Conference back40::soapbox

                                                        
Or, I should say original 12, because evidently, there were originally 12
amendments in the bill of rights, two of which were not ratified.  Does
anyone know what they were?
    
    There were originally 12 amendments presented.
    
    The first 10 ten to be ratified are commonly called "The Bill of Rights"
    and were ratified by December 15, 1791.  The 11th to be ratified
    was certified as the 27th Amendment on May 18, 1992.
    
    								-mr. bill

Ok, so the first question's answered as follows:

Article the first [Not Ratified]

   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 be
   not 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. 

Article the second [Amendment XXVII - Ratified 1992]

   No law, varying the compensation for the services of the Senators
   and Representatives, shall take effect, until an election of
   Representatives shall have intervened. 

(Shows what happens when I have my heads stuck so far into the books - I
never even knew that there was an amendment ratified in 1992...)

Why so late for GA, MA, and CT, and/or does this explain something? ;-)

>Article the second [Amendment XXVII - Ratified 1992]

>   No law, varying the compensation for the services of the Senators
>   and Representatives, shall take effect, until an election of
>   Representatives shall have intervened. 

> (Shows what happens when I have my heads stuck so far into the books - I
> never even knew that there was an amendment ratified in 1992...)

  I recall there was some discussion about this in 1992. This is the so-called
"Congressional pay raise amendment". Even in the 1790's, it was seen that there
would be a problem with Senators and Representatives voting themselves ex-
cessive pay raises. The president can veto such raises, of course, but Con-
gress can work around this by putting stuff in the bill that the president
really wants. By waiting until after the next Congressional election for the
raise to take effect, it guarantees that at least some of the Congressmen who
voted for it will be out of office before it takes effect, and this in turn is
a disincentive for Congress voting itself a big pay raise.
  Did this amendment actually go into effect?

It is amazing how many times the same old songs come around, ain't it?

It only took 203 years to ratify that amendment.

Yes, it appears that it had been ratified, and is therefore in effect.

I'm still curious about the second question in the base note:

Why is it that MA, CT, and GA didn't ratify the bill of rights way back
when?  And, why did MA bother doing it in 1939?

I s'pose some things get better.  For one, the amendment was finally
ratified.  For another, nowadays Supreme Court appointments seem to be made
at least partly on the basis that the nominee knows something about law,
whereas in the past, it was often tossed to someone out of patronage.

Then again, patronage seems to have reversed polarity in the last few
decades.  It used to be that when someone got elected, they put all their
cronies on the government payroll.  Now, when someone gets elected, all
their cronies put them on their favorite corporate payrolls (in the form of
lobby-bux).

|   Why is it that MA, CT, and GA didn't ratify the bill of rights way back
|   when? 
    
    Why, clearly in the cass of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, it's
    because we were agin a bill of rights!
    
    
    That's why our Constitution (the oldest, by the way) *STARTS*
    with "PART THE FIRST.  Declaration of Rights."  Only after getting
    that out of the way does the frame of government get discussed.
    
    And that's why the "Bill or Rights" for the United States was
    modelled after the Massachusetts "Declaration of Rights" and why
    some of the same people wrote both.
    
    (US - 2nd Amendment "A well regulated militia....", Mass, Article
    XVII - "The people have a right to bear arms for the common defence.")
    
    
    As to why '39, well, after the coup of '33, it took a few years for
    the Mass Legislature to bow to the new ways.
    
    								-mr. bill