On Dec. 15, 1791, the new United States of America ratified the Bill of Rights, a set of 10 amendments to the original U.S. Constitution. This step fulfilled a promise made to Anti-Federalists — who opposed the 1787 ratification — that if they agreed to adopt the plan, the new government’s first Congress would add these amendments. Today we celebrate Dec. 15 as Bill of Rights Day.
The Bill of Rights includes the First Amendment, which constitutionally protects our inherent right of conscience. It also guarantees fundamental civil liberties — freedoms of speech, press, peaceful assembly and petition. Other amendments guarantee these rights: to keep and bear arms, privacy in the home, protection from unreasonable search and seizure, and fair treatment for accused criminals.
James Madison and others feared that enumerating rights would imply the list was comprehensive. Thomas Jefferson disagreed. “Half a loaf is better than no bread. If we cannot secure all our rights, let us secure what we can,” he wrote. This widely shared fear prompted the Ninth and Tenth Amendments, respectively, which assure that “certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people,” and “powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.”
While we now often think of the Bill of Rights as a necessary addition to the federal Constitution, it was the product of state-level constitutions. Historian Gordon Wood wrote of the years from 1775 to 1780: “Never in history had there been such a remarkable burst of constitution making.” He suggests this period was far more important in shaping America’s understanding of constitutionalism than the federal Constitution framed a decade later. Concepts of single executives, bicameral legislatures and separation of powers outlined in several state constitutions in turn influenced the Framers at the 1787 Constitutional Convention.
In British tradition, any act of Parliament or the courts was considered constitutional because there was no single document that served as fundamental law. Collectively, these individual laws give Parliament the power to govern. Thus, revolutionary Americans argued that their rights as Englishmen were being violated because there was no set of laws higher than Parliament to protect them.
As a result, individual states codified bills of rights into their constitutions created after declaring independence. Citizens knew if their state legislatures adopted constitutions, these bodies could amend them in the future. What followed were state-level ratifying conventions comprised of elected delegates to consider proposed constitutions. This process made fundamental law out of written constitutions to which state legislatures must answer.
Many state constitutions led with bills of rights that included universal language. Placing these guarantees at the outset demonstrated their importance to Revolution-era Americans. Virginia led the way in 1776, its constitution including a Declaration of Rights, penned by George Mason with universal language: “All men are by nature equally free and independent and have certain inherent rights,” it began. Thus, these rights could not be deprived or divested when part of a social compact.
Four other states — Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware and North Carolina — followed suit that same year with bills of rights included in their constitutions. Vermont did the same in 1777, Massachusetts in 1780 and New Hampshire in 1783. Other states included rights protections throughout the text, rather than as a list. This practice later influenced the request for a bill of rights in the U.S. Constitution.
Though he personally did not view a national bill of rights as necessary, James Madison kept his campaign promise when elected to the First Federal Congress to propose adding rights protections to the federal constitution. Madison gathered suggestions from the states and synthesized a proposal for Congress, a process detailed here by the National Archives. In sum, 19 specific proposals were made, and 12 passed both houses of Congress. Ten of these were adopted by three-fourths of the states, which is why we have 10 amendments in our Bill of Rights.
Today we often think of the Congress, the Supreme Court and the president as “the government.” And Washington, D.C., is seen as the place where important people decide things for us. That hierarchy and distance can make us feel disempowered and far removed from those decisions. However, the story of how we gained our Bill of Rights shows the influence of the states then, and it can remind us of the power of our local, close-to-home voice now.