Why the Constitution gained a Bill of Rights · Grade 9

The passage and its 7 questions

Directions: Read the passage carefully. Then answer the questions in full sentences.

• When delegates in Philadelphia signed the Constitution in September 1787, it set up a stronger national government with a Congress, a president and federal courts. But it did not include a list of the people's rights. That gap quickly became one of the biggest arguments in the fight over whether to approve it.
• Opponents of the Constitution, called Anti-Federalists, feared that a powerful central government might someday threaten the freedoms Americans had fought for. George
• Mason of Virginia, the main author of his state's declaration of rights, refused to sign the
• Constitution partly because it had none. Without a written guarantee, Anti-Federalists asked, what would stop Congress from silencing the press or forcing soldiers into private homes?
• Supporters, called Federalists, answered that a list was unnecessary because the national government could use only the powers the Constitution gave it. Alexander
• Hamilton even warned that listing some rights might suggest that any right left off the list was unprotected. In his view, the Constitution itself, by limiting what the government could do, already served as a bill of rights.
• The debate shaped ratification. Several states, starting with Massachusetts in early
• 1788, approved the Constitution while recommending amendments. James Madison had doubted that a bill of rights was needed, but he came to see that adding one would build trust in the new government. Running for a seat in the first House of
• Representatives, he promised Virginia voters that he would work for amendments.
• In 1789 Madison drew up proposals, using state declarations of rights and the states' recommended amendments as sources. Congress sent twelve amendments to the states, and ten were ratified by December 1791. These became the Bill of Rights. To answer Hamilton's worry, the Ninth Amendment says that listing certain rights does not deny others kept by the people.
• One of the two unratified proposals had a surprising future. It said that a pay raise
• Congress voted for itself could not take effect until after the next election. A campaign to revive it began in the 1980s, enough states approved it, and in 1992 it became the
• Twenty-seventh Amendment, more than two hundred years after Madison first proposed it.
• 1. What was the Anti-Federalists' main objection to the Constitution?
• 2. Why did Hamilton think a list of rights could be dangerous?
• 3. How did the Ninth Amendment answer Hamilton's concern?
• 4. What does 'ratification' mean in paragraph 4?
• 5. Why might Madison have changed his mind about a bill of rights?
• 6. Copy the sentence that shows how the states influenced the Bill of Rights.
• 7. Analyze how the author structures the passage to build an argument or explanation.