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Defending the Constitution
of the people and the rights of the States. To correct this problem, they
demanded that a Bill of Rights be added to the Constitution. The Federalists, on the other hand, argued that a bill of rights was unnecessary
because no power had been delegated to the Federal government to
regulate such matters as freedom of the press and religion in the first
place. A Bill of Rights was nevertheless added to the Constitution in
1791.
6. The addition of the Bill of Rights was the chief accomplishment of
the Anti-Federalists. It strengthened and affirmed the federal principle
of the Constitution. It not only assured the people that the Federal government was prohibited from abridging their liberties, but it also assured the States that they would retain jurisdiction and control over
most civil liberties disputes between the States and their citizens.
7. The American Constitution seeks to prevent rule by tyrannical majorities as well as tyrannical minorities. But in a democratic republic the
problem of majority factions is usually the more difficult to resolve. In
Federalist No. 10, James Madison explained that by establishing an extended, commercial, federal and democratic republic, the Framers sought
to reduce and possibly eliminate the threat of government by tyrannical
majorities. The system of representation established by the Framers is
the key to an understanding of how the Constitution deals with this
basic problem of democratic government.
8. The Bill of Rights is not a complete catalogue of all the rights that
are enjoyed by the American people and are protected by the Constitution. As provided by the Ninth and Tenth Amendments, the people
and the States retain jurisdiction over additional rights under their State
constitutions and bills of rights, which the Federal government may not
touch.
S
igned on September 17, 1787, by all the delegates who still remained at Philadelphia—except Gerry of Massachusetts and Randolph
and Mason of Virginia—the text of the proposed Constitution was dispatched to New York City, where the last Congress under the Confederation was meeting. Then there commenced a struggle which would last
for nearly a year to persuade the several States to accept the new Constitution. It would be a conflict with much shouting but no shooting.
The Great Convention, in submitting the proposed Constitution to the