1. Introduction The adoption of the Constitution depended on ratification, or approval, by 9 of the 13 states. In desperation, the Constitution’s supporters, the Federalists, looked to John Hancock, the governor of Massachusetts. In a dramatic speech, he urged the delegates to approve the Constitution as written. At the same time, he promised that the first task of the new Congress would be to amend the Constitution by adding a bill of rights. 2. Creating the Bill of Rights In the first presidential election, held in 1789, George Washington became the nation’s first president. John Adams of Massachusetts became vice president. Debate and Approval in Congress While Congress debated other issues, Madison sifted through nearly 100 proposed amendments. He chose those that seemed least controversial, or least likely to cause conflict, and presented them to Congress on June 8, 1789. Ratification by the States Under the Constitution, three-quarters of the states must ratify an amendment before it can become law. By 1791, the required number of states (nine) had approved the other ten amendments. Together, these ten amendments form the Bill of Rights. 3. First Amendment Rights James Madison combined five basic freedoms into the First Amendment. These are the freedoms of religion, speech, the press, and assembly and the right to petition the government. When a person believes that the government has violated these rights, he or she may challenge the government’s action in
Article VII of the Constitution requires it be passed by a minimum of nine states to become law, but the founders knew it would only gain real power with the ratification of all 13 colonies.
In February of 1787, Congress thought it would be beneficial to have a convention. They wanted to address the Articles of Confederation, the nation’s first constitution. The main debates were made over representation in Congress, slavery, and over the new executive branch.
James Madison, primary author of the Bill or Rights and a Representative, introduced 20 amendments on June 8, 1789. The House of Representatives passed 17 amendments, and then they were sent to the Senate for approval. The Senate in turn altered the 17 amendments into 12 articles. During the 1789 Joint Resolution of Congress, Congress agreed on the 12 amendments. It was then necessary that three-fourths of the states formulated their approval. At that moment, the tenth amendment was previously numbered as the twelfth article. However, since two of the articles were not ratified, the remaining articles were then renumbered and thus, the Tenth Amendment was born on December 15, 1791 with its inclusion in the Bill of Rights.
James Madison is the creator of the Bill of Rights and Constitution. When the congress met in 1789, no one seemed in a hurry to amend the Constitution. However, James Madison didn’t forget the promises made during the ratification debate. Originally, the Bill of Rights was going to be added to the Constitution, which seemed unnecessary to him. Madison had written one hundred amendments. He chose ones that seemed less likely to cause conflict, he presented these to the Congress on June 8, 1789. Congress finally approved of twelve amendments. The states still had to ratify these amendments. Nine of the states approved ten of the twelve amendments.
The first ten amendments to the constitution make up the Bill of Rights. These amendments were written by James Madison in response to the call for individual liberties. Madison was a member of the United States House of Representatives. He went through the Constitution line by line making changes that he thought they were most needed. Several Representatives, led by Roger Sherman, said that Congress had no authority to make the change to the Constitution. Madison’s changes were added as lists of amendments that would follow Article VII. The Bill of Rights lists the specific liberties that can’t be prohibited by the United States government. This document starts out with the Virginia Declaration of Right, written by George Mason, this document
The Convention then promised that a bill of rights would be attached to the final draft. Already there were several amendments that were considered when the first Congress met in 1789. Then on September 25, 1789, the first Congress of the United States added the 12 amendments to the U.S. Constitution, and sent them to the states for ratification. Only ten of these amendments were ratified, and not until 1791. James Madison wrote those twelve.
Adopting the Bill of Rights resolved the most important issues remaining from the struggle between Federalists and Anti-Federalists, clearing the way for new issues to come forward (Cornell et al., 2013, p. 159). On June 21, 1788, it needed one more state, New Hampshire, the 9th state, to ratify the Constitution. The Federalist won the debate and therefore, the Articles of Confederation was replaced by the
1787 to amend the articles. Some of the most famous men in our history contributed to this
Originally the Constitutional framers did not include a list of specific liberties. These liberties later would become a Bill of Rights. Many of the founding fathers did not believe it was necessary to spell out these individual liberties because they felt that the U.S. Constitution already made it clear what the limits on the government’s powers were. Soon it would become more evident that the Constitution didn’t go far enough in addressing the issue of national power. As the ratification debates began, numerous issues arose. The framers realized the pressing need for a specific Bill of Rights.
From May 14th through September 17th, they considered plans and proposals for creating a stronger, more centralized system of government. On September 17, 1787, the Convention signed the Constitution and forwarded it to Congress; on September 28th, Congress sent the document on to the states, which were to organize ratification conventions. From the autumn of 1787, through the summer of 1788, sustained debates were carried on in the press--through newspapers, broadsides, and pamphlets--and in person at such venues as town meetings, coffee houses, and taverns. Both the advocates of the Constitution, known as “Federalists,” and its critics, called “Anti-Federalists” tried to persuade voters to support or reject it. The debates in New York City’s press between the Anti-Federalist “Brutus”--Robert Yales--and the Federalist “Publius”--Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison--were particularly intense, and would influence public opinion across the new nation .
1. In 1789, James Madison wrote the Bill of Rights, which lists specific constraints on federal control in a set of 10 amendments ratified by the states. Liberty, meaning freedom from governmental and economic control, was the central factor and of utmost importance in the eyes of Madison and his fellow founding fathers when drafting the Bill of Rights. Protecting the peoples’ respective personal liberties such as freedom of speech and the right to exercise particular religious beliefs played a vital role in the creation of these amendments however limits were also placed on the freedoms granted in order to preserve the nation’s wellbeing.
The First Amendment is the first section of the Bill of Rights and is often considered the most important part of the U.S Constitution because it guarantees the citizens of United States the essential personal freedoms of religion, speech, press, peaceful assembly and the freedom to petition the Government. Thanks to the rights granted by the First Amendment, Americans are able to live in a country where they can freely express themselves, speak their mind, pray without interference, protest in peace and where their opinions are taken into consideration, which is something not many other nationalities have the fortune of saying. The Founding Fathers were the framers of the Constitution of the U.S., and the responsible for the
This Amendment was passed by Congress on September 25, 1789 and was ratified by the states December 15, 1789. It is a part of the Bill of Rights, the first Ten Amendments of the Constitution.
Madison’s path towards the creation of a new constitution began with the Philadelphia Convention where he presented the Virginia Plan. This plan promised that it would supersede the ineffective Articles that were currently in place, and a new more effective constitution would pick up its role. According to the original Virginia Plan drafted by Madison, some of his ideas included, “Resolved that each branch ought to possess the right of originating acts. Resolved that it is the opinion of this Committee that a national government ought to be
Firstly, the Bill of Rights has guaranteed the adoption of the Constitution. James Madison proposed the Bill of Rights to the First Federal Congress on June 8, 1789 (Primary Documents 1). The First Federal Congress then proposed the twelve amendments to the constitution to the state legislatures (Constitutional Politics in Ohio 1). The