Securing Liberty: The Purpose and Importance of the Bill of Rights

National Bill of Rights Day customarily occupies a minor place on our calendars, if it occupies a place at all. It falls every year on December 15, commemorating the ratification of the first 10 amendments to our Constitution, which occurred on that day in 1791. Bill of Rights Day is a day for rising above the commotion over the meaning of each specific amendment. It is an opportunity for us to reflect upon the purpose of those amendments as a whole, to step back and consider the crucial questions that our Founders confronted in considering the idea of amending the Constitution to include a bill of rights.

Implicit in the story surrounding our Bill of Rights is the proposition that the liberties of a nation can only be secured by citizens of firm conviction who understand our rights and liberties and will actively defend them. As Americans studying this important document, we revivify in the public mind the rights and privileges set forth in these amendments. And in doing so, we dutifully fulfill its original purpose.

Parchment Barriers

Although the Founders had extensive experience with bills of rights in the various states, at the Constitutional Convention there was little support for, or even discussion of, placing a statement resembling a bill of rights in the Constitution. When two of the Convention's most influential delegates, Elbridge Gerry and George Mason, proposed adding a bill of rights to the Constitution, their proposal was rejected by a unanimous vote of the states after receiving very little discussion.

The story of the Bill of Rights can be told as the story of how and why the Convention did not support a bill of rights and how James Madison, the "Father of the Constitution," was persuaded to take on the duty of serving as the "Father of the Bill of Rights" in the First Congress.

The Founders' indifference toward a bill of rights in the national Constitution was premised on the idea that it would not be practically useful. The experience of the states in the 1780s demonstrated that bills of rights, though suitable for theoretical treatises, imposed no effective restraints on those who would be responsible for protecting rights in practice. As Alexander Hamilton wrote in Federalist 84, the provisions of the various state bills of rights "would sound much better in a treatise of ethics than in a constitution of government."[1] Benjamin Rush similarly stated that those states which had tried to secure their liberties with a bill of rights had "encumbered their constitutions with that idle and superfluous instrument."[2] The Founders at the Convention believed that a bill of rights would be merely another "parchment barrier" incapable of restraining those who would seek to violate its provisions, and thus it would fail to provide true security for liberty.

The Federalists' Opposition to a Bill of Rights

The indifference of the Federalists--the defenders of the proposed Constitution--to a bill of rights turned into outright opposition when the Anti-Federalists denounced the Constitution and sought to obstruct its ratification. Near or at the top of most Anti-Federalists' lists of objections to the Constitution was the absence of a bill of rights. In response to this opposition, the Federalists argued that a bill of rights would be "not only unnecessary in the proposed constitution, but would even be dangerous."[3] Their arguments are worth considering for what they teach us about the central principles of our Constitution.

First and most importantly, the defenders of the Constitution argued that a bill of rights would undermine the idea of a government with limited powers. A bill of rights might betray the central principle of a written constitution as the product of a social compact, which affirms that all authority originally resides in the people and that the people create a government of limited and enumerated powers in a written constitution.

To suggest, for example, that the liberty of the press is not to be infringed upon might imply that, without such a provision, the federal government would possess that power. The Founders feared that we might infer that they created a government with unlimited power and that the specific provisions in the Bill of Rights denote particular reservations of power from an otherwise unlimited government. James Wilson made this argument most forcefully in speeches defending the Constitution in the state of Pennsylvania. The theory underlying the Constitution, he argued, is that "congressional power is to be collected, not from tacit implications, but from the positive grant expressed in the instrument of the union. Hence...everything which is not given is reserved."[4] Therefore, the presence of a bill of rights "would have supposed that we were throwing into the general government every power not expressly reserved by the people."[5] Similarly, Alexander Hamilton contended that a bill of rights "would contain various exceptions to powers which are not granted; and on this very account, would afford a colourable pretext to claim more than were granted. For why declare that things shall not be done which there is no power to do?"[6]

Adding to this first difficulty was a second problem: A bill of rights, Federalists argued, could not sufficiently define the rights that individuals possess by nature and those rights and privileges which governments are obliged to secure to citizens. Thus, a bill of rights would not only "afford a colourable pretext" for the government to claim more power than was granted to it by the Constitution; it would also insufficiently enumerate the rights which ought to be protected by the government. This would imply that any right not explicitly mentioned in the Bill of Rights must not be protected by it. Due to the impossibility of defining all of the rights which government must respect, a bill of rights would leave a window open for government to infringe upon the rights of its citizens. The centuries-old history of American constitutional law serves to illustrate the force of this argument. Even the greatest American jurists disagreed about the meaning of the provisions of these amendments.

