The Origins of a Free Press in Prerevolutionary ... - Web Publishing

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restore us to health.” 146 The Senate removed Madison’s clause that prohibited the
states from violating press freedom, and passed only twelve of the House’s
seventeen amendments.
After Senate passage, a Conference Committee was formed with the
House, to reconcile the two versions. This committee accepted all of the Senate
changes, but made three more alterations, including adding the religious freedom
clause to the press and speech clauses to form what is now the First Amendment.
Both houses agreed to the changes, and sent twelve articles to the states for
ratification. The first two articles failed that approval, and the free press and
religion clauses became the First Amendment only by an accident of history. 147
Ratification of the Bill of Rights
While Virginia was the first state to compose its own bill of rights, it was
one of the last to agree to the federal Bill of Rights. Nine states ratified the ten
amendments within six months, leaving Virginia a critical state. There, the
opposition was able to slow the consideration of the Bill of Rights to a crawl.
Finally, at the end of 1791, Virginia ratified the ten amendments, followed by the
newly admitted state of Vermont. 148 The three states that did not ratify the
amendments—Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Georgia—belatedly did pass them
in 1939 as a symbolic gesture. When ratification had been complete, Secretary of
State Thomas Jefferson sent official notice to the states. The new Bill of Rights was
considered of so little importance that before Jefferson even mentioned the
146 Lee to Patrick Henry, New York, Sept. 14, 1789, in Ballagh, Letters of Richard Henry Lee,
2:501-504.
147 Schwartz, Bill of Rights, 2:1159-1167. The first failed amendment established the ratio of
Representatives in Congress to the population; the second delayed any increased compensation for
members of Congress from going into effect until the next House election was held.
148 Ibid., 2:1171-1203. Initially only ten states were needed to ratify, but by the time Virginia
approved the amendments, Vermont had been added to the Union, meaning that eleven states
were then needed. There are no records of the state ratification debates.