Unlike
the Ten Commandments that I memorized in Sunday School, I admit that I haven’t been
quite as painstakingly thorough with the first ten amendments of our Bill of
Rights. I can readily refer to the First Amendment (freedom or religion,
speech, press, assembly and petition) and the Second (right to bear arms). Yet, the other eight get a little vague as I
search around in my memory for them.
The Bill
of Rights, we all learned in grade school, is the first 10 amendments to the
United States Constitution. It was created to protect American public against
tyranny from the government they were creating. Simply put, it’s the ten
promises that our government has for every one of us from birth to death.
While the
Constitution, and all of its 27 amendments, can be a bit wordy at nearly 8,000
words, the Bill of Rights is much shorter at only 452 words. I seems quite easy
… yet, so complicated.
The Bill
of Rights was written by James Madison in 1789. Several states were a bit
worried about individual freedoms and wanted greater protections for them
written into the Constitution. Madison proposed 19 amendments on the floor of
Congress in June of 1789. Two months
later, in September, twelve of the nineteen amendments were approved and sent
to the 13 fledgling states for ratification. Madison fought on and debated
these changes for two years and finally, on December 15, 1791, Virginia became
the last state to ratify the first ten amendments and they became known as the
Bill of Rights.
Two of
Madison’s approved amendments did not become law - they needed to be ratified
by 10 states and they were not. Interestingly, the first was proposed to
establish how members of the House of Representatives would be apportioned to
the states. While the amendment failed, Article 1 of the Constitution addresses
this same topic and by federal statute sets the total members of the House at
435. Interestingly, the second amendment to fail forbade Congress from giving
itself a pay raise. This sounds a bit harsher than it is; the sitting Congress
could vote a raise but it was only applied to the next Congress. This amendment
actually became the 27th amendment to the Constitution in 1992.
Although
the Bill of Rights is relatively short, The Bill of Rights Primer (2013) by
Amar and Adams is about 400 pages. It’s a thorough book and it explains the concepts
of political freedom from the original documents of Thomas Paine’s pamphlet,
Common Sense, from the Federalist Papers, and from the guarantees that the
American colonies adopted from England. Over half of this stubby guidebook is
bibliographical profiles, notes and index, but it is filled with explanations,
background, and description of our first ten amendments or freedoms.
In The
Know Your Bill of Rights Book (2013) by Sean Patrick, you will read the
Preamble to the Bill of Rights. I explains the need for these freedoms. “The
Conventions of a number of the States … expressed a desire, in order to prevent
misconstruction or abuse of its powers, that further declaratory and
restrictive clauses should be added.” It’s a relatively thin paperback, but it
includes a glossary and the full wording of each amendment, and an explanation
and background of the most controversial ones. The simplest, like the Third
Amendment (“No soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house,
without the consent of the Owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed
by law.”) need little explanation but the First Amendment needs several dozen
paragraphs.
The Bill
of Rights – the Fight to Secure America’s Liberties (2015) is the second book
about the history of the Constitution by Carol Berkin. Another of her books, A
Brilliant Solution (2002) focuses on the entire Constitution. This latest book
focuses only on the men who battled over the Bill of Rights. It’s a story of
ego, argument, and compromise. Berkin’s book contains over 65 pages of brief
biographies of the members of the First Federal Congress.
How to
Read the Constitution by Paul B. Skousen (2016) includes explanations of all of
the amendments, the Constitution, and the Declaration of Independence. It
includes memory tricks and small tests, so if you are determined to be the
expert at your family dinner table, this is the book for you.
All
parents and grandparents can learn more about the Bill of Rights by encouraging
small children to begin reading about the Bill of Rights at an early age. There
are many books about the entire Constitution, but these focus on the Bill of
Rights: America’s Bill of Rights by Kathleen Krull; Scholastic’s The Bill of
Rights of Christine Taylor-Butler; and the Fact-Finders series, The Bill of
Rights in Translation – What it Really Means by Amie Jane Leavitt. The last two are just the right size for a
comfy half-hour conversation on the couch.
Last
year, the National Archives commemorated the 225th anniversary of the Bill of
Rights by offering a pop-up
kiosk exhibit for
local libraries and museums. The deal was that a library would hold a
scholar-led discussion or a panel on the bill of rights which was funded by a
small $500 grant from the Mass Humanities organization. Many small libraries in
Massachusetts participated in this program. We did not apply to be one of them.
Why? Because we simply couldn’t decide where the kiosk display would go at the
Morrill Memorial Library!
However,
when libraries across Massachusetts offered to recycle the kiosk-type exhibits
made of cardboard, we hopped on the bandwagon. Or rather, we drove right over
to East Bridgewater to pick up their display.
That lovely kiosk now sits in front of the Cushing Reading Room
fireplace and will during the months of March and April. We think it looks
lovely and it reminds us each day that it’s up to us to make the change we need
to see as citizens of the United States. It also reminds us how lucky we are to
stand behind and beside our 225-year old Bill of Rights.
