Bill of rights

The short title of an act of parliament of 1689 called more fully : An act declaring the Rights and Liberties of the subject, settling the succession of the crown.  It was based on the Declaration of Rights drawn upon after the Revolution of 1688 and the flight of James II, and enacted the Declaration into Law.  It recited the abuses of power charged against James II and denounced the suspending power, the levying of taxes without grant of Parliament, excessive bail and the forfeitue of property without conviction of a crime, and it provided for freedom of speech, or petition and the right to bear arms.  The rights declared in the Bill are rights only against executive authority, not against Parliament. The bill of Rights -United States.

The term used for the first ten amendments to the constitution of the United States.  The preparation of such statement of fundamental rights was discussed in the Convention but was not acted on.  Several of the States made the addition of a Bill of Rights a condition of their acceptance of the Constitution, and they are consequently an integral part of the original constituion rather than a series of amendments in the proper sense.

The American Bill of rights is consciously modified on the Bill of Rights of England of 1688 and the Petition of Rights of 1628, but its immediate model was the Bill of Rights of Virginia of 1776. It goes much further than the English Bill and Petition in removing certain fundamental rights of person and property from infringement by any form of Governmental authority, executive, legislative or judicial.

Nearly all the American State Constitutions have as their first article a Bill of Rights, which frequently includes rights and privileges not expressly mentioned in the Federal Constitution. The first Bill of Rights,  which became the model for nearly all the others, was that of virginia, drawn up by George Mason in 1776 before the Declaration of Independence.