When the federal constitution was framed by the constitutional convention, it was assumed, not only that the protection of the personal and property rights of the citizens of each state would remain primarily with the states themselves, but also that, as the federal government was to be a government possessing only enumerated powers, no general guaranties to individuals against the improper exercise of authority on the part of the federal government were necessary. Nevertheless, a few restrictions on the federal government were specifically imposed. Thus (Art. I, § 9), the privilege of the writ of habeas ' corpus was guaranteed; the passage of bills of attainder or ex post facto laws was prohibited, and the power to grant titles of nobility was denied; and in the same connection the powers of the federal government were restricted so that there should be no discriminations made between the states or the citizens thereof. But there were no express provisions for the protection of personal and property rights. As against the federal government, there was no guaranty of due process of law, or the protection of contract rights, or of jury trial in civil cases and the usual forms of procedure in criminal cases. The omission from the federal constitution of any such general guaranties was made a ground of objection to its adoption in several of the state conventions. The fact that the state constitutions all contained some general guaranties in the form of a bill of rights gave countenance to the assumption that such guaranties were an essential and fundamental part of a constitution, and in some of the state conventions the ratification of the proposed federal constitution was accompanied with the recommendation that a bill of rights be added to it by way of amendment. Accordingly, ten amendments to the federal constitution were proposed to the several states by the first Congress, and were ratified and became a part of the constitution prior to the year 1791. Of these Amendment IX is in the nature of a general saving clause, and Amendment X emphasizes the fact that the federal government has under the constitution only the powers enumerated, all others being reserved to the states or to the people. The first ten amendments indicate a prevailing distrust of the power which the federal government might attempt to exercise. They indicate anxiety for the preservation of local freedom of government, and the wish to rely for protection of personal and property rights on the state governments, which, it was evidently assumed, would be safer repositories of power with respect to the rights of their citizens.

But even in the constitution as originally adopted, some restraint was imposed upon the states in behalf of the personal security of the people. For example, it is provided (Art. I, § 10) that no state shall "pass any bill of attainder, ex post facto law, or law impairing the obligation of contracts." And after the Civil War, as a means of making permanent the personal liberty which had accrued to individuals of the negro race, three amendments were adopted, limiting in very important respects the powers of the states with reference to the civil and political rights of their citizens. By Amendment XIII (1865) slavery was prohibited. By Amendment XIV (1868) citizenship in the states as well as in the Union as a whole was defined, and abridgment of the privileges or immunities incident to citizenship forbidden; and the states were also prohibited from depriving any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law, or denying to any person the equal protection of the laws. By Amendment XV (1870) the states were restrained from denying or abridging the right of suffrage on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.

The adoption of these three amendments indicated a shifting of responsibility for the protection of the citizen against the undue exercises of governmental authority by a state government from the state itself to the federal government. The controlling consideration no doubt was the purpose to guarantee to the negroes the same civil and political rights accorded under the laws of any state to the white citizens of that state. But the ultimate result, especially of Amendment XIV, has been to place personal and property rights largely within the protection of the federal government. The guaranty of due process of law and the equal protection of the laws, found in that amendment, has been broadly invoked as a protection against state legislation which would result in an undue restriction in any respect of the exercise of personal liberty, or the ownership and profitable employment of property, and also as against unwarrantable discriminations between classes of persons in the enjoyment of personal and property rights. It is not to be assumed, however, that prior to the adoption of Amendment XIV, personal and property rights were not protected against arbitrary exercise of state power. Guaranties of due process of law and the equal protection of the laws were already found in the constitutions of the different states. But this amendment to the federal constitution gives to those persons who are entitled to the protection of the laws, and the enjoyment of the privileges of citizenship, the uniform security afforded by the specific provisions of the federal constitution itself, and a resort to the legislative, executive, and judicial power of that government for the protection of the rights thus guaranteed as against infringement by state action. (See below, ch. xliv.)