U.S. Constitution Quickly Needed Adjustments Called “The Bill of Rights”

Our country’s Founding Fathers realized that the legal document they wrote, called the U.S. Constitution, needed changes immediately after it was ratified into law on September 17, 1787.

Congress Hall in Philadelphia

The first 10 of the current 27 Amendments to the historic document make specific references to freedoms not explicitly indicated in the main body of the Constitution. These 10 specific laws, added two years after the ratification of the Constitution, guarantee individual liberties, limit government power in judicial proceedings, and reserve powers to the states and the public. They are called The Bill of Rights.

The original U.S. Congress proposed 12 amendments to the Constitution on September 25, 1789. State legislatures rejected the first two proposals and ratified the remaining 10 in 1791. The first rejected proposal described the number of constituents for each U.S. representative and the second one dealt with the salaries of congressmen. So proposals 3 to 12 became the first amendments to the Constitution. 

This is a synopsis of the Bill of Rights ratified by the 13 U.S. states on December 15, 1791:

• Amendment 1 Freedom of Religion, Speech and the Press 
• Amendment 2 Right to Bear Arms 
• Amendment 3 Housing of Soldiers in Private Homes
• Amendment 4 Protection from Unreasonable Search and Seizures 
• Amendment 5 Protection of Rights to Life, Liberty and Prosperity
• Amendment 6 Rights of Accused Persons in Criminal Cases
• Amendment 7 Rights in Civil Cases
• Amendment 8 Preventing Excessive Bail, Fines, and Punishments
• Amendment 9 Other Rights Kept by the People
• Amendment 10 Undelegated Powers Kept by the States and People

The Bill of Rights helped satisfy opponents to the ratification of the Constitution. Several state legislatures charged that the Constitution established a strong central government that could violate the civil rights of the individual states. The concern of an all-powerful central government came out during debates among the state leaders during the ratification process.  This concern was a carry-over from the domination of the British to the U.S. Colonies. Members of the First Congress wrote the Bill of Rights to prevent the federal government from ever dominating the states.

Seventy-seven years later the Fourteenth Amendment ensured citizens of all states have not only rights on the federal level but on the state level as well. This amendment became law shortly after the end of the Civil War. It meant that the newly freed slaves and their descendants were full citizens of the United States and must be afforded all the legal protections granted to citizens. Ratified on July 9, 1868, the Fourteenth Amendment gave the individual states the powers to enforce the personal freedoms guaranteed in the Bill of Rights under a process known as incorporation. The U.S Constitution and subsequent amendments influence legal decisions made at the state and federal level.

There were fourteen handwritten copies of the Bill of Rights, one for each of the original states and one for Congress. There are few surviving copies, two can be viewed publically in the National Archives in Washington, D.C. and the New York Public Library.

Thank you for reading this blog. Come to this space later this month to read about another interesting topic. See my website at www.joevlatino.com.