I still didn’t know, even after my senior year at High School, that the Bill of Rights was what they called the first ten amendments to our U.S. Constitution. I guess it just didn’t appear to me to be that important back then. What do high schoolers think about it today?

Now when I hear a person that doesn’t know that, I shudder. Today many people argue that protecting the freedoms of “religion, speech, assembly, press and petition, were the most important issues to the first Americans and that’s why they’re in the first amendment.

James Madison, who proposed the first amendments, and is credited with writing the Bill of Rights, proposed more than 20 amendments, 12 were sent for approval by the States, and only 10 were accepted by vote. The now famous First Amendment was actually the 3rd amendment of Madison’s draft.

You may ask; “What were the first two, the ones that weren’t approved?” They dealt with pay raises for Congress and apportionment of Congressional districts. So, it appears, that even in the beginning of our country, politicians were most interested in power and money!