The Bill of Rights The first ten amendments to the US constitution are called the Bill of Rights because they provide basic legal protection for individual rights. The terms also applied to the English Bill of Rights of 1689 and the Canadian Bill of Rights 1960, and to similar guarantees in the constitutions of the American states. From the perspective of two centuries, it can be said that Madison chose well among they pyramid of proposal sin the state. he included all the great rights appropriate for constitutional protection. The US Bill of Rights contains the classic inventory of individual rights, and it has served as the standard for all