Yes, I said eleven, though you were taught in school there were only ten.  There were only ten, back then.... 

But, seven states demanded amendments to protect individual and states’ rights as a price of ratifying the Constitution originally.  The Anti-Federalists came close to defeating the ratification in the critical states of New York and Virginia.  The Federalists agreed that there would be a Bill of Rights.

Over 200 proposals for amendments came in from the states.  James Madison, by then a congressman, boiled them down to 17 amendments, which passed the House.  The Senate passed 12 of them, and the states promptly ratified Amendments Three through Twelve.

Original Amendments One and Two were defeated at the time.  But the states took up the cause of Amendment Two, and in 1992 it was accepted as ratified, the last work by Madison to appear in the Constitution, Amendment 27.  No court has yet seen fit to apply and enforce it, but that should eventually happen.

Quick recap: the First protects the rights of free speech, free religion., free press, political freedom, and bars any official church.  (That last part has been, wrongly, interpreted to mean no mention of God in public places.)  The Second protects the right of individuals to keep and bear arms.  (It only took 219 years for the Supreme Court to get that right.)  The Third limits the government from forcing private homes to take in soldiers, not a serious problem any more.

The Fourth bars unreasonable searches and seizures.  (It should be noted here that this, and all other rights, are guaranteed to AMERICANS, not to foreigners in foreign lands.)   The Fifth bars double jeopardy, self incrimination, and loss of life, liberty or property without due process of law.  It also requires just compensation when private property is taken for public use.  (In the Kelo case, the Supreme Court decided 5-4 that a private developer taking your house was a “public” use.)

The Sixth provides for a speedy trial, an impartial jury, the right to know the charges, confront the witnesses, and have assistance of counsel.  The Seventh guarantees the right to civil trial by jury if the case involves more than a quaint $20 (that was an average year’s income when the Constitution was written), and says that facts tried to a jury shall not be reexamined by any court except by common law.

The Eighth forbids excessive bail, excessive fines, and cruel and unusual punishment.  (What the Supreme Court now calls cruel and unusual punishment would have been kid glove treatment when this was written.)  The Ninth was put in for a purpose that the modern court has largely ignored.  It says, “The enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights shall not be construed to deny ... other rights retained by the people.”

The Tenth was, when written, a powerful and essential Amendment.  It says, “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.  (The Supreme Court gut-shot this amendment in 1981 in Hodel v. Virginia Surface Mining.  The court said it would no longer seek to enforce this amendment, but leave it to the state and federal governments to fight out their differences politically.) 

The 27th Amendment, also from Madison, requires a House election to intervene before a congressional pay raise can take effect.  Congress violates this amendment every two years, on average, taking pay raises they are afraid even to vote on, specifically.  So far, no court has called them to account and stripped their latest raise.

What modern courts have done, with and to the Bill of Rights, are a microcosm of what courts, congresses and presidents have done with the whole Constitution.  Like the Star-Spangled Banner after the Battle of Fort McHenry, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights are singed and torn from the assault on them. 

The Constitution and Bill of Rights now need serious repair.  It is a close call who will prevail, those who benefit from the damaged parts and want to keep them damaged, or those who understand what a written Constitution means, and want to restore it to its former strength and meaning.