Interesting article on the 27th Amendment:
In 1982, while a sophomore majoring in economics at the University of Texas-Austin, [Gregory] Watson was looking for a paper topic for a government course; he discovered the unratified compensation amendment of 1789, which seemed to him to have abiding relevance. Watson confirmed the ratifications by Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, Delaware, Vermont, and Virginia that occurred between 1789 and 1791, when the Bill of Rights was added to the Constitution and the compensation amendment seemingly passed away. But Watson also discovered Ohio’s action on the amendment in 1873. He concluded that the 1789 amendment was still validly before the states principally because, unlike most recent proposed amendments, it has no internal time limit. Intrigued, he wrote a paper reporting and analyzing his discovery and urging that the amendment be adopted. But Watson received only a “C” from his instructor, who told him that the amendment was a dead letter and never would become part of the Constitution.
Oops.