justshutupandtakeit said: "I will give you the benefit of the doubt and that you are not trying to deliberately misstate my comment which pointed to the obvious point that the Constitution preceded the 2d amendment."
I am unfamiliar with the exact history, but I thought that the nine states which first ratified the Constitution did so only under the condition that a Bill of Rights be appended. Is that not so?
The myth of the "conditional" ratification has been refuted on some of the Civil War threads. States did ratify with the understanding that a BoR would be appended.
See Madison's letter to Hamilton during the NY state ratification convention wrt the idea of "conditional" ratification. He claimed it would not be valid and that once in the Union always in the Union (unless an amendment was passed allowing withdrawal.)