BILL OF RIGHTS BECOMES LAW:

December 15, 1791

Following ratification by the state of Virginia, the first 10 amendments to the
U.S. Constitution, known collectively as the Bill of Rights, become the law of
the land.In September 1789, the first Congress of the United States approved 12
amendments to the U.S. Constitution and sent them to the states for
ratification. The amendments were designed to protect the basic rights of U.S.
citizens, guaranteeing the freedom of speech, press, assembly, and exercise of
religion; the right to fair legal procedure and to bear arms; and that powers
not delegated to the federal government would be reserved for the states and the
people.Influenced by the English Bill of Rights of 1689, the Bill of Rights was
also drawn from Virginia's Declaration of Rights, drafted by George Mason in
1776. Mason, a native Virginian, was a lifelong champion of individual
liberties, and in 1787 he attended the Constitutional Convention and criticized
the final document for lacking constitutional protection of basic political
rights. In the ratification struggle that followed, Mason and other critics
agreed to support the Constitution in exchange for the assurance that amendments
would be passed immediately.On December 15, 1791, Virginia became the 10th of 14
states to approve 10 of the 12 amendments, thus giving the Bill of Rights the
two-thirds majority of state ratification necessary to make it legal. Of the two
amendments not ratified, the first concerned the population system of
representation, while the second prohibited laws varying the payment of
congressional members from taking effect until an election intervened. The first
of these two amendments was never ratified, while the second was finally
ratified more than 200 years later, in 1992.