Can you tell me why the founders of the US added 10amendments known as a Bill of Rights to the USConstitution?

Question

Many good answers so far among the 10 posted. 10 points is waiting for someone to earn it.

Answer 1

This is an excellent question.

The answer goes back to the Constitutional Convention. According to James Madison's notes (the only source we have for the debates), many delegates wanted to include an additional article to the Constitution specifying the rights of citizens AGAINST the claims of the new government.

Madison was horrified by this notion for two reasons:

1. He'd seen how ugly the debates had been on other less contentious aspects of the document, and feared (perhaps rightly) that another such pitched battle might just doom the convention altogether; and,

2. He stated to the convention that the rights of the citizens were too vast and too many, and that it would simply be impossible to codify them all. And he expressed the fear that if, in their debates, the dlegates inadvertantly left out any of those rights, future governments might well be inclined to suppose that people did not possess those rights to begin with. And that was too dangerous for Mr. Madison.

In short, the delegates accepted Madison's argument, with the result, the "Rights" section was skipped entirely. Oddly enough, Madison's position was both spectacularly wrong and phenomenally prophetic at the same time. Why?

WRONG:
After the Constitution was sent to the states for ratification, the conventions in every state villified the document for many reasons, but chief among them was the absence of a Bill of Rights. This argument was so fierce it threatened to void the entire project. The document was saved only because supporters of the document reminded delegates that the document could be amended; and that the first order of business in the new Congress would have to be giving the people their just rights. As a result, every ratifying convention added several amendments to their ratification notice. Madison's mistake almost killed the whole thing.

RIGHT:
After the new Constitution was adopted, the Congress (as promised) considered the first amendments. Madison, as Speaker of the House, sifted through the various amendment requests of the states, and by the summer of 1789 had hammered out the first twelve amendments. He was concerned however by the original problem he'd addressed in Philadelphia two years earlier. What happens if we leave out some of the rights? To try and rectify this, Madison personally drafted the 9th amendment himself. This amendment reads,

THE ENUMERATION IN THE CONSTITUTION OF CERTAIN RIGHTS SHALL NOT BE CONSTRUED TO DENY OR DISPARAGE OTHERS RETAINED BY THE PEOPLE.

This is Madisons way of saying, "we can't list them all, so please don't think of the preceeding eight amendments as being exclusive."

The reason this is prophetic is that over the centuries many liberals have used this amendment as a basis for the finding of rights (such as the right of privacy, on which ROE V WADE was ruled) that are not explicitly mentioned in the document. This has led to many arguments between liberals and conservatives on the issue (just as Madison knew it would). Conservatives state that if something isn't explicitly mentioned, then it doesn't exist; while liberals state the arguments given above that they most certainly do exist. And Mr. Madison saw it all coming...

POST SCRIPT: As stated above, the Bill of Rights is commonly thought of as the first ten amendments. However, as given above, the original Bill of Rights had Twelve amendments. One amendment dealing with apportionment numbers and the size of the House of Representatives never received enough support, and the other, stipulating that Congress could not give itself a pay raise without an intervening election of the House also languished.

That is, it languished until the 1980s when a student at the University of Texas writing a paper on the failure of the Equal Rights Amendment discovered it, and thought it would be a fine addition to the Constitution, and began a one-man campaign to get it before the media and the various state legislators.

Because the Bill of Rights was not sent to the states with a normal 7-10 year consideration period, its provisions were technically immortal. And as Anti-Washigton fever picked up in the late 80's, state after state began signing on. And in 1992, the 38 state threshold had been breached. The amendment was added to the Constitution, making the 27th amendment the longest ratification process in American History at 203 years.

Mr Madison wrote a good deal of the Constitution, as well as the Bill of Rights. For this reason he is known as the "Father of the Constitution." And with the adoption of his new/old 27th amendment, we may truly say that the Constitution is Mr. Madison's "From First to Last."

I hope this answers your question.

Answer 2

The constitution is basic. It defines the structure of the government. The Bill of Rights were the first ammendments to the constitution. The wording of the constitution cannot be changed. It can only be adapted through a long process in which a bill is finally passed. The ammendments are those bills and they can come and go. (Prohibition was an amendment that was added and then later another amendment rescended it.) The constitution is here to stay. The forefathers didn't want to make the constitution a long document that would be difficult to interpret. They wrote it as a philosophy statement or a mission statement. It is not that they didn't have the 10 rights in the Bill of Rights in mind when they wrote the constitution, but they saw them in a different category. Those 10 amendments stand seperate as the Bill of Rights because, in a sense, they were our founding principles as much as the constitution was.

Answer 3

The 10 ammend's were added to appease many in the Constitutional Convention. They are a direct result of the "10 most" egregious complaints against the King in England. As the colonies began to stir abt revolution the kings army began to crack down on the colonies. For example: they began for force citizens to take troops into their homes. the also began to sensor what the newspapers could write. The Bill of Rights were specific guarantees to the colonist with regards to what could and would happen if they won the battles.

Answer 4

Because they feared that the people's rights would be trampled upon again. The British had already done that, so they did as a precaution. Originally, the Federalists wanted to ratify the Constitution, but the Anti-Federalists didn't because it lacked a Bill of Rights. To appease the Anti-Federalists, (although the Constitution had already passed), the Framers added the Bill of Rights.

Answer 5

Because some of the founding fathers felt that individual rights were not clear enough in the Constitution although others thought it was covered. The Bill of Rights is the compromise between them and added a very clear statement of individual rights.

Answer 6

Because some delegates to the constitutional convention only wanted the document to lay out the organization of the government, without including the rights of individuals. Others thought it was important to delineate individual rights...
So as a compromise, the actual constitution (proper) just describes the three branches of the government...and the first ten amendments were added to delineate the individual rights of the citizens.

Answer 7

Because they knew what we were seeing today would happen if they didn't. Unfortunately we have lost our republic. Some of the founders didn't want to ratify the Constitution because some of the others wanted to add the 10 Amendments. Others said it wouldn't be complete without them. I agree with adding the amendments.
Molon Labe!
http://www.constitution.org/cs_abuse.htm

Answer 8

These guarantee certain rights to each citizen and they were specifically pointed out so that there could be no doubt what they intended. This is like the right to bear arms, it specifies that citizens have the right to possess weapons but for many years people have been trying to change the law...to get rid of guns! However, others see it as a method to deprive citizens of one of their rights. You have the right to free speech but this is also controlled by laws about slander and perjury. One of the rights is the freedom of religion, we promise that you can follow your own beliefs, and therefore it seems that we force Christianity on everyone by the pledge of allegiance contain "under God" and even on money..."in God we trust".

Answer 9

Because the states would not ratify the new constitution with out the guarantys included in the bill of rights.

Answer 10

Because they felt the need to put some rights in writing to ensure they were allowed. Since the Constitution was already written, they just amended what they already had rather than redo the whole thing.