Senate Revisions to House Proposed Amendments to the U.S. Constitution
Senate Revisions to House Proposed Amendments to the U.S. Constitution
On June 8, 1789, Representative James Madison of Virginia introduced a series of proposed amendments to the newly ratified U.S. Constitution. Though initially against the idea of an enumerated list of individual rights, fearing that they would be redundant and possibly limit the rights of individuals to those expressly listed, Madison had become convinced the year before that a promised ‘Bill of Rights’ was necessary to convince the states to ratify the Constitution.
That summer, the House of Representatives debated Madison’s proposal, and on August 24, the House passed 17 amendments to be added to the Constitution. The 17 amendments were then printed and sent to the Senate for their consideration.
From September 2 to September 9, the debate continued in the Senate, where the amendments were further revised and recast. This document shows many of the Senate’s handwritten changes to the House-passed articles of amendments. After further debate and additional votes, Congress passed 12 amendments that were sent to the states for approval. Ten of the amendments were ratified by the required three-fourths of the states and became part of the Constitution in 1791. These first 10 amendments to the U.S. Constitution are known as the Bill of Rights.
The two amendments that were passed by both the House and the Senate, but not ratified by the states both deal with Congress itself. The first amendment proposed to the states would have mandated that there be one representative for every 30,000 citizens in a state. The second proposed amendment made it impossible for the current Congress to raise its own pay; they could only raise the pay for the next Congress. This amendment was eventually ratified by the states in 1992, and became what we know as the 27th Amendment to the Constitution.
This document was on display in the “Featured Documents” exhibit in the Rotunda Galleries of the National Archives in Washington, DC, August 12 through September 10, 2014.
The National Archives Museum’s “Featured Documents” exhibit is made possible in part by the Foundation for the National Archives through the generous support of Toyota.
Click here to read all 27 ratified amendments to the Constitution.
Past Featured Records
-
70th Anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka
Thursday, February 1, 2024 – Wednesday, February 28, 2024
East Rotunda GalleryEquity in Education: 70 Years Later
On May 17, 1954, the Supreme Court delivered a unanimous ruling in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka that “separate but equal” was unconstitutional in... Read more
250th Anniversary of the Boston Tea Party
Thursday, December 14, 2023 – Wednesday, January 31, 2024East Rotunda GalleryThe Destruction of the Tea
It wouldn’t be known as the “Boston Tea Party” for another 50 years, but the destruction... Read more
Diseños: An Impact of Mexican Cession
Tuesday, June 20, 2023 – Wednesday, October 18, 2023
East Rotunda GalleryAt the end of the Mexican-American War, the United States annexed more than half of Mexico’s territory under the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. Under its terms, the U.S. promised to... Read more
Celebrating Anna May Wong
Anna May Wong
National Archives, Records of the Immigration and Naturalization Service“I want to be an actress, not a freak.”
Film legend Anna May Wong’s talent could not be contained by the racist casting of early Hollywood movies. Born Wong Liu Tsong in Los Angeles in 1905,... Read more
The Maker of Pilots: Willa B. Brown
Willa B. Brown, February 13, 1943
National Archives, Records of the Office of War InformationAviator Willa Beatrice Brown (1906–92) achieved numerous “firsts” in her lifetime, many of them earned through her tireless advocacy to integrate aviation programs. Brown began taking flying lessons in 1934,... Read more