User:PendletonGaines

There was no Bill of Rights and James Madison was not the author. He did introduce individual amendments sent to the First Congress by Virginia's key 1788 Ratifying Convention, which wrote all but one of the first ten and sent resolutions along with the Amendments to provide key explanations and the true intent, particularly of the Declaratory/Restrictive amendments that became the 10th and 9th amendments.

The first and second prepared amendments became the 10th and 9th respectively, or the 12th and 11th sent back to the States.

Edmund Pendleton (head of Virginia's highest Court) had been President of Virginia’s May, 1776 Peoples Convention. He wrote the Resolution, picked up by Richard Henry Lee, who returned to Philadelphia and introduced it as the Lee Resolution that broke the deadlock in completing the Declaration of Independence. This Convention also prepared a Declaration of Rights, later used as a pattern for other States, and waned to approve it prior to completing the first Constitution for a Government in America–a three branch, republican form of government.

Late, in 1787, after the Convention called to Amend the Articles of Confederation, which had d created the first national government in 1777, had been converted to a Constitution Convention, it approved the Virginia Plan as the central core of the proposed U.S. Constitution and went one step further and had the Constitution guarantee the same form in all States. Pendleton became President of Virginia’s key 1788 Ratifying Convention, and was unanimously selected to be the Pro-Constitution’s lead debater as the plan was to debate the proposed U.S. Constitution, clause by clause.. George Wythe (appears court judge and first professor of law in America,) was vice-president.

Patrick Henry was selected the Anti-Constitution’s lead debater, assisted by George Mason. After Henry had made a long talk regarding an item in the Constitution, pointing out a type of tyranny as the Danger of the Most Dangerous Kind to a Free Country, providing some of its tactics and predicting an abject addition that could spread throughout the nation, the first proposed amendment was read. Henry jumped to his fee to agree and disagree, stating what could happen if the true intent in not presented to the First Congress and later generations. This led to a private meeting between the officers and Henry/Mason.

The outcome was two alterations to the first proposed amendment and the preparation of what later became the ninth amendment.

This brought the Pro-Constitution and the Anti-Constitution leaders together in one respect but with separate views as to how to have the amendments handled. After the motion to ratify the proposed Constitution, Henry proposed an amending motion—to have the declaratory/restrictive amendments, the retention of the Declaration of Rights or a Declaration of Rights be sent to all States for approval, including the States thato had already ratified the Constitution. His motion failed.

Pendleton and Wythe, with the backing of the full Convention that wanted Resolutions to provide explanations and the true intent of the key declaratory/restrictive amendments to be sent with all amendments to the First Congress, taking a chance that it would not pass a Bill of Rights but send amendments back to the States to be ratified individually—not as a Bill of Rights. The First Congress accepted the contents of the Resolutions, and prepared a simple paragraph to advise from where the Amendments had come and to vote on them individually.

Thus, the Tenth and Ninth—both prepared long before the first eight—were the two vital amendments, as the Resolutions pointed out. The Ninth had the people retain all rights of all denominations from the Declaration of Rights already existing in the States. The First amendment did not grant nor could it guarantee any rights; the Second Amendment did not grant the right to own and bear arms and the fourth amendment did not grant the right of privacy or against unreasonable search. It was the Ninth Amendment that had the people retain these rights.

The Press, therefore, received their right from the Declaration of Rights, which provided an obligation with the right of a free press. The second amendment could be removed but the right to own and bear arms would still exist.