<Tr> <Td> <Ul> <Li> </Li> <Li> </Li> <Li> </Li> </Ul> </Td> </Tr> <Ul> <Li> </Li> <Li> </Li> <Li> </Li> </Ul> <P> Incorporation, in United States law, is the doctrine by which portions of the Bill of Rights have been made applicable to the states . When the Bill of Rights was first ratified, courts held that its protections only extended to the actions of the federal government and that the Bill of Rights did not place limitations on the authority of state and local governments . However, in the post-Civil War era, beginning in 1865 with the Thirteenth Amendment - declaring the abolition of slavery - gave rise to the incorporation of other Amendments, providing more rights to the states and people over time . Gradually, various portions of the Bill of Rights have been held to be applicable to state and local governments by incorporation through the Fourteenth Amendment in 1868, and the Fifteenth Amendment in 1870 . </P> <P> Prior to the ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment and the development of the incorporation doctrine, the Supreme Court in 1833 held in Barron v. Baltimore that the Bill of Rights applied only to the federal, but not any state governments . Even years after the ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment, the Supreme Court in United States v. Cruikshank (1876) still held that the First and Second Amendment did not apply to state governments . However, beginning in the 1920s, a series of United States Supreme Court decisions interpreted the Fourteenth Amendment to "incorporate" most portions of the Bill of Rights, making these portions, for the first time, enforceable against the state governments . </P>

The bill of rights was gradually applied to the states through a process called