The Article V wording for amending the Constitution via a process conducted independently by the States was led by a Virginian and close friend of George Washington, George Mason.
Both Washington and Mason were completely skeptical of the British influence and presence to make Americans second-class citizens, to tax Americans without agreement or consent, to impoverish Americans and buy out their estates and properties that had grown in splendor becoming attractive to the powerful and wealthy, many of these acts and threats emanating from the British Parliament and titled wealthy, persons with sinecures who had positioned to a more favorable light of the Crown and to associates and benefactors of the British Parliament who had their eye on the emerging commerce and wealth, and splendorous properties established in America, and who would use British military presence to intimidate and bring under control those with a mind of independence.
Mason and Washington were resistors of any and all elements, ideas, possibilities, provisions that would give the slightest opportunity for any force or presence, direct or seductive, to emerge via law or political assembly to dominate and subjugate the rights and freedoms of people and property owners.
Prior to 1776, both were members of the House of Burgesses, writing frequently in response to communications, developments, edicts of the British Parliament and the Crown.
They did not suddenly appear in 1776 or 1787 to assert a list of rights and freedoms, these qualities and perspectives were honed and ingrained in their characters over many. many years prior to 1776 after witnessing threats and consequences of remaining quiet, timid, apathetic to events around them.
Yes in their collective, they were brilliant but more than brilliant, they were experienced and driven by ***fear*** of what would certainly happen if they chose not to act.
Mason was insistent on establishing rights of the individual and rights of the people. His presence at the 1787 Convention assured that rights were not negotiable if there were to be a United States. It is a matter of historic record that the establishment of the Constitution and therefore the United States hung in the balance by the voice and views of George Mason, as the assembly knew that General George Washington who had won the freedom, would defer to his friend George Mason to speak for Virginia.
The Constitution was to be unanimously ratified which enabled the voice of Virginia to hold matters in the balance. As it was, the Bill of Rights was largely drawn from the pre-independence work of George Mason when he had served in the Virginia House of Burgesses, and Mason insisted on these amended rights as a condition of ratification, equivalently as a condition of the establishment of the United States.
Article V was weighed in the same balance as the Bill of Rights with George Mason insisting that the people be granted a means to amend without Congress or the Executive. Without his voice and insistence on the wording of Article V, there would be no Constitution and no United States.
Amazing that two old stupid white guys could do such things.