Incorporation Doctrine

The incorporation doctrine is a constitutional doctrine through which parts of the first ten amendments of the United States Constitution (known as the Bill of Rights) are made applicable to the states through the Due Process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Incorporation applies both substantively and procedurally.

Prior to the doctrine's (and the Fourteenth Amendment's) existence, the Supreme Court found the Bill of Rights to only apply to the Federal government and to federal court cases. […] States and state courts could choose to adopt similar laws, but were under no obligation to do so.

After the passage of the Fourteenth Amendment, the Supreme Court, through a string of cases, found that the Due Process clause of the Fourteenth amendment included applying parts of the Bill of Rights to States (referred to as incorporation).

As a note, the Ninth Amendment and the Tenth Amendment have not been incorporated, and it is unlikely that they ever will be. The text of the Tenth Amendment directly interacts with state law, and the Supreme Court rarely relies upon the Ninth Amendment when deciding cases.

https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/incorporation_doctrine

• First Amendment (fully incorporated)
• Second Amendment (fully incorporated)
• Third Amendment (not incorporated)
• Fourth Amendment (fully incorporated)
• Fifth Amendment (partially incorporated)
  ◦ Right to indictment by a grand jury (not incorporated): Hurtado v. California, 110 US 516 (1884);
• Sixth Amendment (partially incorporated)
  ◦ Right to jury selected from residents of the state and district where the crime occurred (not incorporated)
• Seventh Amendment (not incorporated)
• Eight Amendment

This doctrine defines rights that Citizens of the United States have against their state as provided by the Federal Government. Instead of re-inventing the wheel, the Federal Government copied over the rights from the bill of rights that they thought would be most important for their citizens.

Common law is completely unavailable to U.S. Citizens, as they are under the exclusive authority of the Federal Government in an arrangement of allegiance within their fuedal courts. A U.S. Citizen who receives the right of Due Process under the 14th amendment does NOT have access to these protections in the constitution, beyond what the Federal Government offers here. Due to the lack of common law, these persons are not members of the people.