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How did Supreme Court rulings apply many Bill of Rights protections to state governments?

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A person ascends the steps of the west facade of the United States Supreme Court Building in Washington, D.C., with its tall columns and a round fountain in the foreground. — Supreme Court of the United States The west facade of the U.S. Supreme Court building, Washington, D.C.

The Bill of Rights was originally intended to restrict only the federal government, not state governments. This changed following the ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment in 1868, which prohibited states from depriving any person of "life, liberty, or property, without due process of law".12

Beginning in the early 20th century, the Supreme Court of the United States utilized this due process clause to apply most Bill of Rights protections to the states through a process known as selective incorporation. Rather than applying the entire Bill of Rights at once, the Court selectively incorporated specific rights—such as freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and various criminal procedure protections—by determining whether they were "fundamental" to the American "scheme of ordered liberty".3142

A landmark example is Gitlow v. New York* (1925), which extended the First Amendment's protection of speech to the states. More recently, in McDonald v. City of Chicago*, the Court incorporated the Second Amendment's right to keep and bear arms. Today, almost all of the Bill of Rights has been incorporated against the states.3421