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Defending the Constitution
have no jurisdiction over disputes between citizens of different States unless the amount in contention is at least $3,000; (7) Congress shall never
consent that a person holding office under the United States shall accept
a title of nobility from a foreign state.
In one place the list proposed by South Carolina mentioned the ‘‘freedom of the people,’’ but otherwise it dealt with the issue of ‘‘the sovereignty of the several States.’’ Of the twelve proposed amendments offered
by New Hampshire, less than half had a direct bearing on individual liberty. The many amendments proposed by Virginia and New York, which
went into great detail, dealt in part with individual liberty and in part with
proposed changes to increase the powers of the States.
Thus it may be seen that federalism was an important ingredient of
the ‘‘Bill of Rights’’ as finally adopted. The Bill of Rights was, in fact, a
concession to the Anti-Federalists and to the States’ Rightists who feared
Federal usurpation of State power, particularly in the sensitive area of
civil liberties. By its terms, the Bill of Rights applied only to Congress
(the Federal government) and exempted the States. Viewed in historical
perspective, its purpose was two-fold: (1) to assure each individual that
the Federal government would not encroach upon his civil liberties,
and (2) to assure each State that the Federal government would not have
jurisdiction over most civil liberties disputes between a State and its citizens. Each amendment was a guarantee to the individual and to the
States, limiting the powers of the Federal government but not those of
the States. On the question of freedom of the press, for example, Congress alone was prohibited by the First Amendment from abridging such
freedom, thus leaving the States to establish their own standards of free
press under their own constitutions and State bills of rights.
The task of drafting the Bill of Rights and submitting the amendments
to the States for ratification fell on members of the First Congress in 1789.
James Madison, who had been elected to the House of Representatives,
was a member of the special committee that was responsible for sifting
through the myriad amendments suggested by the States, and it was under his leadership that the Bill of Rights took shape.
The Bill of Rights as originally adopted by Congress and submitted to
the States contained twelve amendments. The first two, proposing a new
scale of representation for the House of Representatives and a limitation