September 25, 1789 — Congress Sends the Bill of Rights to the States

Four years after the war, the ink on the Constitution was barely dry, and already men were arguing it didn’t go far enough. Some wanted more power in government. Others feared too much.

So Congress put quill to parchment again, hammering out a list of guarantees: speech, press, religion, assembly, arms, trial by jury, ten in all that would become the Bill of Rights. On this day in 1789, they sent them to the states for approval.

Now I’ll tell you plain. Rights ain’t real because Congress writes them. They’re real because men demand them. I saw it on the frontier. A free man doesn’t wait for permission to speak his mind or defend his home. He does it, because the alternative is chains.

Still, it mattered that the promises were written. Parchment has power. Once a right’s in ink, every man who bleeds for it after can point to it and say, you swore.

Course, promises on paper only matter if folks are willing to back them with powder and steel when tested. That was true in my day. Still is now.

— Captain Samuel Mason, Washington County Militia

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