Patrick+Henry+and+the+Bill+of+Rights

_ ** "16 June 1788 Mr. Chairman. The necessity of a Bill of Rights appear to me to be greater in this Government, than ever it was in any Government before.... ...How were the Congressional rights defined when the people of America united by a confederacy to defend their liberties and rights against the tyrannical attempts of Great-Britain? The States were not then contented with implied reservation. No, Mr. Chairman. It was expressly declared in our Confederation that every right was not given up to the Government of the United States. But there is no such thing here. You therefore by a natural and unavoidable implication, give up your rights to the General Government.... The powers of direct taxation, the sword, and the purse. You have disposed of them to Congress, without a Bill of Rights.... You have a Bill of Rights to defend you against the State Government, which is bereaved of all power; and yet you have none against Congress, though in full and exclusive possession of all power! You arm yourselves against the weak and defenseless, and expose yourselves naked to the armed and powerful. Is not this a conduct of unexampled absurdity? " Patrick Henry
 * Patrick Henry, who opposed any ratification of the Constitution, specifically opposed that document because it failed to contain a bill of rights such as had been placed in more than half of the state constitutions after the Revolution. This excerpt comes from a speech to the Virginia Constitutional Convention in 1788.

Read below an excerpt from the article entitled __A More Perfect Union__ in how some felt about the Constitution without a bill of rights!

The call for a bill of rights had been the anti-Federalists' most powerful weapon. Attacking the proposed Constitution for its vagueness and lack of specific protection against tyranny, Patrick Henry asked the Virginia convention, "What can avail your specious, imaginary balances, your rope-dancing, chain-rattling, ridiculous ideal checks and contrivances." The anti-Federalists, demanding a more concise, unequivocal Constitution, one that laid out for all to see the right of the people and limitations of the power of government, claimed that the brevity of the document only revealed its inferior nature. Richard Henry Lee despaired at the lack of provisions to protect "those essential rights of mankind without which liberty cannot exist." Trading the old government for the new without such a bill of rights, Lee argued, would be trading Scylla for Charybdis.