After fighting a war to win liberty from a tyrannical
government, Anti-Federalists — a faction of our Founding Fathers
led primarily by Patrick Henry distrustful of a strong national
government — pushed for amendments to the Constitution to
identify fundamental natural rights and civil liberties. Such a
Bill of Rights, they believed, was necessary because of the
known propensity of governments generally to usurp powers not
delegated to it. Yet some, such as James Madison, initially
fought such a move, based on the principle that there is no need
to say what a government cannot do, because that could imply it
can do everything else. In the final analysis, however, Madison
took the lead in the Congress in support of the first ten
amendments to the Constitution as the Bill of Rights, because
not to do so likely would have doomed the entire process. He
therefore, but reluctantly, drafted 12 proposals to settle
concerns of Anti-Federalists; 10 were initially ratified. The
political and legal battles pitting indivi