Bill of Rights

IT WOULD NOT BE unfair to state that, had there been no U.S. Constitution in 1787, there would have been no Bill of Rights in 1791. The Constitutional Convention had been summoned to meet in the national capital of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in May 1787 to provide a more effective government for the young United States. Of the 29 delegates, all were white and male, no women or people of color were among them. The Articles of Confederation, given to the states for ratification in 1777, were simply fraying apart. The delegates, almost all of whom had been in the American Revolution in one capacity or another, were faced with a national crisis.

Domestically, the American states were beginning to act like the ancient Greek city states, erecting trade barriers among themselves. In 1786, revolutionary veteran Daniel Shays had led a brief rebellion in Massachusetts. Shays’ Rebellion, in fact, was perhaps the most important single reason for summoning this Constitutional Convention. Externally, although the Treaty of Paris in September 1783 had recognized American independence, there was little that the new government could do to enforce its terms. The treaty had established the western boundary of the United States as “a line to be drawn along the middle of the said river Mississippi,” however, the British in Canada were still actively abetting the Native American tribes in blocking American expansion to the Mississippi—as they had during the war.

At the same time, Spain, which had been an ally in the war, had grown alarmed at American expansion toward its territories in what is now Louisiana, Texas, and [Page 47]the southwest. Spain attempted to block American use of the mouth of the Mississippi by its control of New Orleans. On October 10, 1784, George Washington wrote to Governor Benjamin Harrison of Virginia: “I need not remark to you, sir, that the flanks and rear of the United States are possessed by other powers, and formidable ones, too.”

The Constitutional Convention, however, diverged into two radically opposing camps. One group envisaged the answer in a strong central government, and became known as the Federalists. Their opponents, the Anti-Federalists, advocated a more decentralized government. The problem they faced was best put by the Federalist James Madison in what became known as the Federalist Letter 51: “You must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.” The question posed by Madison was one known to all. The revolution had had its origins, after all, in growing American resistance to the tyranny of England's King George III and his sycophant ministers in London, England. The Virginia Plan called for representation based on population, which, however, made the smaller states fear being outvoted and overwhelmed in the new government they were framing. The small states countered with the New Jersey Plan, which urged that representation be equal for all. However, the impasse was to a large extent broken when, on July 16, each state was given the same number of votes in the Senate, balancing the numerical superiority of the larger states in the House of Representatives. This measure was often referred to as The Great Compromise. James Madison stated the outcome when he observed: “As soon as the smaller states had secured more than a proportional share in the proposed government, they became favorable to an augmentation of its power.”

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