scope of the 1st amendment to restrict ALL govts, Federal, state, and local. But it did not expand the 2nd, which already applied to all of them from the day it was ratified.