All citizens of these United States are entitled certain unalienable rights. Our nation’s Founding Fathers clearly stated this fact in the Declaration of Independence and made true their words in the Constitution. The individual right of Habeas Corpus, the outlawing of ex post facto laws, and the banning of religious tests, as well as other provisions, have stopped the government from taking advantage of people. With such protections already unmistakably stated in the Articles of the Constitution, what need is there for a Bill of Rights? In all reality, there is no need. And there is also no need for any further rights to be added. The true goal of the Constitution was to place limits on the government, and all the Bill of Rights does is complicate and muddle the document.
Throughout the Constitution the Founders laid out certain provisions that would protect all of the citizens of the United States. Ex post facto laws being banned protected citizens from being tried for something that was legal at the time of the offense. Habeas Corpus protects people from being held unlawfully, and trial by a jury allows one to have a panel of peers decide ones fate (constitution, 1787). It also protects from Bills of Attainder, which an act of legislation declares someone guilty without a trial, and from religious tests. To include a Bill of Rights to a document that has already very effectively laid out the rights of citizens and the limits of government is simply a pointless gesture by those who are too afraid of too much power in one groups hands to see the facts that are right in front of their faces: that there is no need for a Bill of Rights.
With such provisions already laid out in the main body of the Constitution, the idea of having a separate Bill of Rights is superfluous. This addition to an already finished document is just a restatement of provisions and protections that are already laid out in the first few Articles of the Constitution and those natural rights which all citizens are already entitled to. The Bill of Rights was simply an effort by the central government fearing Anti- Federalists to limit what they saw as a strong central power. It is full of unclear statements that people have adjusted to meet their own ends, and these are ends that were never supposed to be achieved through the use of the Constitution. Hamilton puts this best in his writing of the Federalist #84:
“I go further, and affirm that bills of rights, in the sense and to the extent in which they are contended for, are not only unnecessary in the proposed Constitution, but would even be dangerous. They would contain various exceptions to powers not granted; and, on this very account, would afford a colorable pretext to claim more than were granted.”
What Hamilton is saying, essentially, is that to place a Bill of Rights in the Constitution would be an exercise in futility and an exercise that would be completely unnecessary for what the Constitution was set to do.
The goal of the Constitution is not to grant rights to citizens of the Unites States, but to limit power of the federal government. Knowing this, it is ludicrous to believe that additional individual rights should be added to the Constitution. And if additional rights were to be added, how far would lawmakers take it? Senator Obama would include a right to universal healthcare, as he stated in his October 7 presidential debate. The “general welfare” of the people is to be promoted, not provided by, the government. Or would they go as far as the UN and include such ridiculous rights as a right to vacation time (UN declaration of rights?)?. This would not only undermine the integrity of the Constitution, but also muddle and dilute the true intention of the Constitution as a limit on government. Such additions would by no means add more rights into the individuals bag of protections, because the Constitution has already provided for any right that may be wanted by any citizen.
To the Federalists, this matter should not have been one of such worry and debate. The concise provisions laid out in the Constitution and the unalienable rights all men have do more than enough to protect the individual from the whims of government. A Bill of Rights is merely a restatement of clear ideas that had already been declared. And any additions to this Bill of Rights simply aren’t plausible, because any and all new rights are already protected by what is already ours.