Federalists advanced a third and more subtle critique, namely that a bill of rights might confuse people about the ultimate source of their rights. Many Federalists thought there was no need for a declaration of rights in 1787, because the work had already been done in 1776. In the Declaration of Independence, our Founders had declared that all human beings are endowed with natural and inalienable rights by virtue of their participation in the same fundamental human nature. What need was there to set forth these principles again, particularly in a document whose purpose was not to describe the natural state of man but to establish the institutional framework of the government? To declare our fundamental rights in a document subject to ratification by the people suggested a dangerous principle, namely that the source of rights lies in consent and agreement rather than nature. In other words, a bill of rights might suggest to the people that their rights come from positive law, agreement, and judicial enforcement rather than nature. As Jack Rakove writes, "By implying that traditional rights and liberties would be rendered insecure if they went undeclared, Anti-Federalists in effect suggested that the existence of these rights depended upon their positive expression."[7]

Madison's Change of Opinion

Ultimately, James Madison and most of the other Federalists changed their minds and favored ratification of the amendments we today call our Bill of Rights. While many historical accounts suggest that Madison and the Federalists acquiesced in the adoption of these amendments because it was the only pathway to ratification of the Constitution, they did not change their position due to mere political opportunism. As Rakove points out, "Contrary to the usual story, the concessions that Federalist leaders offered to secure ratification in such closely divided states as Massachusetts, Virginia, and New York did not establish a binding contract to provide a bill of rights."[8] In fact, by the time the First Congress met in April of 1789, the necessity of appeasing the Anti-Federalists on this point had subsided. Thus, the existence of the first 10 amendments to the Constitution cannot be explained merely as political maneuvering necessary to secure ratification.

Nor did the Federalists become persuaded that their objections to a bill of rights in the abstract were unfounded. They still believed that a bill of rights would be ineffective, even dangerous, if construed in an improper manner. Madison, announcing his change of mind in a letter to Thomas Jefferson, remarked, "My own opinion has always been in favor of a bill of rights, provided it be so framed as not to imply powers not meant to be included in the enumeration."[9] In other words, if a bill of rights could be framed in a way that avoided the Federalists' objections, it might serve some useful purpose.

Madison's statement explains why he took the lead in writing the amendments that were considered by the First Congress. His intent was to frame the amendments in a way that would not undermine what had been achieved at the Convention. For one, Madison proposed to insert the amendments in the body of the Constitution, alongside other rights and protections already in the text, rather than placing them outside the Constitution as amendments to it. This would avoid a central problem that we encounter today, namely that the public's focus (and reverence) is drawn away from the Constitution and toward the amendments.

Second, having been rebuffed in that attempt by his colleagues in Congress, Madison was careful not to actually call the proposed amendments a bill of rights. Thus, the term "bill of rights" is not to be found in the preamble to the first 10 amendments to the Constitution. Strictly speaking, what we today call the Bill of Rights are 10 separate amendments, and they were to be considered as separate provisions rather than a single document. In a subtle but important move, the First Congress responded to the call for a bill of rights by providing a number of "declaratory and restrictive clauses" to be considered for ratification.[10] This is also demonstrated by the fact that only 10 of the 12 proposed amendments were ratified in 1791. If the 12 amendments were to be considered as a single bill of rights, it would have been necessary to give an affirmative or negative vote to these amendments as a whole.

By framing the amendments in this way, Madison pointed back to the Declaration of Independence as the philosophic statement of rights and first principles; the amendments were not intended to replace or revise what had been set forth in that document. Therefore, the amendments should not be construed as enlarging the grant of power to the federal government by the Constitution, nor could they be thought to serve as a sufficient definition of all the rights and privileges of citizens.

These points illustrate the crucial importance of the Ninth and Tenth Amendments. Those amendments were drafted and ratified to prevent the Constitution from becoming a carte blanche of authority to an unlimited government. Neglect of these amendments by the public as well as the courts has been so conspicuous as to illustrate the force of the Federalists' original objections to a bill of rights. Yet for Madison, these amendments were central. They were intended to prevent the false interpretations that might be placed upon the provisions enumerating powers in the Constitution.

The Purpose of the Bill of Rights

There is one final question to be answered: Even if Madison believed that a bill of rights could be framed--as ours surely was--with the intent of preventing the implication of powers not granted to the government by the Constitution, what benefit could be gained by it? Was it not Madison who argued most forcefully that we cannot trust in parchment barriers? The answer is that Madison indeed thought ambition would counteract ambition, to "oblige the government to control itself"[11]--this was the idea of checks and balances. But it does not explain how the Founders proposed to safeguard individual liberty from tyranny of the majority, rather than tyranny of the rulers over the ruled. The safeguard of individual liberty, Madison reasoned, must lie with the people themselves. It is the people who must be responsible for defending their liberties. And a bill of rights, Madison and his colleagues finally concluded, might support public understanding and knowledge of individual liberty that would assist citizens in the task of defending their liberties.

