Five items Congress deleted from Madison’s original Bill of Rights

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

When James Madison spoke to the First Congress he proposed 20 amendments for a Bill of Rights, and not the 10 we all know about. So what did Congress delete from the final list that was ratified by the states?

... if Madison had his original way, our Constitution would have a two-part Preamble that includes part of Thomas Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence before the current preamble.

On June 8, 1789, Madison told Congress the Preamble needed a “pre-Preamble.”

“First. That there be prefixed to the Constitution a declaration, that all power is originally vested in, and consequently derived from, the people.

That Government is instituted and ought to be exercised for the benefit of the people; which consists in the enjoyment of life and liberty, with the right of acquiring and using property, and generally of pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety.

That the people have an indubitable, unalienable, and indefeasible right to reform or change their Government, whenever it be found adverse or inadequate to the purposes of its institution.”

In essence, Madison wanted to bury arguably the most famous sentence in American history, “We the People,” in the middle of a combined Preamble.

Another item that Madison proposed was making sure at least three of the liberties guaranteed in the Bill of Rights applied to all states.

“No State shall violate the equal rights of conscience, or the freedom of the press, or the trial by jury in criminal cases,” Madison said in the fifth part of his original Bill of Rights proposal.

Madison also wanted to clearly spell out that each branch of government had clear, distinct roles.

“The powers delegated by this Constitution are appropriated to the departments to which they are respectively distributed: so that the Legislative Department shall never exercise the powers vested in the Executive or Judicial, nor the Executive exercise the powers vested in the Legislative or Judicial, nor the Judicial exercise the powers vested in the Legislative or Executive Departments,” he said in the last part of his proposed Bill of Rights.

Another interesting twist in Madison’s proposed Bill of Rights was a different version of what became the Second Amendment.

“The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed; a well armed and well regulated militia being the best security of a free country: but no person religiously scrupulous of bearing arms shall be compelled to render military service in person,” said Madison.

And the final, big difference that Madison wanted was the entire Bill of Rights interwoven within the Constitution, and not appended at the document’s end.

http://news.yahoo.com/five-items-congress-deleted-madison-original-bill-rights-113008778--politics.html

[TBoneTX 45,266]

Madison was brilliant. However, he found that he couldn't get everything that he asked for.

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I had a neighbor who would always walk around his house before he walked around the block. One day, I asked him about it. He said, "Oh -- that's the pre-amble to my constitutional."