Twelve amendments made up the original Bill of Rights proposed by Congress in 1789.
James Madison introduced a package of twelve proposed amendments to Congress on June 8, 1789. The proposals responded to concerns raised during the Constitution’s ratification debates, especially fears that the new federal government might infringe individual and state liberties.
The states ratified ten of the twelve proposals by 1791, and those ten became known as the Bill of Rights. The original first and second proposals did not receive the required number of state approvals at that time. The original second proposal, concerning congressional pay, was eventually ratified in 1992 as the Twenty-seventh Amendment.
This history explains a common mix-up: the Bill of Rights contains ten amendments, but Congress originally sent twelve amendments to the states. The surviving first proposal, concerning congressional apportionment, has never been ratified and is still legally pending before the states.