The Bill of Rights, ratified in 1791, defined citizens' rights in relation to which entity?

• A. The federal government
• B. State governments
• C. The presidency
• D. The military

Answer: (A)

The main idea here is that the Bill of Rights sets limits on the national government and protects individual liberties. When ratified in 1791, these first ten amendments were added to prevent the federal government from infringing on basic rights like speech, religion, and due process. At that time, state governments kept their own powers, so the rights were framed as protections against actions by the federal government rather than against the states. The presidency and the military are parts of the federal system, but the focus of the Bill of Rights is the relationship between citizens and the national government as a whole. Later developments, especially the Fourteenth Amendment, extended many of these protections to apply to state governments as well.