(Roughly) Daily

For more merriment, see Sketchy Santas.  (And for another real treat see the masterful Terry Zwigoff film memorialized in the title of this missive.)

As we make a list and check it twice, we might celebrate Virginia’s (the state’s, not the doubting young girl’s) ratification of the Bill of Rights. As the tenth consenting state (of 14 at the time), Virginia pushed the first ten amendments to the Constitution past the two-thirds necessary to take effect; and on this date in 1791, they became law.

(Congress had actually passed 12 amendments in 1789, and sent them to the states for ratification.  As to the two amendments not adopted, the first concerned the mechanics of the population system of representation, while the second prohibited laws varying the payment of congressional members from taking effect until an election intervened. The first was never ratified, while the second was finally ratified more than 200 years later, in 1992.)

The Bill of Rights (source: National Archives)