Among other reasons, Madison believed that state bills of rights were little more than “parchment barriers” that were often ignored by “overbearing majorities in every State,” and that a federal bill of rights would fare no better.

It began on October 24, 1787, a little more than a month after the Convention ended, when Madison informed Jefferson that George Mason, a Virginia colleague, had left Philadelphia in opposition to the Constitution-“He considers the want of a Bill of Rights as a fatal objection.” Jefferson replied two months later that “a bill of rights is what the people are entitled to against every government on earth, general or particular, & what no just government should refuse or rest on inference.”Īlthough he later became the primary author of the Bill of Rights, Madison expressed serious doubts about the wisdom of amendments securing rights. Jefferson was a minister serving in Paris when he and Madison wrote to each other about their feelings about a bill of rights. In many of the states, ratification came only after the Anti-Federalist secured promises that the First Federal Congress would consider amendments to protect the liberty of the people. Much of the opposition to ratification had centered around the failure of the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia to include a bill of rights in the original document. The Constitution had been written and signed by the time that Thomas Jefferson and James Madison engaged in a fascinating correspondence about a bill of rights.

Madison writings