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On December 15, 1791, Virginia became the tenth state of 14 to ratify ten of the twelve amendments passed by Congress that we know as the Bill of Rights. Happy Bill of Rights Day!At the ratifying conventions in the states, the advocates of the new Constitution were met with skepticism. They worried that the federal government being created in this compact of the states called the Constitution would not limit itself to the few and defined powers delegated to it by the states via the document. The skeptics in most states prevailed upon their delegations to ratify the original Constitution on the condition that a Bill of Rights be rapidly added to the Constitution.Interestingly, almost every state that listed suggestions for the list of the rights to be protected put what would become the Tenth Amendment first on their list.Another interesting aspect of the Bill of Rights is how the Ninth Amendment came into being. The advocates of the new Constitution argued that putting a limited list of rights on the Constitution might be dangerous because people in the future would think that if a right were not listed in the Bill of Rights, it was acceptable to violate it.The Ninth Amendment was crafted as a solution to that problem. It reads: “The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.”The Ninth Amendment clearly links the republican principles laid out in the Declaration - “that all men are . . . endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights . . . That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men.”No law – including the supreme law, our Constitutions – if not enforced, though, if not enforced. We are in the dire straits we are in, today because our Constitution and Bill of Rights has been repeatedly violated by the feds with no one stopping them. That is why I created this group, Texas Constitutional Enforcement.But, let’s take this time to celebrate what those American framers did so many years ago in creating a framework that sought to secure for us, their posterity, the blessings of liberty. And may we resolve to restore it and pass it down to our posterity.