Imagine having a personal power that is strictly protected and fundamental to your way of life. So much so that if it was in jeopardy you would fight for it. And if it was taken away, you would consider uprooting your life and living elsewhere. To have the “right” to something means that you can claim it. An individual right is something that each individual human on earth possesses.
Individual Rights Definition
Individual rights are often thought of in the context of government. Individual rights, like civil rights, are something that each country or government decides whether citizens should have or not. Other rights, like natural rights, are different because they are intrinsic to each person, whether the government acknowledges them or not. They can certainly overlap, and we will see some examples of natural rights that are also individual rights protected in the American constitution!
For example, a country could give its citizens the right to practice whatever religion they want without persecution. The right to practice religion would be protected under the law, so if someone hurt you or discriminated against you because they didn’t like your religion, the government would step in to punish them for violating your right.
Individual Rights: Constitutional Role
Individual rights help protect citizens from abuse, exploitation, and coercion. Before the doctrine of individual rights became popularized in the Enlightenment, people did not have rights in the way we think of them today. Throughout Europe, the main governance system was a monarchy, where people's lives and their rights were in the hands of the king or queen. Many times, rulers did not always have the best interest of their subjects in mind.
One important historical example is the signing of the Magna Carta in 1215. During this time, the barons who had pledged their loyalty to King John I were fed up with him because he was taxing them to pay for his failed wars and wrongfully imprisoning them. They forced him to sign the Magna Carta under threat of civil war, which gave them some rights and protections against unlawful imprisonment.
Individual Rights marked an important shift toward a more representative government that didn't have absolute power. The protests in America about “no taxation without representation” came when King George III of England imposed excessive taxes on the colonies without giving them any rights in government. Because of this experience, the colonies wanted to create a new country where their rights were protected.
A painting depicting the Boston Tea Party, where colonists protested the excessive taxes on tea by dumping tea into the harbor. Source: Wikimedia Commons
Individual Rights in the Constitution: Examples
While the doctrine of individual rights was extremely important to the foundation of American Democracy, the first version of the Constitution did not actually mention individual rights. During the Constitutional Convention in 1787, delegates debated back and forth over whether the Constitution should specifically spell out rights or not.
The anti-federalists wanted to maintain power in the states rather than shift power to a central federal government. They feared that excluding individual rights would make it easier for the federal government to push them around, while including them in the constitution would help make the citizens more aware of their rights.
On the other hand, the federalists wanted to create a strong central government that would unite the country. They felt that including specific rights in the constitution would actually limit rights. If the constitution specifically protected certain rights, they feared that it would imply that other rights were not protected. Instead of including rights A B and C at the risk of excluding rights D E and F, they preferred to leave them out of the Constitution entirely.
Individual Rights in the Bill of Rights
After the delegates finished their draft of the Constitution in 1787, it became clearer that rights needed to be added. Some states said they would only ratify the Constitution if a Bill of Rights was added as an amendment. So, in 1789, the Bill of Rights was created. It makes up the first ten amendments to the Constitution.
A plaque commemorating the Bill of Rights. Source: Wikimedia Commons (CC By 2.0)
Rights of Conscience
Rights of Conscience have to do with a person’s own personal beliefs and practices. Basically, people should be allowed to act in accordance with their own conscience. Their inner thoughts and beliefs should be protected, and no person or government should be able to force people to believe or think a certain way. The rights under this category include the First Amendment, which protects:
Freedom of religion
Freedom of speech
Freedom of the press
The right to protest.
A monument in Berkeley, California, commemorating an activist who was arrested for handing out pamphlets about civil rights. Source: Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
Rights of the Accused
Rights of the accused protect people whom the law wants to punish. These rights help prevent the government from being able to just imprison people it doesn’t like or take away people’s voices by throwing them in prison without reasonable cause.
Remember the example of King John I and the barons? One of their major issues was that John threw people who didn't agree with him in jail. Rulers under a monarchical system were often known to throw political opponents into jail or execute them for speaking out. It was especially easy for poor people to be falsely accused of theft or other crimes.
Rights under this category include:
The Fourth Amendment, which includes freedom from unlawful search and seizure.
The Fifth Amendment, which protects the right to due process under the law and protection from self-incrimination (also known as "pleading the fifth"). It also protects people from deprivation of “life, liberty, or property."
The Sixth Amendment, which protects the right to counsel (a lawyer or attorney), a speedy trial, a jury, a public trial, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusations.
The Eighth Amendment, which protects the right to reasonable bail and freedom from cruel and unusual punishment.
Rights of Property
When it comes to rights, “property” doesn’t mean just owning a building or an acre of land. Some people also include the modern understanding of the “right to privacy” under this category by expanding the meaning of the Third Amendment to mean “the right to be left alone.”
Property in this sense refers to all aspects of life that belong to the person, including their own body and the tools or skills they possess that they use to make a living. Property can be tangible or intangible.
Some of the rights that protect property are found in:
The Third Amendment, which protects people from being forced to give up their houses to soldiers.
The Fourth Amendment, which protects people from the government unlawfully searching or seizing their property.
Some people also include the Second Amendment in this category, which protects the right of citizens to “bear arms,” or own guns and other weapons.
Individual Rights in the Constitution: Later Amendments
The Bill of Rights formed an important basis for rights in the United States. But as time went on, it became clear that more rights were needed and that the legislature needed to amend the Constitution a few more times. The Bill of Rights was important, but it did not fully protect all citizens, especially minorities.
The 14th amendment and 15th amendments, passed in 1868 and 1870, added more rights around citizenship and the right to vote. In particular, the 14th Amendment gave equal rights to African Americans. The 19th amendment (1920) gave women the right to vote.
An anti-suffrage cartoon from 1920 that criticized the 19th amendment giving women the right to vote. Source: Wikimedia Commons
State Rights vs. Individual Rights
The Bill of Rights was specifically designed to protect people against the federal government infringing on their rights. However, it did not prohibit state governments from infringing on citizens’ rights, though some people interpreted the protections under the Bill of Rights to extend to states as well. Inevitably, this led to conflicts where citizens’ individual rights under the Bill of Rights were pitted against the state government’s rights.
Barron v. Baltimore (1833)
One of the first examples of this conflict was the landmark Supreme Court case Barron v. Baltimore (1833). A man named John Barron owned a wharf in the bay of Baltimore, but a city project was diverting dirt and debris into the bay. As a result, ships could barely dock there anymore.
Barron decided to sue the city of Baltimore, claiming that they had unlawfully taken his property without compensating him. Specifically, he said they violated the Fifth Amendment by unlawful seizure of his property to do their project. The trial court awarded him a fraction of the compensation he had requested, but then the Maryland Appellate Court overturned the decision and said the city didn't owe him money.
Barron took the case all the way to the Supreme Court, which decided that the rights under the Bill of Rights did NOT apply to states. This decision took some power away from state governments and led to the creation of the Fourteenth Amendment in 1868 which gave equal rights to African American citizens.
Individual Rights in the Constitution - Key takeaways
- Individual rights are privileges that are intrinsic to every individual human being. When it comes to government, we view them as rights that the government legally protects.
- Individual rights were important to the early American leaders because of their experience with having their rights violated by the British.
- The Constitution did not originally include individual rights until the Bill of Rights was passed two years later.
- Examples of individual rights in the Constitution include freedom of religion, freedom of the press, and protection from unlawful imprisonment.
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