Opponents of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights
Any opponents of the Constitution protested against the Bill of Rights during the referendum process. They came to be known as the Federalists.
The Absence of a Bill of Rights in the Constitution
The framers of the Constitution refused to include a bill of rights in the text they drafted in Philadelphia in 1787. During the development of the Bill of Rights, Anti-Federalists and others believed that these rights were incomplete. Some see the Bill of Rights of seven state constitutions as templates for what could be contained in the United States Constitution (54).
Four Major Points Against the Bill of Rights
During the ratification proceedings, opponents of the Constitution made four major points against the bill of rights.
1. Belief in Particular Delegated Powers
First, they thought that the new government would have only particular delegated powers and therefore a bill of rights was not needed. For instance, the Congress was not given any power to limit freedom of press or freedom of speech (54). The Constitution did not give the Congress any powers to take away any freedoms and therefore the Congress would in no way infringe upon any freedoms even when such freedoms were not listed in the Constitutions.
2. Concerns about Restricting Freedoms
Second, any attempt to list particular rights would mean that there were no other rights, all the same, complete listing was not possible (54). They thought that the mention of a thing measures to the exclusion of others. For instance, by having guarantees of among other things religion, press and speech might mean that these are the only freedoms that to which the people were entitled. They thought that a bill of rights would restrict freedoms rather than guarantee freedoms. To them, a specific list of particular rights would mean that the government accorded them instead of being inherent in nature.
3. The Source of Power in the New National Government
Third, according to tradition, bills of rights were the outcomes of struggles between the people and a monarchy, even so, in the new national government, the people were themselves the source of power (54). They felt no need to have a listing of rights since the listed rights belonged to the citizens and nowhere in the Constitution was the Congress to take this power away from the citizens. It meant that the Bill of Rights could limit liberty by strengthening the argument that any rights not particularly listed in the Bill of Rights could be violated or infringed upon.
4. The Constitution as an Implicit Bill of Rights
Lastly, like Alexander Hamilton contended in Federalist 84, the new Constitution, by spelling out the people's power and authority by structuring and restricting the power of the government was in itself in every rational sense and useful purpose a bill of rights (54). Alexander and others thought that the federal government might interfere with the personal rights which were state constitutions' protections and hence the Constitution ought to say nothing about them. Despite all the objections to the Bill of Rights, the Federalists finally agreed to add it provided that it did not restrict the all-important powers of the national government or substantially change its structure (55).
Work Cited
Bessette, Joseph M and John J Pitney. American Government and Politics: Deliberation, Democracy and Citizenship. 2nd. Cengage , 2013. Web.
