Well for starters, the Bill of Rights should be paramount to the nation. It represents a list of rights not given to citizens by the government, but rights that are to be protected at all costs.
We have seen in history that whenever these rights were violated or even taken away, that nation has often fallen into turmoil. We've seen this in early examples with Great Britain and the American colonies and the French Revolution, and in modern day with communist nations. A "hallmark" of communist countries is the total restriction of free speech (against the ruling party) and the searches and arrests of people who were against the state. Often times these people would either be put in concentration camps or executed.
Also, for these rights to be properly protected, a central government needs to be in place to do so as its first priority. One could argue from the examples listed above that when the central government overstepped its boundaries is when their nation began to implode, and citizens started to revolt.