Dear List Members:

I am a professor at the University of Kentucky and am writing a book about
James Madison and the Bill of Rights.

Would you please help by answering the question below:

During the debate in the First Congress over whether to insert the proposed
amendments (what became the Bill of Rights) in the Constitution or list
them at the end, Madison said this on August 13, 1789, in support of
inserting the amendments:

"the system will in that case be uniform and entire--nor is this an
uncommon thing to be done..."

I need to know if amendments to state constitutions were inserted in the
body of those document or only at the end, or if there is some other
precedent that would explain Madison's statement.  I also need to know a
citation for this.

I know from Schwartz's five-volume series on the Bill of Rights that of the
12 states that adopted constitutions during the founding period, eight
followed the Virginia model with a separate list of rights, while four
inserted them into their constitutions.

But I still need to know if after the original state constitutions were
written, and up until Madison made that statement in 1789, were there
subsequent amendments?  And if so, where were those amendments placed?

Thanks in advance for answering this question.  You can reply to me
directly if you want:  [log in to unmask]

This book, "James Madison and the Struggle for the Bill of Rights," will be
published in July by Oxford University Press in its "Pivotal Moments in
American History" series:   www.oup.com/usa

Richard Labunski

Richard Labunski
School of Journalism and Telecommunications
University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY 40506-0042
Office:  (859) 257-5719
Home fax:  (859) 873-3557
Internship Web site:  http://JATinternships.uky.edu

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