The Bill of Rights Is Ratified
Ten amendments answer the Constitution's critics and enshrine individual liberties
Quick facts
- Location
- Ratified across the states
- Date
- 15 December 1791
- Proposed by Congress
- 25 September 1789, 12 amendments
- Ratified
- 10 of 12 amendments
What happened
During the debates over ratifying the Constitution, opponents in several states warned that a stronger central government could threaten individual liberties the way British rule had, and many states ratified only after being promised a bill of rights would follow. On 25 September 1789, the First Congress proposed twelve amendments to the state legislatures; ten were ratified by three-fourths of the states and took effect on 15 December 1791 as the Bill of Rights, guaranteeing freedoms including speech, religion, the press, and due process of law, and limiting federal power over individuals and states.
Why it matters
The Bill of Rights answered the strongest objection to the Constitution, that a government powerful enough to tax and raise armies needed explicit limits on what it could do to its own citizens, echoing the colonists' own grievances against Parliament two decades earlier. Its guarantees remain the most direct legal legacy of the Revolution's founding arguments about the rights of individuals against government power.
How we know
The National Archives holds the enrolled original 1789 Joint Resolution proposing the amendments, on permanent display in the Rotunda, and its own milestone account of the ratification timeline.
Sources
- National Archives. Bill of Rights (1791) · Primary source (author-declared)archives.gov · Cited as a "primary" source (no stronger domain match). · Link is live and its text matches the event's key terms (Jul 2026)
- Library of Congress, Creating the United States exhibition. Demand for a Bill of Rights · Primary sourceloc.gov · The domain "loc.gov" is on our Primary source registry. · Link is live and its text matches the event's key terms (Jul 2026)
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