A bill of rights, they saw, could serve the noble purpose of public education and edification. As Madison confided to Jefferson, "The political truths declared in that solemn manner acquire by degrees the character of fundamental maxims of free Government, and as they become incorporated with the national sentiment, counteract the impulses of interest and passion."[12]

From this view, our first 10 amendments are still important today, in their text and substance, beyond their legal effect. They still call upon us to study them for the sake of knowing our liberties and defending them from all encroachments. Although these amendments may be nothing more than "parchment barriers," they can still provide a bulwark against encroachments on our rights. For as Hamilton wrote in Federalist 84, the security of liberty, "whatever fine declarations may be inserted in any constitution respecting it, must altogether depend on public opinion, and on the general spirit of the people and of the government. And here, after all...must we seek for the only solid basis of all our rights."[13]

Joseph Postell is Assistant Director of the B. Kenneth Simon Center for American Studies at The Heritage Foundation.

[1]See Alexander Hamilton, The Federalist, ed. Jacob E. Cooke (Middletown, Conn.: Wesleyan University Press, 1961), No. 84, p. 579. All citations to The Federalist will cite the paper number, followed by the page number in the Cooke edition.

[2]Benjamin Rush, speech at Pennsylvania Ratification Convention, cited in Herbert Storing, What the Anti-Federalists Were For (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1981), p. 68.

[3]Federalist No. 84, p.579.

[4]James Wilson, "State House Speech," October 6, 1787, cited in The Founders' Constitution, eds.Philip B. Kurland and Ralph Lerner (Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund, 1987), Vol. I, p. 449.

[5]James Wilson, Pennsylvania Ratifying Convention , November 28, 1787, cited in Thomas B. McAffee, "The Original Meaning of the Ninth Amendment," Columbia Law Review, Vol. 90 (1990), p. 1233.

[6]Federalist No. 84, p. 579.

[7]Jack Rakove, Original Meanings: Politics and Ideas in the Making of the Constitution (New York: Random House, 1997), p. 324 (italics in original).

[8]Ibid., p. 330.

[9]Letter from James Madison to Thomas Jefferson, October 17, 1788, in Founders' Constitution, eds. Kurland and Lerner, Vol. I, p. 477.

[10]See Preamble to the Bill of Rights, available online at www.billofrights.org.

[11]Federalist No. 51, p. 349.

[12]Letter from James Madison to Thomas Jefferson, October 17, 1788, in Founders' Constitution, eds. Kurland and Lerner, Vol. I, p. 477.

[13]Federalist No. 84, p. 580.

Vin Suprynowicz's column on the Bill of Rights:

Americans make a big hubbub over the Fourth of July.

True, the victory of 1781 was an amazing triumph, and the vision of those gathered in Philadelphia five years before -- that men may rightfully form or disband governments at will, for the higher purpose of protecting our God-given individual rights -- is still worth celebrating.

But that confederation of free men ended on June 21, 1788, when New Hampshire became the ninth state to ratify the new U.S. Constitution, making it the law of the land. At that point, the organization of free peoples created by the Declaration of Independence -- the one we still celebrate each July -- passed away.

Our government school teachers tell us this was necessary because the Articles of Confederation "weren't working out." But they are woefully light on specifics. Push them, and most will mutter uncertainly some trivia about seaboard states charging tariffs on goods transshipped to landlocked states. Point out that the first landlocked states -- Vermont and Kentucky -- weren't admitted until 1791 and 1792, and they will usually fall into a puzzled, grumbling silence.

Anyway, there it is: The people fell for the siren song of "federalism," accepting solemn promises that the powers of the new central government would be sharply limited to those expressly spelled out -- funding a Navy, granting patents and copyrights, coining metal money. Not much more.

Fast forward 210 years. As a recipe for limited government, this Constitution now matches the creature it's supposed to describe about as well as a Chihuahua's carry-on "Pet Kennel" would fit a loping Irish wolfhound.

The prima facie proof of this failure now stares at us from every acre of the former marshland north of the Potomac, a granite necropolis and memorial park to our deceased freedoms at least a hundred times larger in manpower and frenzied ambition to control our lives than Mr. Jefferson could ever have imagined (though one suspects Mr. Hamilton would have smiled).

