Bill Of Rights

I am actually well over 100 years old. I was written in the year 1789 and ratified December 15, 1791. Although I am still alive I am getting very weak and fear I may not live much longer. I consist of the first ten amendments to the United States Constitution. These amendments limit the powers of the federal government, protecting the rights of all citizens, residents and visitors on United States territory. Among the enumerated rights these amendments guarantee are the freedom of speech, the freedom of the press, the freedom of assembly, the free exercise of religion, the freedom to petition, the people's right to keep and bear arms, and the rights to be free of unreasonable search and seizure, cruel and unusual punishment, and compelled self-incrimination. I also restrict Congress's power by prohibiting it from making any law respecting establishment of religion and by prohibiting the federal government from depriving any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law. In criminal cases, it requires indictment by grand jury for any capital or "infamous crime," guarantees a speedy public trial with an impartial and local jury, and prohibits double jeopardy. In addition, I state that "the enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people,"[1] and reserves all powers not granted to the Federal government to the citizenry or States. These amendments came into effect on December 15, 1791, when ratified by three-fourths of the States. Most were applied to the states by a series of decisions applying the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, which was adopted after the American Civil War. Initially drafted by James Madison in 1789, I was written at a time when ideological conflict between Federalists and anti-Federalists, dating from the Philadelphia Convention in 1787, threatened the Constitution's ratification. I was influenced by George Mason's 1776 Virginia Declaration of Rights, the 1689 English Bill of Rights, works of the Age of Enlightenment pertaining to natural rights, and earlier English political documents such as the Magna Carta (1215). TMy creation was largely a response to the Constitution's influential opponents, including prominent Founding Fathers, who argued that it failed to protect the basic principles of human liberty. I play a central role in American law and government, and remain a fundamental symbol of the freedoms and culture of the nation. One of the original fourteen copies of me is on public display at the National Archives in Washington, D.C. The original document proposed by Congress actually contained twelve "Articles" of proposed amendment. However, only the third through twelfth articles, corresponding to what became the First through Tenth Amendments to the Constitution, were ratified by the required number of states by 1791. The first Article, dealing with the number and apportionment of members of the House of Representatives, never became part of the Constitution. The second Article, limiting the ability of Congress to increase the salaries of its members, was ratified two centuries later as the 27th Amendment. The term "Bill of Rights" has traditionally meant only the ten amendments that became part of the Constitution in 1791, and not the first two, which dealt with Congress itself rather than the rights of the people. That traditional usage has continued even since the ratification of the 27th Amendment.