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journal article
James Wilson versus the Bill of Rights: Progress, Popular Sovereignty, and the Idea of the U.S. ConstitutionPolitical Research Quarterly
Vol. 67, No. 2 [JUNE 2014]
, pp. 253-265 [13 pages]
Published By: Sage Publications, Inc.
//www.jstor.org/stable/24371781
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Abstract
Americans today may take the Bill of Rights for granted, but its inclusion in the U.S. Constitution originally was controversial. To understand why, I turn to James Wilson, a leading statesman of the founding era and the chief opponent of the Bill of Rights. Among other things, Wilson thought a bill of rights would bind future generations to an incomplete list of rights and deprive them of the right to define individual rights over time. His arguments against a constitutional bill of rights also offer a useful view of the complexity and diversity of American founding era thought.
Journal Information
Political Research Quarterly [PRQ] is a refereed scholarly journal publishing original research in all areas of political science. PRQ is published by the University of Utah and is the official journal of the Western Political Science Association. Most issues also feature field essays integrating and summarizing current knowledge in particular research areas. PRQ is published in March, June, September, and December.
Publisher Information
Sara Miller McCune founded SAGE Publishing in 1965 to support the dissemination of usable knowledge and educate a global community. SAGE is a leading international provider of innovative, high-quality content publishing more than 900 journals and over 800 new books each year, spanning a wide range of subject areas. A growing selection of library products includes archives, data, case studies and video. SAGE remains majority owned by our founder and after her lifetime will become owned by a charitable trust that secures the company’s continued independence. Principal offices are located in Los Angeles, London, New Delhi, Singapore, Washington DC and Melbourne. www.sagepublishing.com
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“A bill of rights is what the people are entitled to against any government on earth, general or particular, and what no government should refuse, or rest on inference.”
Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, December 20, 1787
No Need for a Bill of Rights
The omission of a bill of rights from the Constitution was deliberate, not an oversight. George Mason proposed adding a bill of rights just five days before the Constitutional Convention
ended. But after a short debate, the state delegations voted down the motion, 0–10. That became a problem during the ratification process when several states insisted on protection of rights.
Voting Record of the Constitutional Convention, showing the vote on the motion to appoint a committee to prepare a bill of rights, 1787, Records of the Continental and Confederation Congresses and the Constitutional Convention
Dangerous and Unnecessary
Supporters of the Constitution, the Federalists, thought a bill of rights was unnecessary and even dangerous. The authors of The Federalist Papers, including James Madison, argued for ratification of the Constitution without a bill of rights. They thought no list of rights could be complete and that therefore it was best to make no list at all.
Almost Fatal Mistake
The omission of a bill of rights proved to be a mistake almost fatal to the Constitution. New York and several other states agreed to ratify with the promise that the
First Congress would add rights to the Constitution through the amendment process. These states might have rejected the Constitution without the promise of a future bill of rights.
Ratification of the Constitution by New York, with proposed amendments, July 26, 1788, Records of the General Government
Why a Bill of Rights?
The First Congress included a preamble to the Bill of Rights to explain why the amendments were needed. Declaring that they were a response to the demand for amendments from the state ratifying
conventions, the preamble states that Congress proposed them "to prevent misconstruction or abuse of its powers" and to extend "the ground of public confidence in the government."
Change to the preamble to the Bill of Rights, August 25, 1789, Records of the U.S. Senate
The Ones that Failed
These motions suggested additional amendments during debate in the Senate. They came from state ratifying conventions, as did most of the amendments proposed by James Madison in the House
of Representatives. Motion C was proposed again by Congress in 1810, but wasn’t ratified. It would have denied public office to anyone who accepted a “title of nobility” from a king.
Motions A–D proposing amendments that failed in the Senate, September 7, 1789, Records of the U.S. Senate
225 Years Old
The Bill of Rights became the first 10 amendments to the Constitution when Virginia ratified them on December 15, 1791. Of the 14 states in the Union, Virginia was the 11th to ratify, thus providing the
constitutionally required bar of three-quarters of the states needed for ratification. Since 1941, December 15 has been celebrated as Bill of Rights Day.
Virginia's ratification of the Bill of Rights, December 15, 1791, General Records of the U.S. Government
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