History of The United States Constitution - Bill of Rights

Bill of Rights

The Constitution has been amended 27 times since 1789. In 1789, James Madison proposed twelve amendments to the First Congress. Congress approved these amendments as a block in September 1789 and eleven states had ratified ten of them by the end of 1791. These ten amendments are known collectively as the United States Bill of Rights.

Much of the initial resistance to the Constitution came, not from those opposed to strengthening the federal union, but from statesmen who felt that the rights of individuals must be specifically spelled out. One of these was George Mason, author of the Virginia Declaration of Rights, which was a forerunner of the Bill of Rights. As a delegate to the Constitutional Convention, Mason refused to sign the document because he felt it did not protect individual rights sufficiently. Indeed, Mason's opposition nearly blocked ratification by Virginia. Because of similar feelings in Massachusetts, that state recommended with its ratification the addition of specific guarantees of individual rights. By the time the First Congress convened, sentiment for adoption of such amendments was nearly unanimous, and the Congress lost little time in drafting them. Many anti-Federalists had sharply criticized the constitution drafted at Philadelphia for its failure to provide guarantees of individual rights such as freedom of religion and trial by jury.