The U.S. Bill of Rights comprises ten amendments to the United States Constitution.
The amendments were proposed after Anti-Federalists criticized the original Constitution for lacking explicit protections for individual liberties. James Madison prepared a group of amendments, and the First Congress approved twelve proposed articles on September 25, 1789.
Only ten of those twelve proposals were ratified by the states in 1791, becoming Amendments One through Ten. The original proposed Article Two was eventually ratified in 1992 as the Twenty-seventh Amendment, while original Article One remains unratified. This history causes a common mix-up: Congress proposed twelve amendments in 1789, but the Bill of Rights itself contains ten.
The Bill of Rights protects freedoms including speech, religion, press, assembly, petition, and due process. It was ratified on December 15, 1791, a date now commemorated as Bill of Rights Day.