Bill of Rights
The Anti-Federalists demanded a list of rights as the price of ratification. Madison, who had argued no such list was necessary, drafted one anyway. Ten amendments, ratified December 15, 1791.
Summary
The Bill of Rights is the political settlement of the ratification fight. Several state conventions had voted to ratify the Constitution only on the express understanding that the first Congress would propose amendments protecting individual rights. Madison, who had argued in Federalist 84 that no such bill was necessary, drafted a set of twelve amendments in the summer of 1789 to honour the commitment, drawing heavily on the state-convention proposals and on the long English tradition of declarations of rights running back to Magna Carta. Ten were ratified by the states by December 15, 1791.
The First Amendment is the most expansive: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. Five freedoms in one sentence. The Second through Fourth Amendments address arms, quartering of troops, and unreasonable searches and seizures. The Fifth through Eighth Amendments are the core of criminal procedure: protection against self-incrimination, double jeopardy, and deprivation of life, liberty, or property without due process of law (Fifth); the right to a speedy and public trial by an impartial jury (Sixth); the right to jury trial in civil cases (Seventh); protection against cruel and unusual punishment (Eighth).
The Ninth and Tenth Amendments are the structural principles that close the document. The Ninth holds that the enumeration of certain rights in the Constitution shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people — a direct answer to Hamilton's argument in Federalist 84 that explicit enumeration of rights is dangerous. The Tenth reserves to the states or to the people all powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution. Read together with the Declaration and the Constitution, the Bill of Rights closes the founding settlement: a statement of philosophical principles, a working framework for government, and a set of explicit limits on what that framework may do to the people who live under it.
- Declaration of IndependenceThirteen hundred words in three parts: the philosophical preamble, the Lockean second paragraph stating the self-evident truths...
- ConstitutionSeven articles establishing a federal government with three separate branches, enumerated powers, checks and balances, a bicameral...
- Bill of RightsTen amendments in three groups: the First Amendment's five freedoms; the Fourth through Eighth's criminal procedure protections...
- Later AmendmentsSeventeen amendments beyond the Bill of Rights: the Civil War amendments abolishing slavery and establishing birthright...