The document discusses the history of how individual civil liberties protections established in the US Constitution's Bill of Rights have been applied to state and local governments. It outlines key Supreme Court cases like Barron v. Baltimore in 1833, which ruled the Bill of Rights did not apply to state actions, and Gitlow v. New York in 1925, which established that the 14th Amendment incorporated some freedoms of speech and press against the states. It also defines the incorporation doctrine through which the Court nationalized most Bill of Rights provisions by applying them to state and local governments via the 14th Amendment due process clause.