Today, December 15, is Bill of Rights Day, the 230th anniversary of the ratification of the first 10 amendments to the United States Constitution. On this day in 1791, the Virginia General Assembly completed the ratification process for those amendments. Virginia’s ratification of the Bill of Rights fulfilled the requirement that federal constitutional amendments must be ratified by three-fourths of the states before becoming the law of the land.
The first Federal Congress passed a joint resolution on September 25, 1789, sending 12 amendments to the states for their consideration. The amendments that became the Bill of Rights were amendments number three through 12 of those proposed amendments. The first amendment on the original list presented a formula for determining the size of the House of Representatives. The second amendment on the list stated that Congress may not benefit from an increase or decrease in pay that it legislates for its members until after a subsequent congressional election takes place. This second amendment became the 27th Amendment in 1992. James Madison initially presented a list of 20 proposed amendments. The House of Representatives revised the list, finally approving 17 amendments. The Senate then returned with further revisions reducing that number to 12.
The list of 12 amendments appears in the images below of pages