Bill of Rights Passed by House of Representatives
When James Madison spoke to the First Congress he proposed a serial of nearly 20 amendments equally a Bill of Rights, and not the 10 nosotros all know nigh. So what did Congress delete from the terminal list that was ratified by the states?
There were some very significant deletions as his proposed list went through the House and Senate, and Madison himself took role in the decisions to edit out some of his ideas.
In the end, 12 of the original amendments survived the congressional blessing process. Enough states approved 10 of those 12 amendments to make the Pecker of Rights a reality on December 15, 1791. One of two bypassed amendments was eventually ratified in 1992 as the 27th Amendment; it restricted the ability 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.)
But if Madison had his original way, our Constitution would have a two-part Preamble that includes part of Thomas Jefferson'due south Declaration of Independence before the current preamble.
On June 8, 1789, Madison told Congress the Preamble needed a "pre-Preamble."
"First. That at that place be prefixed to the Constitution a declaration, that all power is originally vested in, and consequently derived from, the people.
That Government is instituted and ought to be exercised for the do good of the people; which consists in the enjoyment of life and liberty, with the right of acquiring and using holding, 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 be institute agin or inadequate to the purposes of its establishment."
In essence, Madison wanted to bury arguably the most famous sentence in American history, "Nosotros the People," in the middle of a combined Preamble.
Roger Sherman of Connecticut was among the showtime to question the move to downplay "We the People."
"The truth is better asserted than it can exist by any words what and then ever. The words 'Nosotros the People' in the original Constitution are as copious and expressive as possible," he said. And in fourth dimension, Congress deleted the unabridged "pre-Preamble" every bit the Bill of Rights went through committees.
Another detail that Madison proposed was making sure at least 3 of the liberties guaranteed in the Nib of Rights applied to all states.
"No State 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 part of his original Bill of Rights proposal.
The selective incorporation of parts of the Bill of Rights to u.s.a. didn't happen until the early part of the twentieth century every bit the Supreme Courtroom interpreted the 14th Amendment's Due Procedure Clause in a series of cases.
Madison also wanted to conspicuously spell out that each branch of government had articulate, 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 do the powers vested in the Executive or Judicial, nor the Executive exercise the powers vested in the Legislative or Judicial, nor the Judicial exercise the powers vested in the Legislative or Executive Departments," he said in the last part of his proposed Bill of Rights.
Neither of these items made it through the congressional review process. Merely Madison felt strongly enough about the separation of powers clause that he wanted it equally the new Article VII in the Constitution.
And the second office of the new "Article Vii" did survive in the Bill of Rights. It read, "The powers not delegated by this Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to u.s.a. respectively."
Another interesting twist in Madison's proposed Bill of Rights was a different version of what became the 2d Amendment.
"The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed; a well armed and well regulated militia being the best security of a free state: but no person religiously scrupulous of bearing arms shall be compelled to render military service in person," said Madison.
And the last, big difference that Madison wanted was the unabridged Neb of Rights interwoven within the Constitution, and not appended at the document'due south end.
That idea didn't pass muster with Congress because there were concerns of an advent that the Constitution was existence rewritten. Madison dropped his support of "interweaving" the amendments during the Firm debate virtually moving his already amended Nib of Rights to the Senate.
In the finish, many of the core ideas introduced by Madison in June 1789 made it into the ratified version of the Bill of Rights.
"I think we should obtain the confidence of our fellow citizens, in proportion every bit we fortify the rights of the people against the encroachments of the authorities," Madison said in his address to Congress.
Source: https://constitutioncenter.org/blog/five-items-congress-deleted-from-madisons-original-bill-of-rights
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