"No law, varying the compensation for the services of the Senators and Representatives, shall take effect, until an election of Representatives shall have intervened."

Most people know that the Bill of Rights is made up of the first ten amendments to the Constitution, but what most people do not know is that Congress actually approved twelve amendments, but only ten were ratified by the states. This particular amendment was ratified by only six states (MD, NC, SC, DE, VT, VA) out of the eleven needed, and aside from the idiosyncratic action of the Ohio legislature in 1873, which ratified the proposal in protest of a controversial pay increase adopted by Congress, the congressional pay amendment had long been assumed dead.

All this changed in 1978 when the Wyoming legislature revived it out of anger at Congressional pay raises. Since 1919, most Constitutional amendments have contained provisions stating that they will be inoperative unless the states ratify them in a specified period of time, but no one thought to do anything like this in 1791 when the Bill of Rights was adopted. Several states began to ratify it in the 1980s, and in 1989 a Texas legislator turned it into a personal crusade. Finally, on May 7, 1992, after almost 203 years, the New Jersey legislature ratified the proposed amendment, giving it the necessary three-fourth approval rate (38 out of 50 states).

However, the amendment is really nothing more than a footnote in history. What it commands was already statutorily prescribed, and, at most, it may have implications for automatic cost-of-living increases in pay for members of Congress. Nonetheless, it calls attention to the fact that there are three other proposed amendments that could still be ratified by the states. There are as follows:

The Anti-Title Amendment

This amendment, submitted to the states in the 11th Congress (around 1811), said that any citizen who accepted or received any title of nobility from a foreign power, or who accepted without the consent of Congress any gift from a foreign power, by would no longer be a citizen. There is some debate about whether this amendment was actually ratified or not, mostly by those who put forth the fanciful notion that if it had been, most (if not all) legislators who are lawyers and use the title "Esquire" would no longer be citizens, and hence, no longer be able to serve in Congress. The text reads: "If any citizen of the United States shall accept, claim, receive or retain any title of nobility or honour, or shall, without the consent of Congress, accept and retain any present, pension, office or emolument of any kind whatever, from any emperor, king, prince or foreign power, such person shall cease to be a citizen of the United States, and shall be incapable of holding any office of trust or profit under them, or either of them."

The Slavery Amendment

In 1861, an amendment prohibiting any future amendments to the Consttituion which would interfere with the domestic institutions of any state (slavery being specifically mentioned) was proposed and sent to the states. The text reads: "No amendment shall be made to the Constitution which will authorize or give to Congress the power to abolish or interfere, within any State, with the domestic institutions thereof, including that of persons held to labor or service by the laws of said State."

The Child Labor Amendment

In 1926, an amendment was proposed which granted Congress the power to regulate the labor of children under the age of 18. The text reads: "Section 1. The Congress shall have power to limit, regulate, and prohibit the labor of persons under eighteen years of age. Section 2. The power of the several States is unimpaired by this article except that the operation of State laws shall be suspended to the extent necessary to give effect to legislation enacted by the Congress."