It's a document that still protects our most basic and fundamental freedoms more than two centuries since its inception, asserting that people are born with certain rights that must be defended even against their own government. While most of us learned about the Bill of Rights in grade school, here are a few fun facts you might not know about one of America's most important documents:
1. Dec. 15 was first recognized as Bill of Rights Day by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1941.
2. George Mason of Virginia refused to sign the original U.S. Constitution in 1787, and listed his 16 objections on the back of one copy. Among them was the lack of a bill of rights, as well as the lack of a measure to abolish the slave trade.
3. Most people know that the Bill of Rights is the first 10 amendments to the U.S. Constitution. What you may not know is there have been more than 11,000 proposed constitutional amendments since the Constitution was first ratified in 1787.
4. The Bill of Rights was based on the Virginia Declaration of Rights, which had been written by George Mason two months before the Declaration of Independence was signed in 1776. James Madison, who helped draft the U.S. Constitution, drafted the original Bill of Rights.
5. Madison’s original version of the Bill of Rights included 20 amendments, which were then proposed to Congress on June 8, 1789. The list was whittled down to 17 amendments, then again down to 12. After being sent to the states for ratification, the final Bill of Rights was altered to include the 10 amendments we all know today.
6. Congress commissioned 14 copies of the Bill of Rights when it was ratified in 1891. One was kept for the federal government, while the other 13 were sent to the 13 original states. Most states have retained their original copies, and the national copy can still be viewed at the National Archives in Washington, D.C. Georgia, Maryland, New York, and Pennsylvania do not have their original copies.
7. North Carolina’s copy of the Bill of Rights was missing for nearly 140 years after it was stolen by a Union soldier during the Civil War. The document was recovered in 2003 with the help of the National Constitution Center and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.