From today’s Writer’s Almanac: “It was on this day in 1791 that the Bill of Rights was adopted by the United States, thanks in part to a man who hasn’t gotten a lot of credit, George Mason. … Even with the Bill of Rights, the U.S. Constitution didn’t provide full citizenship to blacks or women, among others, and it has had to be amended again and again over the years. But when we think of what it means to have a free country, most of our ideas about the meaning of freedom come from those first 10 amendments, adopted on this day in 1791, which include the freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures, and the right to a fair trial. George Mason died in 1792, a year after those freedoms and rights became law.”
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