The belated victory of the Antifederalists…

When the Constitution was ratified in 1788, a surprisingly large number of people were opposed to the new government. Many of these individuals believed that the United States Constitution was a good document overall, but were fearful that it did not protect individual rights as much as it should. These opponents of the Constitution sought the addition of a Bill of Rights. George Mason, who was the author of the Virginia Declaration of Rights and one of the men present in Philadelphia, refused to sign or support the Constitution during the ratification process.

James Madison was one of the most important supporters of the Constitution, and urged members of state conventions to ratify the Constitution without a Bill of Rights. Madison believed that the Bill of Rights was unnecessary. Nevertheless, in order to persuade some of the people who were “on the fence” to support the Constitution, he agreed to sponsor amendments to the Constitution – after it was ratified – in order to add a Bill of Rights to the document. At least two states – North Carolina and Rhode Island – insisted that the Bill of Rights be added to the Constitution, and only conditionally approved the document.

Making changes to the national government was a process which the Founding Fathers believed should be possible, but not necessarily simple. After all, changing a document as important as a nation’s Constitution should not be done casually. Therefore, in order for a Constitutional Amendment to be passed, it must be proposed by a two-thirds majority of members of both the House of Representatives or the Congress. But that’s not all! Then, it must be ratified – or approved – by 3/4 ths of the states, in either the state legislatures or in special ratifying conventions held in each state. (That’s even more difficult than the 9 of 13 states required to ratify the Constitution itself!) Only 27 amendments to the Constitution have been added since 1788.

Many supporters of the Bill of Rights wanted to change the actual text of the Constitution and insert the Bill of Rights into the most closely related portion of the Constitution in general. But in the end, the second Congress decided to add the Bill of Rights separately at the end of the document. Personally, I think it makes Americans more aware of their rights as US citizens!

* Originally, James Madison proposed twelve amendments to the Constitution in the Bill of Rights. * Only ten of the original twelve were ratified by the states in * One of the original amendments to the Constitution, which limited Congressional pay by requiring an election between pay raises, was ratified in 1992 – Over two-hundred years after it was originally proposed. * All ten of the Bill of Rights amendments protected individual rights in one manner or another.