When James Madison submitted his proposals for a Bill of Rights in 1789, he included a provision that prevented members of Congress from voting themselves a pay raise before the voters had a chance to kick them out of office for doing so. This amendment was approved as one of the twelve amendments submitted to the states on September 25, 1789. Only ten of these were ratified in 1791, and they became known as the Bill of Rights because they mainly protected individual rights. However, Congress had not established an official time limit for ratification of the 1789 amendments. During the 1980s, more and more states ratified the amendment limiting congressional pay raises, and it became the Twenty-seventh Amendment in 1992—the longest ratification in U.S. history.