Benson, Egbert

During the First Congress, Egbert Benson (1746–1833) proposed a change to James Madison's original wording of the Fourth Amendment that was subsequently passed to transform the amendment's meaning.

Born in New York City, Egbert Benson studied law, was admitted to the bar, and practiced in New York between 1772 and 1776. In 1777, he was appointed as the first attorney general of New York and served until 1789. He represented New York in the Continental Congress and the Annapolis Convention. He served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1789 to 1793 and again from 1813 to 1815. In 1801, he was appointed by President John Adams to the U.S. Circuit Court for the Second Circuit. He served only a couple of years before returning to private practice in New York City in 1803.

In a debate during the First Congress of 1789, Benson suggested that James Madison's formulation of the Fourth Amendment was not strong enough. He proposed that Madison's words “by warrants issued without probable cause” be changed to read “and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause.” The House of Representatives rejected Benson's change by a large majority. Subsequently, Benson, chair of a committee of three who were appointed to arrange the constitutional amendments in final form, sent the House version to the Senate with his wording left in the Fourth Amendment. The error was not caught, and it was passed by the Senate and ratified by the states. By recasting Madison's wording in the form of two distinct phrases, the Fourth Amendment was transformed from a prohibition against general warrants to a guarantee of a right of privacy.

Benson died in 1833 at the age of 87.