Happy 218th Birthday, Bill of Rights

Who knew December 15 was such an important date? It isn't any kind of national holiday, though maybe it should be. It's the day that the Bill of Rights officially became the first 10 amendments of the US Constitution, according to last year's Topeka Capital-Journal.

Today is the Bill of Rights' 218th birthday. Yipee for the freedom of religion, speech and — of special concern to us here — the press! Hooray for rights to trial by jury and peaceable assembly! Let's give a round of applause to the right to bear arms!

None of these freedoms should be taken for granted. Who can we thank? George Mason, that's who.

One of the Founding Fathers, Mason was present at the 1787 Constitutional Convention at which the country's Constitution was drafted. He later refused to sign it, however, opposed to its ratification because he felt that individual rights weren't sufficiently protected and the federal government was given too much power.

Mason had some experience with the issue, having drafted sections of Virginia's Constitution, especially its Declaration of Rights. Mason continued lobbying for a Bill of Rights' inclusion even after the Constitution was ratified by everybody else, and Thomas Jefferson looked to Mason's Virginia Declaration of Rights in creating the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights that was amended to the Constitution on Dec. 15, 1791.

Is Mason's refusal to ratify the Constitution the reason his monument in Washington, DC, is under a highway overpass instead of on the National Mall? Probably so, but at least he's got a university named after him. And we've got, after all his effort, the Bill of Rights.

Photo courtesy of stock.xchng