The Antifederalists were opposed to the Constitution and the Federalists supported the Constitution. The Antifederalists which included Patrick Henry and the Virginia orator, Sam Adams feared an all-too powerful national government and wanted a list of personal freedoms. Federalists such as George Washington, James Madison and John Jay put the Antifederalists fears to rest. John Jay wrote a series of essays for the newspaper. These essays "described the Constitution and explained how it worked with safeguards against the abuse of power." Madison took it a step further, under his leadership he "prepared 10 amendments or additions to the Constitution" which were the Bill of Rights.
"Madison's support of the bill of rights was of critical significance. One of the new representatives from Virginia to the First Federal Congress, as established by the new Constitution, he worked tirelessly to persuade the House to enact amendments. Defusing the anit-Federalists' objections to the Constitution, Madison was able to shepherd through 17 amendments in the early months of the Congress, a list that was later trimmed to 12 in the Senate. On October 2, 1789, President Washington sent to each of the states a copy of the 12 amendments adopted by the Congress in September. By December 15, 1791, three-fourths of the states had ratified the 10 amendments now so familiar to Americans as the Bill of Rights."
"Articles 3 to 12, ratified December 15, 1791, by three-fourths of the state legislatures, constitute the first 10 amendments of the Constitution, known as the Bill of Rights. Article 2 concerning the compensation of congressman was finally ratified on May 7, 1992" becoming the 27th amendment. "The first amendment, which concerned the number of constituents for each Representative, was never ratified."
"It is important to note that the Bill of Rights in the beginning only limited the powers of the federal government. States were in fact allowed to act against the Bill of Rights. For example, in the early decades of the new Republic a number of states had established state religions which were enforced by law. The Supreme court in the 1833 case Barron v. Baltimore explicitly stated that the rights protected by the Bill of Rights applied only to the general government, and could not be enforced against local governments.
This would not change for over 130 years. In the 1925 case Gitlow v. New York, the Supreme Court ruled that the 14th amendment, adopted shortly after the Civil War, in fact made the Bill of Rights applicable to state and local governments. The 14th amendment was created to ensure that basic rights of blacks were not taken away in the South, and in the process it made all rights of the Constitution guaranteed in the United States no matter what state you were living in.
Today this is how we see the Bill of Rights: universal rights that apply to every American citizen. Still there are debates on exactly how the Bill of Rights ought to be used, and what constitutes the basic freedoms that it defines. Part of the debate arises from the rapid growth of technology in the last 50 years, an interconnected world moving at the speed of light that could not even be imagined by our Founding Fathers. Combine that with the ever greater threat's to the nation's security and there is true cause for concern.
In the end, though, no matter what the times, no matter the technology, no matter the danger, the freedoms inscribed in the Bill of Rights are our basic freedoms that cannot be taken away by the federal government for any reason. Had the Founding Fathers wanted these freedoms to be conditional they would not have drafted the Bill of Rights. Some, such as Hamilton, opposed the Bill of Rights for just that reason: rights would be protected by default, he argued, but there were times when it would be too tying of the government's hands. This sort of thinking was defeated, and today we all base our rights upon the first 10 amendments to the Constitution, written so long ago but still so relevant today."
"Delegates hailing from all the original states" (listed below) "except Rhode Island gathered in the Pennsylvania State House in 1787 to participate in the Constitutional Convention. Many of the delegates had fought in the American Revolution and about three-fourths had served in Congress. The average age was 42."
Learn more about the Bill of Rights through the links I used in this project:
