If there is one portion of the U.S. Constitution the typical American is at least superficially acquainted with and even makes occasional appeals to, it is the Bill of Rights. It is almost certainly the most celebrated feature of the national charter, often spoken of in reverential tones. This is not without irony given that the Bill of Rights was not framed by the Constitutional Convention. Indeed, George Mason’s September 12, 1787 motion at the Philadelphia convention to “prepare a Bill of Rights” was unanimously rejected by the state delegations voting on it. Rather, the initial amendments to the Constitution, now known collectively as the Bill of Rights, were hastily deliberated by the first federal Congress and tacked on to the end of the ratified Constitution to assuage its critics and silence calls for sweeping revisions.
Who needs a bill of rights, and what does one look like? What did Americans of the founding era mean by “rights,” and what was their conception of a declaration or bill of rights? What is a bill of rights’ standing in law, especially in relation to a jurisdiction’s constitution and other expressions of fundamental law? Who or what authorizes, frames, and legitimizes a bill of rights? These questions were apparently on the minds of Americans in the newly independent states in the wake of independence and the years leading up to the framing and ratification of a national constitution.
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