U.S. Bill of Rights Ratified

December 15, 1791

Virginia became the tenth state to ratify the first ten amendments - freedom of speech, press, assembly, religion, right to bear arms, due process, protections from unreasonable search. Madison had distilled them from state conventions' demands. Americans now had a list of what their new government could not do. Two of the original twelve proposed amendments failed; one of them would eventually be ratified in 1992 as the Twenty-seventh.