Yesterday I wrote about the amendment amending an amendment to the Constitution. I hope you read about it. Today more about Amendments.

You’ll probably remember that the Equal Rights Amendment was not ratified in the time required by the Amending process in effect. There was just too much uncertainty about how it would affect certain parts of our normal lives—so in the wisdom of the original Signers of the Constitution it was not approved.

What you may not know concerns the most recent Amendment. That is Amendment 27. This Amendment requires that “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, the Congressmen cannot grant themselves raises unless the citizens who elected them shall have some say about such a raise by an intervening election.

This Amendment was ratified on May 7, 1992, by the vote of the State of Michigan bringing the total to the required number of States to Amend this great document. That was two thirds of the several States as necessary for an approval.

What you may not know, if fact, I’d be surprised if you did know, was when this Amendment was first proposed. It was actually submitted with the proposed Bill of Rights, by James Madison, on September 25, 1789. That’s right. 1789! With the original Bill of Rights.

It wasn’t ratified with the first ten amendments, the Bill of Rights which became effective on September 25, 1789, because it hadn’t yet received enough positive votes. That number wasn’t reached until there were many more States in the Union, and Michigan finally approved it in 1992. There wasn’t too much hoopla about it at the time!