The Original 12 Amendments?
This past Sunday, the National Archives celebrated Bill of Rights Day. Ratified on December 15, 1791, the Bill of Rights is comprised of the first 10 amendments to the U.S. Constitution, which spell out our rights as Americans. But why exactly do we have a Bill of Rights? Test your knowledge with 10 fascinating facts about our third Founding Document.
The Constitution might never have been ratified if the framers hadn't promised to add a bill of rights.Â
As you may recall, two factions had different views about the need for a bill of rights. First, the Anti-Federalists contended that the Constitution gave too much power to the federal government and a bill of rights was needed to protect individual liberty. Second, the Federalists believed that the Constitution already protected individual rights. James Madison, a fierce Federalist, promised that a bill of rights would be added after the Constitution was approved. Madison’s support for a bill of rights helped convince some states to ratify the Constitution, and by June 21, 1788, enough states had approved the document to make it law.
The first draft of the Bill of Rights contained nearly 20 amendments.
Madison first submitted nearly 20 amendments for consideration, largely based on the Virginia Declaration of Rights, the English Bill of Rights, and rights defined in the Magna Carta (remember, the Founding Fathers used to be English subjects). The House of Representatives passed a joint resolution including 17 amendments based on Madison’s proposal. On September 25, 1789, with a two-thirds majority, Congress approved a final version and sent 12 proposed amendments to the states for ratification.
The original enrolled Bill of Rights contains 12 amendments—not 10.
Although 12 amendments were sent to the states for ratification, only 10 were ratified and adopted at that time—we now know them as our Bill of Rights.
What are the “lost” two amendments? The originally proposed First and Second Amendments called for:
1. For every 30,000 people, there will be one representative in Congress. If this had been ratified, we’d have over 6,000 members of Congress today!Â
2. Congressional salary changes can only take effect after the next election of the House of Representatives. In other words, members of Congress can’t increase their own salaries. Which brings us to our next fact…
The proposed Second Amendment is now our 27th Amendment.
The original Second Amendment related to congressional pay was ratified 203 years after it was first proposed, all thanks to a university student.
In 1982, Gregory Watson, a student at the University of Texas at Austin, wrote a paper on the proposed amendment and began lobbying state legislatures to pass it. Because of Watson’s efforts, on April 27, 1983, Maine became the first state to ratify the amendment. During the next several years, numerous states followed Maine’s lead until Michigan’s ratification on May 7, 1992. On May 18, 1992, Don Wilson became the first and only Archivist of the United States (so far) to certify a constitutional amendment.
There are 14 original copies of the Bill of Rights.
The enrolled version of the Bill of Rights—approved on September 25, 1789, before being sent to the states for ratification–-is preserved and protected at the National Archives in Washington, D.C. But did you know there are 13 other original copies?
President Washington sent 13 copies to the 11 existing states, plus Rhode Island and North Carolina (which had not yet adopted the Constitution), for ratification on October 2, 1789. Today, eight states still have their copies—Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Rhode Island, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Virginia—while some of the original copies were destroyed or are missing. However, two original copies have resurfaced: one in an 1896 gift to the New York Public Library (believed to be Pennsylvania’s missing copy) and one in a 1945 gift to the Library of Congress.
You can find an original broadside (a poster meant for public display) of New Hampshire’s Bill of Rights at the National Archives Museum—one of only two such broadsides known to still exist.
The Bill of Rights’ home has changed over the years before it was put on permanent display at the National Archives.
The original enrolled copy of the Bill of Rights remained in New York City until it was sent to Philadelphia, where the seat of government was moved. In 1800, the Founding Document came to the new capital in Washington, D.C., and was only briefly removed during the War of 1812 when the British burned the city.
The Department of State, responsible for safeguarding the federal government’s most significant records before the creation of the National Archives, kept the enrolled copy of the Bill of Rights until 1938. That year, the Bill of Rights and other historic State Department records were transferred to the National Archives, where it was displayed several times. Then in 1952, the Bill of Rights was joined by the Constitution and Declaration of Independence—transferred from the Library of Congress—to go on permanent display in the National Archives Rotunda, where all three Founding Documents have remained.
The Bill of Rights toured the country for 18 months in 1947-1949.
Speaking of moving around, the Bill of Rights has visited nearly every U.S. state. From 1947 to 1949, the Bill of Rights toured the country for 18 months on the Freedom Train, an initiative to increase public awareness of the need to preserve important documents. Viewed by more than 3.5 million Americans, the Freedom Train stopped in cities in each of the 48 states (Alaska and Hawaii were not yet states).
Three states waited until 1939 to ratify the Bill of Rights.
For the Bill of Rights to be adopted, it needed to be ratified by three-fourths of the states. This happened on December 15, 1791, when Virginia became the 11th state to ratify the amendments. However, three states ratified the Bill of Rights a century and a half later: Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Georgia. In 1939, the three states symbolically ratified the 10 amendments on the anniversary of the Bill of Rights’ original ratification.
December 15 was declared “Bill of Rights Day” during its 150th anniversary.
During 150th anniversary commemorations in 1941, Congress passed a joint resolution authorizing the President “to issue a proclamation designating December 15, 1941, as Bill of Rights Day.” That year, President Franklin D. Roosevelt dedicated December 15, 1941, as Bill of Rights Day. Since 1962, the President has acknowledged Bill of Rights Day every year.
You can see the original Bill of Rights at the National Archives.
Almost every day of the year (except Thanksgiving and Christmas Day), visitors can see the original enrolled Bill of Rights in the National Archives Rotunda in Washington, D.C. Can’t make it to D.C. right now? You can also take a closer look at the Bill of Rights here.
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