19 Amendments To The Bill Of Rights

The Bill of Rights

In 1789, James Madison introduced 19 amendments to the Constitution out of which Congress adopted 12 of the amendments for ratification by the states, ten of which were collectively known as the Bill of Rights. The Bill of Rights guaranteed citizens basic protections and limited governmental power in certain spheres, and became a part of the Constitution on December 10, 1791. For example, the First Amendment protects our rights as citizens to free speech and religion while the Fourth Amendment protects us from unwarranted governmental intrusion in our homes. Other rights include the right to a quick and public trial by an impartial jury as well as the right to bear arms. When it came to weapons and liberty, both the federalists and the anti-federalists agreed that they were inextricably linked together and that a standing army posed a significant threat to peoples' liberty. The dilemma was that an army would be necessary in wartime but waiting for war to assemble an army could potentially be disastrous.
This installed a system of checks and balances; essentially, the people controlled the House of Representatives and the Senate while Congress was in charge of funding thus giving the people a check against the threats posed by a standing army during peacetime. The militia provided a second check against the notion of a standing army. The necessity of providing for the common defense had to be satisfied while guarding against the government's abuse of power, and federalists and anti-federalists alike believed that to oppose a tyrannical government and armed population was