Madison’s Unpassed Amendment Sought to Bind States to the Bill of Rights

During the first Congress, James Madison presented a series of amendments that would later form the Bill of Rights, and one of those measures sought to prohibit state interference with freedoms of conscience, the press, and criminal jury trials. The Senate rejected this provision, so it never entered the Constitution. Consequently, early Supreme Court rulings, notably Barron v. Baltimore in 1833, held that the Bill of Rights constrained only the national government, allowing states to enact their own restrictive statutes.

The post-Civil War 14th Amendment, championed by Senator Jacob Howard, was drafted to curb state power and to apply fundamental guarantees to the states. The Supreme Court finally recognized this doctrine in the 1925 decision Gitlow v. New York, making the First Amendment applicable to state action. Madison’s unrealized amendment foreshadowed the later constitutional shift that the 14th Amendment completed.