An important piece of business for the First Congress, meeting in 1789, was the passage of the Bill of Rights. Seven states had ratified the Constitution with the strong expectation that their concerns about individual liberties and limitations to federal power would be addressed through the amendment process. The Federalists of 1787 had thought an enumeration of rights unnecessary, but in 1789 Congressman James Madison understood that healing the divisions of the 1780s was of prime importance: “It will be a desirable thing to extinguish from the bosom of every member of the community, any apprehensions that there are those among his countrymen who wish to deprive them of the liberty for which they valiantly fought and honorably bled.”

Drawing on existing state constitutions with bills of rights, Madison enumerated guarantees of freedom of speech, press, and religion; the right to petition and assemble; and the right to be free from unwarranted searches and seizures. One amendment asserted the right to keep and bear arms in support of a “well-regulated militia,” to which Madison added, “but no person religiously scrupulous of bearing arms, shall be compelled to render military service in person.” That provision for what a later century would call “conscientious objector” status failed to gain acceptance in Congress.

In September 1789, Congress approved a set of twelve amendments and sent them to the states for approval; by 1791, ten were eventually ratified. The First through Eighth dealt with individual liberties, and the Ninth and Tenth concerned the boundary between federal and state authority.

Still, not everyone was entirely satisfied. State ratifying conventions had submitted some eighty proposed amendments. Congress never considered proposals to change structural features of the new government, and Madison had no intention of reopening debates about the length of the president’s term or the power to levy excise taxes. He also had no thought to use the Bill of Rights to address the status of enslaved people. But others capitalized on the First Amendment’s right to petition to force the First Congress into a bitter debate over slavery. (See “Making Historical Arguments: How Did America’s First Congress Address the Question of Slavery?”)

Significantly, no one complained about one striking omission in the Bill of Rights: the right to vote. Only much later was voting seen as a fundamental liberty requiring protection by constitutional amendment—indeed, by four amendments. The Constitution deliberately left the definition of eligible voters to the states because of the existing wide variation in local voting practices. Most of these practices were based on property qualifications, but some touched on religion and, in one unusual case (New Jersey), on sex and race (see “Who Are ‘the People’?” in chapter 8).