Before Drafting the Bill of Rights, James Madison Argued the Constitution Was Fine Without It

Freedom of speech, religion and the press. The right to assemble, bear arms and due process. These are just some of the first 10 amendments that make up the Bill of Rights. But they weren’t included in the original U.S. Constitution, and James Madison, the bill’s chief drafter, had to be convinced they belonged in the country’s supreme law.

Madison was actually once the Bill of Rights’ chief opponent. In his book, The Oath and the Office: A Guide to the Constitution for Future Presidents, Corey Brettschneider, a political science professor at Brown University, writes that when the founding father entered the race for Congress as a candidate for the state of Virginia in 1788, the issue of whether America needed a Bill of Rights was a dominating campaign issue. George Mason, a fellow Virginian, had refused to sign the Constitution without a Bill of Rights. But Madison argued it was unnecessary and perhaps even harmful.

His reasoning? “Madison might have felt like a master chef watching a patron pour ketchup all over his perfectly cooked steak,” Brettschneider writes. “He considered his work crafting the Constitution so thorough that there was nothing to amend: Article I limited the powers of Congress, and Article II constrained the president. A Bill of Rights was redundant at best—and dangerous at worst.”