Why Have a Bill of Rights?

What rights are guaranteed in the Constitution?

Today, when politicians and pundits use the terms “constitutional” and “unconstitutional,” they are typically referring to not just the original document, but to the provisions of the Bill of Rights—the first 10 amendments to the Constitution. How and why these amendments were added so quickly to the Constitution, and what they tell us about the nature of an individual’s relationship to our federal government, continue to shape our political discourse to the present day.

The Framers wrote the Constitution in order to establish a strong federal government and to address some of the problems that resulted from the weakness of the federal government under the earlier Articles of Confederation. The document they wrote in 1787 reflects the fact that the United States was a federation of individual states, each with its own government. While a majority of politicians at the time agreed with the need for the strong federal government established by the Constitution, others still remembered the sting of British tyranny and believed the new government would infringe the rights of the states and individual citizens. The Bill of Rights was quickly added to the Constitution as a compromise between these groups.

Watch this video to understand the historical context that led to the Bill of Rights. Pay attention to the political debate over the Constitution, especially the terms Federalist and Anti-Federalist.

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Transcript

NARRATOR: The Bill of Rights is central to how many Americans define freedom, and yet it was not even included when the first Constitution was written and sent to the states for ratification. So the federal Bill of Rights, those first ten amendments to the United States Constitution, actually emerged out of the debate over whether the states would sign on to the new Constitution. Federalists...

(previous talking rewinds)

Federalists like James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and John Jay thought that it was redundant and unnecessary. They believed that the new Constitution was structured so that it would protect rather than threaten liberty, and that it was ridiculous to list specific rights.

(crowd clamoring)

Those in favor of adding a Bill of Rights, those specific protections of liberties, were the Anti-Federalists. Anti-Federalists argued that the Bill of Rights was the only way to protect a minority political faction against the tyranny of the majority—a phrase you're going to want to hang on to.

The Anti-Federalists believed that an overly powerful central government would threaten individual liberty. Patrick Henry, famous for the phrase, "Give me liberty or give me death," popularized liberty as the watchword for the Anti-Federalist.

The federal Bill of Rights was based on state constitution bills of rights. A really good example of this is in the Virginia Declaration of Rights, which was used as a model for the federal Bill of Rights. The Virginia Declaration of Rights said that government existed for the enjoyment of life, liberty, prosperity, happiness, and safety of the people, and that the people had a collective right to abolish its government or alter it in a manner that would promote the common well being. Persons had rights. So did communities, political majorities, political minorities, nations.

Yet as the language of these state constitutions turned into the federal Bill of Rights, the language became more precise, but also less dangerous. The federal Bill of Rights actually retreated from the claim that all men are born naturally free and independent, and also from the claim that they had the right to abolish their government. Thus, the Bill of Rights, put together by James Madison in 1789, was actually far less radical and far-reaching than the Virginia Declaration of Rights, because, you see, the federal Bill of Rights did not include any speculation about the origins of political authority or the inherent, natural, original rights of human beings.

Take Notes

Summarize the perspectives of the Federalists and the Anti-Federalists toward how specific the Constitution needed to be in delineating individual rights and liberties. (Click "Save" when you have finished. To see your saved or submitted work again, click "My Work" at the top of the page.)