Happy Birthday --- to the best thing America ever produced
by digby
In my humble opinion anyway. Today in history:
The first Congress of the United States approves 12 amendments to the U.S. Constitution, and sends them to the states for ratification. The amendments, known as the Bill of Rights, were designed to protect the basic rights of U.S. citizens, guaranteeing the freedom of speech, press, assembly, and exercise of religion; the right to fair legal procedure and to bear arms; and that powers not delegated to the federal government were reserved for the states and the people.
Influenced by the English Bill of Rights of 1689, the Bill of Rights was also drawn from Virginia's Declaration of Rights, drafted by George Mason in 1776. Mason, a native Virginian, was a lifelong champion of individual liberties, and in 1787 he attended the Constitutional Convention and criticized the final document for lacking constitutional protection of basic political rights. In the ratification process that followed, Mason and other critics agreed to approve the Constitution in exchange for the assurance that amendments would immediately be adopted.
In December 1791, Virginia became the 10th of 14 states to approve 10 of the 12 amendments, thus giving the Bill of Rights the two-thirds majority of state ratification necessary to make it legal.
I've often felt that our vaunted constitution isn't all that --- there's a reason why in the vast democratization that's taken place around the globe in the last century that nobody has adopted it. But the Bill of Rights is one of the best political documents in human history, a distillation of the enlightenment principles that (supposedly) guide our civilization. It's not perfect --- a certain, shall we say, vagueness has caused us some problems. But if, as a society, we could agree to honor the spirit of it, we could keep ourselves from the worst kind of government excesses and the natural negative incentives that occur when humans and power intersect. It's an excellent guideline if only we can keep the natural authoritarians from turning it into an epistemic minefield.
So, give old George Mason and the rest of the boys a big round of applause today. The American Constitution is an experiment of dubious achievement in many ways --- and very often a great exercise in hypocrisy. But the Bill of Rights is something special and Americans have a right to be proud of its intentions.
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