Sparks Commentary: The amendment that never made it into the Bill of Rights

"The Senators and Representatives shall receive a compensation for their services, to be ascertained by law, and paid out of the Treasury of the United States."

- Article 1, Section 6, Paragraph 1 of the original Constitution

The Bill of Rights was the first ten amendments to the Constitution ...

So most people in this country today have heard of the Bill of Rights, and how it consisted of the first ten amendments to the Constitution - although many who once knew this have since forgotten in the years since they left high school. Here's the part of the story that your history classes might not have taught you, about the amendment that never made it into the Bill of Rights.

United States Bill of Rights

... but the Congress actually passed twelve proposed amendments at that time

In 1789, the Congress actually passed twelve proposed amendments at that time, the last ten of which soon became the Bill of Rights. These twelve proposed amendments got through both houses of Congress by the necessary two-thirds majority on September 25, 1789. But amendments have to be ratified "by the legislatures of three fourths of the several states, or by conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other mode of ratification may be proposed by the Congress." (Source: Article 5 of the original Constitution) Moreover, these two "proposed amendments" were never actually ratified in time to become part of the United States Bill of Rights (although the last ten did); and the first one still has its ratification pending, all these years later. The first one (which was never ratified) is the one that appears in the paragraph below, as passed by both houses in 1789:

Congress Hall, the House chamber (where James Madison proposed these amendments)

This one was never ratified, and so never made it into the Constitution ...

"After the first enumeration required by the first article of the Constitution, there shall be one Representative for every thirty thousand, until the number shall amount to one hundred, after which the proportion shall be so regulated by Congress, that there shall not be less than one hundred Representatives, nor less than one Representative for every forty thousand persons, until the number of Representatives shall amount to two hundred; after which the proportion shall be so regulated by Congress, that there shall not be less than two hundred Representatives, nor more than one Representative for every fifty thousand persons." (Source: Proposed amendment to the United States Constitution, which was never actually ratified)

James Madison, the author of these proposed amendments

This one, however, did eventually get ratified, although it had to wait 200 years to do so ...

This last amendment that I quoted was never actually ratified, I should make clear. But the other of these proposed amendments has a somewhat different history, which is the real point of this post here. Before going into its history, I will first give the text of it as passed by both houses of Congress in 1789: "No law, varying the compensation for the services of the Senators and Representatives, shall take effect, until an election of Representatives shall have intervened." (In other words, changes to Congressional pay can't take effect until after the next Congressional elections.) This amendment actually had its ratification pending for some 200 years before it was finally ratified by the "several states" recently - the only amendment to be ratified within my lifetime.

The hand-written copy of the proposed Bill of Rights, 1789,

cropped to show only the specific part that is under discussion in this post

Specifically, it was ratified in 1992 ...

Specifically, it was ratified in the year 1992, and became the Twenty-Seventh Amendment to the United States Constitution at that time. It is also the last amendment to be ratified at the time I write this, and the only one which had to wait for some two centuries to be ratified. I will end now with its text, but will give a proper citation for it this time: