Happy Bill of Rights Day Everyone!

Lets start off the day with the Bill of Rights Institutes’ interesting facts:

• The Bill of Rights was ratified December 15, 1791.
• Congress adopted twelve amendments, of which only ten were ratified by the states by 1791.
• Over 200 years later, one more of the original twelve, concerning compensation for Congress was ratified on May 7, 1992, becoming the Twenty-Seventh Amendment.
• James Madison wrote the Bill of Rights and was inspired, in part, by the Virginia Declaration of Rights, written by George Mason.
• The Bill of Rights initially applied only to the federal government; however, the Supreme Court, through the Fourteenth Amendment, has incorporated some portions to apply to the states.
• Only 17 amendments have been ratified since the adoption of the Bill of Rights.

The National Archives Bill of Rights site should already be in your bookmarks. You have read it lately, haven’t you? While you are at it, have you read it to your kids?

No Looking Backwards reprints the Bill of Rights. , The War On Guns tries to find a better word than Happy. The Other Side of Kim also reprints them. The Ready Line also wishes everyone a Happy Bill of Rights Day.

And then we have Tim Lynch’s post over at Cato @ Liberty – He goes through the amendments and covers how nearly every one is being violated by our current government.

It’s a depressing snapshot, to be sure, but I submit that the Framers of the Constitution would not have been surprised by the relentless attempts by government to expand its sphere of control. The Framers themselves would often refer to written constitutions as mere ”parchment barriers” or what we would describe as ”paper tigers.” They nevertheless concluded that putting safeguards down on paper was better than having nothing at all. And lest we forget, that’s what millions of people around the world have — nothing at all.

And to top it off, go buy a bunch of Pocket Constitutions and give them to your friends and family for Christmas. Don’t forget the kids, our founding documents are surprisingly easy to read and understand — that is as long as you’re not a Lawyer, pointy-headed intellectual, or liberal activist.