Bill of Rights proposed by Madison in the First Congress

On June 8, 1789, James Madison rose in the House of Representatives at Federal Hall in New York City and introduced a package of constitutional amendments. Madison drew on George Mason's Virginia Declaration of Rights of 1776 and on amendment proposals sent by state ratifying conventions in Massachusetts, Virginia, and New York. The First Congress debated Madison's proposals through the summer of 1789, reduced the list from nineteen amendments to twelve, and sent those twelve articles to the states on September 25, 1789.

Madison's proposal addressed the central Anti-Federalist objection that had shadowed ratification: the Constitution created a stronger national government without explicitly protecting individual liberties. By offering amendments in the First Congress, Madison tried to reconcile critics such as George Mason and Patrick Henry to the new federal system without reopening the entire constitutional settlement of 1787 and 1788. The debate therefore tested whether the Constitution could answer its own opponents through lawful amendment rather than through another convention.

Ten of the twelve amendments sent out by Congress were ratified on December 15, 1791, becoming the Bill of Rights. Those ten amendments guaranteed protections for speech, religion, the press, arms, jury trial, and security against unreasonable searches, directly answering the ratification demands that had shaped the conventions in Massachusetts, Virginia, and New York.