Virginia and the Ratification of the Bill of Rights, 1789-1791

Historians and constitutional scholars have paid scant attention to the process by which the states ratified the Bill of Rights. The states' ratifying conventions of 1787 and 1788 have been examined in great detail, as have the debates of the first Congress which led to the presentation of the Bill of Rights to the states. Scholars, however, have treated the ratification of the first ten amendments as little more than an historical formality. Why more than two full years passed between the Congressional adoption of the proposed amendments and the approval by the requisite number of states has never been adequately answered.