Chapter 10, Rights Summary

During the last week of the Convention, George Mason and Elbridge Gerry ask to have a Bill of Rights included in the Constitution. They feel that it will only take a few hours to create a Bill of Rights. However, the Convention votes against the motion. It is during the period of ratification that the framers realize that they made a mistake in not including a Bill of Rights. “Some rights, then, were protected in the Constitution, but the list was clearly piecemeal in composition and partial in coverage. None of these provisions invoked the natural rights and first principles that Americans expected a declaration of rights to contain. The omission leaves the framers open to the charge that they had contrived to deprive people of their fundamental rights. They thought the charge absurd, but its repetition carried greater conviction as...