You write that the priority of the religion clauses have no special significance, PH. The original one and two proposed amendments -- if indeed that was their intended order -- have no business in a Bill of Rights anyway. As you know, a bill of rights pertains to the rights of the people of the several states, not to the rights or interests of the federal government. The reason there was a Bill of Rights in the first place was because Virginia sought special additional assurances regarding the rights of the states and the people, or they threatened to not ratify the proposed federal constitution. George Mason and your own namesake make this crystal clear. Other states, having ratified, wanted such further assurances as well.
As the Preamble of the Bill of Rights states,
The Conventions of a number of States, having at the time of their adopting the Constitution, expressed a desire, in order to prevent misconstruction of abuse of its powers, that further declaratory and restrictive clauses should be added: And as extending the ground of public confidence in the Government, will best ensure the beneficent ends of its institution....The point is, the issues of congressional apportionment and pay raises were not the burning issues for the states; and they had no place on a BoR anyway, every last one of whose provisions speaks to the rights of the people. And the BoR that was adopted placed first the right of the people to freedom of religion, or liberty of conscience. Once that was secured, then a context for freedom of speech, and the rest of the protected rights of the people set forth in the Articles included as the BoR, could rationally follow.
Thank you for your excellent, insightful post! I would like to add that the Declaration of Independence also underscores the importance of liberty to the framers.
Hi boop!
You do realize (do you not) that this discussion is an exquisite distillation of the essential controversy over which you do near-daily battle?
On the one side we have your insistence that the Bill of Rights is in a planned order, guided by intelligence and intent. On the other hand (Hi PH!) we have the contention that the Bill of Rights is nothing but a random collection of ideas, possessing no particular significance in the final arrangement of their order.
Classic.