Question

Why wasn't a bill of rights included in original version of the Constitution that was approved by the delegates at the Constitutional Convention?

1. Anti-Federalists worried that including the Bill of Rights would weaken the central government to the point where it was ineffective.

2. Few delegates believed that inalienable rights should be protected, fearing that ordinary citizens would abuse that power.

3. Federalists wanted to use the Massachusetts Body of Liberties document as the federal version of the Bill of Rights.

4. The majority of the delegates believed that natural rights did not have to be spelled out for them to be valid and protected.

Answer 1

The correct answer is 4. The majority of the delegates believed that natural rights did not have to be spelled out for them to be valid and protected.

During the Constitutional Convention, there was a debate about whether or not to include a bill of rights in the Constitution. Many of the delegates believed that the Constitution already protected individual rights, and that a bill of rights was unnecessary. They argued that the federal government only had the powers explicitly granted to it by the Constitution, and that all other powers were reserved to the states or to the people. Therefore, they believed that the government could not infringe on individual rights, and that a bill of rights was redundant.

Some delegates, including Alexander Hamilton, also argued that a bill of rights could be dangerous, as it might imply that the government had the power to infringe on rights not explicitly protected in the bill. They worried that listing specific rights might suggest that those were the only rights that citizens had, and that the government could infringe on any others.

It was only after the ratification of the Constitution, and in response to the Anti-Federalist demand for a bill of rights, that the first ten amendments to the Constitution, known as the Bill of Rights, were added to protect individual liberties and limit the power of the federal government.

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