Oct 10, 2002 - Sale 1946

Sale 1946 - Lot 378

Price Realized: $ 288,500
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 30,000 - $ 40,000
HOUSE DRAFT OF THE BILL OF RIGHTS UNITED STATES. Congress of the United States. In the House of Representatives, Monday, 24th August, 1789, Resolved . . . That the following Articles be proposed to the Legislatures of the several States, as Amendments to the Constitution of the United States.<> 3 pages, wide margins on bifolium sheet; toned at edges, minor restoration along bottom of fold. New York: T. Greenleaf, [1789]
Set Alert for Similar Items

Additional Details



On 8 June 1789, James Madison proposed a Bill of Rights, keeping his promise to anti-Federalists who had threatened not to support the ratification of the Constitution without them. Six weeks later a House committee of 11 representatives was formed of members from each state to draft the proposed amendments. The House took up debate on the subject in mid-August, passing most of the amendments on 21 August and finally affirming 17 amendments and forwarding them to the Senate on 24 August, the date of this printing. The Senate, in turn, drafted and passed its own version on 9 September. A conference committee of members of both the House and the Senate met in late September and finalized a version, which was approved by Congress and President George Washington before being sent to the States for ratification.
There are several key differences between the text of this draft and the one eventually sent to the States. The most obvious is that there are 17 amendments, not 12 (the first two amendments of the final version were not ratified by the States, leaving 10 amendments as the Bill of Rights). Two of the House amendments were not included in the final version (articles 14 and 16). Some of the 17 House amendments were combined into single articles in the final version, the most notable instance being the combination of the House third and fourth articles to create what eventually became the First Amendment. Another significant difference between the House version and the final bill sent to the states is the deletion of a conscientious objector clause in the House sixth amendment (i.e. the eventual Second Amendment).
"According to Thomas Greeleaf's account in the Records of the Secretary of the Senate: Concerning Printing, 100 copies of this resolution were printed on August 26" (Veit, Helen E.; et al; editors, Creating the Bill of Rights, Baltimore, 1991, page 9 note). Of this separate printing of the House version, which comprises the second printed draft of the Bill of Rights (preceded only by the 28 July 1789 printed report of the Committee of Eleven, Evans 22000), OCLC locates only the Library of Congress copy. We could locate no copies ever coming to auction. Evans 22201. <