Have The Bill Of Rights Ever Been Changed

When James Madison spoke to the Get-go Congress he proposed a series of nearly xx amendments as a Bill of Rights, and not the 10 we all know most. Then what did Congress delete from the final list that was ratified by the states?

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There were some very pregnant deletions as his proposed list went through the House and Senate, and Madison himself took part in the decisions to edit out some of his ideas.

In the end, 12 of the original amendments survived the congressional approval process. Enough states approved x of those 12 amendments to make the Bill of Rights a reality on December xv, 1791. One of ii bypassed amendments was eventually ratified in 1992 as the 27th Amendment; it restricted the power of Congress to change its pay while in session. (The other proposed amendment dealt with the number of representatives in Congress, based on the 1789 population.)

Just if Madison had his original style, our Constitution would accept a two-office Preamble that includes part of Thomas Jefferson's Declaration of Independence earlier the electric current preamble.

On June 8, 1789, Madison told Congress the Preamble needed a "pre-Preamble."

"First. That there be prefixed to the Constitution a proclamation, that all ability is originally vested in, and consequently derived from, the people.

That Authorities is instituted and ought to be exercised for the benefit of the people; which consists in the enjoyment of life and liberty, with the right of acquiring and using property, and generally of pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety.

That the people have an indubitable, unalienable, and indefeasible right to reform or change their Government, whenever it exist found agin or inadequate to the purposes of its institution."

In essence, Madison wanted to bury arguably the near famous sentence in American history, "We the People," in the middle of a combined Preamble.

Roger Sherman of Connecticut was among the first to question the move to downplay "Nosotros the People."

"The truth is better asserted than it can be by whatsoever words what then e'er. The words 'We the People' in the original Constitution are equally copious and expressive equally possible," he said. And in time, Congress deleted the entire "pre-Preamble" as the Bill of Rights went through committees.

Another item that Madison proposed was making certain at least three of the liberties guaranteed in the Bill of Rights applied to all states.

"No Land shall violate the equal rights of censor, or the liberty of the press, or the trial by jury in criminal cases," Madison said in the fifth function of his original Neb of Rights proposal.

The selective incorporation of parts of the Bill of Rights to the states didn't happen until the early role of the twentieth century as the Supreme Court interpreted the 14th Amendment's Due Process Clause in a series of cases.

Madison as well wanted to clearly spell out that each branch of government had clear, distinct roles.

"The powers delegated by this Constitution are appropriated to the departments to which they are respectively distributed: and so that the Legislative Department shall never practice the powers vested in the Executive or Judicial, nor the Executive exercise the powers vested in the Legislative or Judicial, nor the Judicial do the powers vested in the Legislative or Executive Departments," he said in the last part of his proposed Neb of Rights.

Neither of these items made it through the congressional review process. Simply Madison felt strongly enough about the separation of powers clause that he wanted it every bit the new Article VII in the Constitution.

And the second part of the new "Article 7" did survive in the Bill of Rights. It read, "The powers non delegated past this Constitution, nor prohibited past it to u.s., are reserved to the States respectively."

Another interesting twist in Madison's proposed Bill of Rights was a dissimilar version of what became the Second Subpoena.

"The correct of the people to keep and conduct artillery shall non be infringed; a well armed and well regulated militia being the best security of a gratuitous country: but no person religiously scrupulous of bearing arms shall exist compelled to render military service in person," said Madison.

And the final, large difference that Madison wanted was the entire Nib of Rights interwoven within the Constitution, and not appended at the document's end.

That thought didn't pass muster with Congress because in that location were concerns of an appearance that the Constitution was existence rewritten. Madison dropped his back up of "interweaving" the amendments during the Business firm fence almost moving his already amended Bill of Rights to the Senate.

In the end, many of the core ideas introduced by Madison in June 1789 made it into the ratified version of the Bill of Rights.

"I think nosotros should obtain the confidence of our young man citizens, in proportion as we fortify the rights of the people against the encroachments of the government," Madison said in his address to Congress.