In the face of this unchained monster, our thin remaining hope against outright tyranny lies in the fact that Rhode Island and North Carolina (bless them) outright refused to ratify that Constitution until a Bill of Rights was added -- while Massachusetts, Maryland, South Carolina, New Hampshire, Virginia and New York all ratified only on the condition that some such set of amendments be quickly appended, as was solemnly promised.

And so, on the day we should probably celebrate as our second great national holiday, Dec. 15, 1791, Virginia became the 11th state to ratify the first 10 proposed amendments -- Mr. Madison's "Bill of Rights" -- though a better name might be the "Bill of Prohibitions" on government conduct.

Today, as usual, that anniversary will pass with the kind of afterthought mention on the daily news and propaganda broadcasts usually reserved for, "On this day 70 years ago, Commander Perry reached the North Pole." Two days later, about as much attention will be paid to the 224th anniversary of the great event of Dec. 17, 1773. "The most magnificent movement of all. There is a dignity, a majesty, a sublimity in this last effort of the patriots that I greatly admire," said future president John Adams of the tax-resisting militiamen who that day dumped 342 chests of tea into Boston harbor.

To their credit, Aaron Zelman and J.E. Simkin of the little Milwaukee-based Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership battled for months, back in 1999, to get city councils around the country to adopt proclamations honoring Dec. 15 as Bill of Rights Day -- succeeding with a small, proud band including Randolph County, N.C.; Cobb County, Ga.; the city of Asheboro; the town of Rainier, Wash.; and spunky little Valley City, N.D.

JPFO has also now brought out the latest in its line of "Gran'pa Jack" comic books, "It's Common Sense to Use Our Bill of Rights ... Or Lose Them!" suitable to explain the Bill of Rights to any kid, aged 6 to 60 ... of which more later.

But against Mr. Zelman's admirable efforts, the question remains: Why do the folks now in charge of our national offices -- including the government schools -- so pass over and ignore the historic ratification of those 462 little words which have made us for two centuries the envy of men and women seeking freedom the world around -- this Bill of Rights?

Because they fear folks might actually read them?

They're in plain English, you know. It was never intended we should need an attorney to tell us what they mean -- let alone that we should tolerate courts telling us they don't mean what we can plainly read there for ourselves.

It couldn't be because they're afraid we'd actually go read the First Amendment, could it, which begins, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion ..."?

What does it mean for a government to "establish" a religion? Why, clearly, to establish one religion as that enforced by the government, against all others ... like the Church of England.

Let us suppose, for instance, that an extremist cult were to arise, which holds it is a mortal sin to plow under any weed, or to destroy any bug or small verminous rodent which we may find on our own property, providing the priests of this extremist cult should decide (based on divine revelation) to list that weed or bug in their own scriptures as "threatened" or "endangered."

That would be no problem, so long as the priests of this weird sect had no legal authority to do anything but preach against us from their own, private pulpits.

But let us now suppose the government were to erect a headquarters for this sect in Washington at taxpayer expense, and issue them guns and badges, empowering them to enter onto our private property, arresting and jailing us and seizing our land and homes -- or simply prohibiting us from making otherwise legal, profitable use of our own property, such as building vacation homes -- if they should find us killing our own weeds and bugs, to which no one else can demonstrate any legal title?

That would be "an establishment of religion," wouldn't it, and thus banned under the First Amendment? Why, such extralegal usurpations might even tempt government agents to eventually storm, burn and massacre harmless citizens in their own churches of a Sunday afternoon, for practicing some religion not approved by Washington, mightn't it? Thank goodness we have a First Amendment to prevent that kind of thing.

So that couldn't be the one they don't want us to read.

It couldn't be because they're afraid we'd actually go read the Second Amendment, could it? The one that says, "A well regulated Militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed"?

What's that word "free" doing in there?

Mr. Madison knew full well that no citizen-militia was necessary to protect the security of the kingdoms of France or Russia. Mercenary, professional, standing armies did just fine to protect their borders -- at the price of their own disarmed populaces being subject to tyranny under the same muskets.

Only a "free" country requires that the bulk of the potential armed forces consist of free, private citizens better armed than the men commanded by the central government, just as the unofficial "Fairfax County Militia" of Mr. Washington and Mr. Mason had been better armed than the special militia or "National Guard" available to obey the orders of the crown's "governor of Virginia" in 1776 ... else the Revolution still fresh in Mr. Madison's mind could never even have been launched, let alone won.

