Bill of Rights Article Summary

The Secret History of the Bill of Rights: Summary We are being told by the left and right side of congress what the foundation of American Liberty is: the Bill of Rights. In 1787 our founders came together to draft today’s federal Constitution that was later ratified by a majority of the states. Neither of them thought the bill of rights was a necessary addition. Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and John Jay later wrote The Federalist Papers to support the exclusion of any bill of rights being added to the Constitution. Hamilton explains in The Federalist that there is no need for a bill of rights because it would be like having a separate ruler where the people should rule. Hamilton was concerned with threatening other rights if a list of some sort of rights were included in the Constitution. Assuming that all rights not listed were unprotected. He did not believe that there needed to be a right protecting his speech; he said that the Constitution itself served as the same purpose as a bill of rights. Almost losing an election influenced James Madison to write what would become the Bill of Rights, even though he had opposed it at one point. The Anti-Federalist’s concern was that the government would have the power to end slavery. As ironic as it is that most of the founders did not like the idea of a Bill of Rights because it would give the government too much control, later Madison believed that it was the states that were more of a danger than the federal government. Of his twelve amendments ten were ratified. In times of despair, they came to notice that the Bill of Rights was not everything they had hoped for. Today when people debate on issues they think back and claim that our founders saw the Bill of Rights as an important part to American liberty, but in reality they believed in a balanced system and left the paranoia to