The United States Constitution by Karen Judson

Author:Karen Judson [Judson, Karen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-4645-1080-9
Publisher: Enslow Publishers, Inc.
Published: 2013-04-07T04:00:00+00:00

There is no Declaration of Rights; and the Laws of the general Government being paramount to the Laws and Constitutions of the several States, the Declaration of Rights in the separate States are no Security. . . . This Government will commence in a moderate Aristocracy; it is at present impossible to foresee whether it will, in its Operation, produce a Monarchy, or a corrupt oppressive Aristocracy; it will most probably vibrate some Years between the two, and then terminate in the one or the other.4

From his post in Paris, Thomas Jefferson wrote to James Madison in December 1787 that a bill of rights was needed to protect a number of rights, including freedom of the press and religion. “A bill of rights is what the people are entitled to against every government on earth, general or particular, and what no just government should refuse, or rest on inference.”5

The Federalists fought hard for ratification of the Constitution, and eventually they won the battle, but the public would not be swayed on the question of a bill of rights. “We must have a bill of rights” became the rallying cry for ratifying conventions held in each state in 1787 and 1788. The Constitution was finally approved, but with the condition that a list of individual liberties, expressly guaranteed by the new government, would be added immediately in the form of the Bill of Rights.

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