What the Second Amendment clearly means is that -- as a guarantee against the threat of internal government tyranny -- any law-abiding American adult not obviously insane or profoundly retarded has a right to own and carry with him a belt-fed .30-caliber Browning machine gun or a shoulder-launched heat-seeking missile. (You're not going to argue we could stand up to the FBI, the ATF or the 101st Airborne with a Ruger 10-22 and a few old muzzle-loaders, I hope?)

For when the Second Amendment says that right shall not be "infringed," I would submit that means neither the weapon, nor its ammunition, nor the buying or transport of either, may be taxed, regulated or subjected to any "permitting" process. The government can't even require that the store clerk who sells me my machine gun "check my ID," or write down my name.

No; that's all clear enough. So the Second Amendment can't be the one they don't want us to read.

Could it be they're afraid we might read the Sixth Amendment, which begins, "In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury ..."

The high court, of course, now holds this doesn't mean what it appears to mean to us non-lawyers, at all. Rather than see the courts grow too crowded, her eminence Sandra Day O'Connor now informs us no trial is required if the state agrees to jail us for fewer than 180 days ... or even for fewer than 180 days on each charge.

And by the way, what's that word "impartial" doing in there?

The British common-law jury system with which the Founders were familiar made no provision for the judge to ask potential jurors in advance whether they favored the enforcement of the law in question ... which is why the misguided government could never get any convictions in the North in the 1850s on charges of violating the hated Fugitive Slave Act, any more than a government saddled with the same jury system could convict William Penn in London, some years before, on charges of preaching a Quaker sermon.

Importantly, it is only the defendant who is guaranteed an impartial jury -- we find here no guarantee that "the state shall enjoy ... "

When the judge asks the jury pool whether anyone would have a problem sending someone to jail for smoking pot, or for owning an ancient collectable World War I machine gun without having previously submitted his fingerprints to the ATF, or for declining to pay a federal income tax on wages -- and when that judge promptly sends home anyone who raises his or her hand -- he is not empaneling an "impartial" jury; he is pre-screening a jury guaranteed to be predisposed to the government's case. He is violating the Sixth Amendment.

The original term for a jury trial was a trial "en pays," or "on the country." The jury is supposed to represent a cross-section of our fellow citizens. Unless a law has broad public support -- 94.5 percent, actually -- the chances are that a randomly-selected group of 12 citizens will include one member who finds the law a hateful abomination, and who will refuse to convict. Hung jury: Defendant walks.

That is the meaning, and the intent, of the Sixth Amendment prohibition on government taking away our life, liberty or property without "a speedy trial ... by an impartial jury."

Do you suppose that's the one they don't want us to read?

And what about the 10th Amendment, which specifies, "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."

This means 90 percent of the laws, agencies, orders and regulators now pouring forth from Washington like a torrent from a broken dam are null and void -- deformed, fatherless creatures, apt to melt away like Goblins if ever tested in the harsh daylight of the Bill of Rights.

A few fans of totalitarianism, having been coached by the slyest of lawyers and union schoolmarms, will point out that the preamble to the Constitution advises us the purpose of the document is to "promote the general welfare," whereupon they will contend this plainly means the Congress is allowed to enact any law and do anything which a temporary majority of the two houses shall determine tends to "promote the general welfare."

But if that were the case, surely the whole document need take up only 28 words: "The Congress may enact any law which the majority of both houses shall determine to their own satisfaction tends to 'promote the general welfare'; have a nice day."

What's all the rest of this plodding exposition of limited powers doing in here?

Anyway, the best and most authoritative answer to this sneering, cynical justification for unlimited, Bonapartist tyranny was provided in the final year of his life by no less a figure than Thomas Jefferson, in the "Declaration and Protest of Virginia," 1825.

"We ... disavow and declare to be most false and unfounded, the doctrine that the compact, in authorizing its federal branch to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises to pay the debts and provide for the common defence and general welfare of the United States, has given them thereby a power to do whatever they may think or pretend would promote the general welfare, which construction would make that, of itself, a complete government, without limitation of powers; but that the plain sense and obvious meaning were, that they might levy the taxes necessary to provide for the general welfare by the various acts of power therein specified and delegated to them, and by no others."

Jefferson, for heaven's sake. This is not merely some commentator on what the founding fathers may have meant. This is a virtual deathbed declaration of The Founding Father!

Ah, so many restrictions on government power, in this modest little Bill of Rights. So concise and clearly written. How strange, that all of them would now turn out to be moot, or out-of-date, or of no practical bearing, or not to mean what they would appear to mean to a mere layman, who foolishly assumes they were written in plain English which we should all be able to understand without an advanced degree in Canonical Sophistry.

Go buy a copy of the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights and read them to a child.

It's our next-to-last best hope.

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