The Pendragon's Hall

I have nothing but admiration for the Constitution and the men who framed it, but there is this little part I wish they had left out: the Bill of Rights. "Aha, I thought so!" many will be exclaiming at this point. But cool your jets and hear me out. There was serious disagreement over adding a Bill of Rights to the Constitution but it was the only way some paranoid demagogues known as anti-Federalists would agree to support the new government. Alexander Hamilton wrote the last Federalist essay (the collection should be the Bible of our government), pleading with New Yorkers in particular to support the Constitution without it. Hamilton argued, first of all, that New York's constitution, which was held up as a better example than the federal one, contained no bill of rights. But his real reason for wishing to avoid the appendage was more profound. The new Constitution contained no justification for a government suspending the freedoms the anti-Federalists cherished and explicitly stated that any power not expressly granted to the federal government were retained by the states and the people. Hamilton feared that beginning a laundry list of rights would first lead people to believe that only the rights granted in the bill of rights were protected, leading to government abuse, but he also feared the public would abuse it. Take freedom of the press, he contended, "who can give it any definition which would not leave the utmost latitude for evasion?" The danger was that people would construe freedom of the press to mean almost anything. The Constitution did not grant the government the right to meddle with the press or with religion, therefore it did not have this right. But some kind of definition was needed.

Today we see how right Hamilton was to mistrust the rhetoric of self-proclaimed "men of the people." Freedom of the press has become freedom of expression (whatever that means) and can be used to cover anything from war protests to child pornography. No matter whose life is destroyed, a pervert can never be held responsible for their free expression. And, of course, without the second amendment, Thomas Jefferson would never have invented a wall between church and state that's only ever used to keep one religion out of public life. The Bill of Rights was intended to safeguard our most precious entity, but instead it has become exactly what Hamilton feared: a tool for chaos and ridiculous government, shielding criminals from justice and descriminating against people of one faith in favor of another. Exactly the thing it was supposed to prevent. Yeah. Good job, guys.