Source: Reason
by Damon Root
“On June 8, 1789, James Madison announced the batch of proposed constitutional amendments that would eventually become enshrined as the Bill of Rights. One of Madison’s would-be amendments, however, did not make the final cut, as it failed in the Senate after passing the House of Representatives. Here is what that lost Madisonian amendment to the Constitution would have said: ‘No state shall violate the equal rights of conscience, or the freedom of the press, or the trial by jury in criminal cases.’ Put differently, Madison wanted several parts of the Bill of Rights to apply equally against the federal government and the states. Why? ‘Because it must be admitted, on all hands,’ Madison said, ‘that the state governments are as liable to attack these invaluable privileges as the general [national] government is, and therefore ought to be as cautiously guarded against.'” (08/06/26)
https://reason.com/2026/08/06/why-james-madison-wanted-greater-limits-on-states-rights/