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Note on Tucker’s Numbering of the Amendments

A WORD to the reader who otherwise is likely to be disconcerted by Tucker’s manner of labeling the first ten amendments to the Constitution. The First Congress proposed twelve amendments, designed to meet objections raised by Virginia and other states. Two of these amendments, though ratified by Virginia, were never ratified by a sufficient number of states, a fact of which Tucker apparently was not aware when he prepared his edition of Blackstone for the printer. So he refers often to “the twelve articles of the amendments.” Even more disconcertingly, he assigns the amendments numbers that do not correspond to later practice. For instance, when he writes “the twelfth article of the amendments,” he means the Tenth Amendment. When he writes “the third article of the amendments,” he means the First Amendment. Once this peculiarity is grasped the exposition becomes clear.