The Twenty-Seventh Amendment

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

This ended up being the most surprising amendment for me. I knew what it was about, and seeing that it was the most recent, I had thought that it came about sometime around Newt Gingrich and a Congress full of hostility and spite.

It was actually one of the first amendments proposed, and it received votes for ratification, though not in the timeliest manner. I'm linking to the Wikipedia article. While it is common for their amendment articles to have a list of which states ratified it and by which dates, the range on this one is fascinating:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twenty-seventh_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution

Six states ratified it between 1789 and 1792, then Ohio in 1873, and the next vote happened over one hundred years later. Many of the votes were protests. New Jersey and Rhode Island rejected the amendment in the 18th century, but ratified it in the 20th.

Of course the protest votes do indicate some of that political animosity I suspected, and it may not be a coincidence that the college student whose research led to its eventual ratification was studying in Texas, but it's an interesting interlude.

It does seem like the kind of thing where it would be fine written in procedures or legal code or rules of order somewhere, rather than being specifically enshrined as an amendment, but fine. Americans may mistrust their government, and they may wish to punish a legislator for increasing pay by voting out the greedy lawmaker.

So be it.