The Bill of Rights: The Fight to Secure America's Liberties

by Carol Berkin

Overview

“Narrative, celebratory history at its purest” (Publishers Weekly)—the real story of how the Bill of Rights came to be: a vivid account of political strategy, big egos, and the partisan interests that set the terms of the ongoing contest between the federal government and the states.

Those who argue that the Bill of Rights reflects the founding fathers’ “original intent” are wrong. The Bill of Rights was actually a brilliant political act executed by James Madison to preserve the Constitution, the federal government, and the latter’s authority over the states. In the skilled hands of award-winning historian Carol Berkin, the story of the founders’ fight over the Bill of Rights comes alive in a drama full of partisanship, clashing egos, and cunning manipulation.

In 1789, the nation faced a great divide around a question still unanswered today: should broad power and authority reside in the federal government or should it reside in state governments? The Bill of Rights, from protecting religious freedom to the people’s right to bear arms, was a political ploy first and a matter of principle second. The truth of how and why Madison came to devise this plan, the debates it caused in the Congress, and its ultimate success is more engrossing than any of the myths that shroud our national beginnings.

The debate over the Bill of Rights still continues through many Supreme Court decisions. By pulling back the curtain on the short-sighted and self-interested intentions of the founding fathers, Berkin reveals the anxiety many felt that the new federal government might not survive—and shows that the true “original intent” of the Bill of Rights was simply to oppose the Antifederalists who hoped to diminish the government’s powers. This book is “a highly readable American history lesson that provides a deeper understanding of the Bill of Rights, the fears that generated it, and the miracle of the amendments” (Kirkus Reviews).

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781476743813
Publisher:	Simon & Schuster
Publication date:	05/05/2015
Sold by:	SIMON & SCHUSTER
Format:	eBook
Pages:	272
Sales rank:	230,891
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Carol Berkin is the Presidential Professor of History at Baruch College and a member of the history faculty of the Graduate Center of CUNY, Emerita, where she taught early American and women’s history. Professor Berkin has worked as a consultant on several PBS and History Channel documentaries, including one on the “Scottsboro Boys,” which was nominated for an Academy Award as the best documentary of 2000.

Read an Excerpt

The Bill of Rights

For the majority of modern Americans, the Bill of Rights stands as the most important element of the Constitution, the touchstone, as James Madison hoped it would become, of our shared unalienable rights and liberties. Along with the Declaration of Independence, these first ten amendments—with their guarantees of freedom of speech, religion, and the press, and the right to assemble; their promise of a speedy trial by jury; their protection against double jeopardy and unreasonable search and seizure; and their recognition of the right to bear arms—announce to the world our national values and ideals. They have served as the standards by which we measure our individual actions and the actions of our government toward its own citizens.

Yet hallowed by time as the Declaration and the Bill of Rights have become, it is crucial to place these two documents in their historical context and examine the immediate circumstances that generated them. The men who created the Declaration did so to justify a revolution, and the men who passed the Bill of Rights acted to secure the loyalty of citizens wary of their new federal government.

The men who debated, revised, and campaigned for and against the first ten amendments were eighteenth-century Americans. Their world is not ours. The memories they carried were of imperial abuses, the painful renunciation of their English identities, and a long and exhausting war for independence. The excitement they felt and the fears that haunted them were the result of a rare opportunity to create a new nation and to establish it as a republic. If they knew they were making history, they did not know what that history would be.

The men who produced the Bill of Rights were neither demigods nor visionaries. They were mere mortals, some brilliant, some quite ordinary, most of them wealthier and better educated than their neighbors. Almost all of them were veteran politicians, and though most of the issues they grappled with will seem foreign to us today, the tempo and tone of their politics will be familiar. In their wrangling and debating, in their manipulation of procedure to expedite their agenda or derail that of their opponents, in the flare-ups of ego and the indulgence of idiosyncracy, and in the combustible mixture of self-interest, ideals, and principles that propelled them, these men resemble political leaders of every era. But in their burden of serving in a government without precedents and with uncertain legitimacy, in their pressing anxiety that this government might fail, and in their knowledge that America was dwarfed by the great imperial powers across the Atlantic, they are uniquely men of the late eighteenth century.

In 1789, when James Madison proposed the Bill of Rights, the young nation faced a great ideological divide with regard to a question that is being revived today: should broad power and authority reside in the federal government, as the Federalists wished, or should it reside in the state governments, where the Antifederalists insisted it could best protect the people’s liberties? In these early years of the new nation, this ideological struggle was raw and fraught with immediacy, for the Constitution that empowered the national government was new and lacked the traditions that over time lend legitimacy and elicit loyalty. The political decisions the men of this early era made forestalled but did not dissolve the tension between localism and nationalism that was endemic to the federal system they created. That tension would reemerge in the nineteenth century when challenges to federal law and policy led to the Civil War. Even in our lifetime, this issue of where ultimate power should reside remains a Gordian knot.

This confrontation between states’ rights and national authority started with the fierce debates over ratification of the Constitution, and it continued in the First Federal Congress, in the state legislatures, and in the press as Washington’s first administration began. We can appreciate the Bill of Rights only in the context of this struggle. These amendments, conceived by James Madison, one of the most astute Federalists of his day, were intended to weaken, if not crush, the continuing opposition to the new federal government he had been so instrumental in creating. By assuring citizens that the new government would honor and protect their liberties, he hoped to achieve two interlocking goals. The first was to ease the fear of tyranny harbored by many within the general populace and thus separate the Antifederalist followers from their leaders. The second was to preempt the Antifederalists’ plans to pass amendments that would severely restrict the powers of the new government.

Madison’s Bill of Rights was thus more a political strategy than a statement of America’s most cherished values. Yet Madison was keenly aware of its potential to set a high standard for the relationship between citizens and the men who governed them. Even more important to Madison, this explicit guarantee of rights and liberties could play a critical role in protecting minority groups from abuse by the majority. The addition of these amendments was thus a patriotic as well as a political measure, for it was designed to strengthen republican values and to ensure that the American government would honor the people’s right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. It was the genius of James Madison that he could unite practical considerations and noble aspirations, and join the ideological with the ideal.

All of the rights Madison wished to protect had their roots in the founding generation’s colonial and revolutionary past. They speak to imperial abuses and to hallowed Anglo-American traditions that do not resonate today. Yet the generations that followed added their understandings of these rights just as today we add our own. In this way, the amendments once dismissed as only a “parchment barrier” remains our collective heritage and we remain its guardian for future generations.

Editorial Reviews

03/30/2015
Berkin (Wondrous Beauty), a professor of history at Baruch College and the CUNY Graduate Center, provides a narrative history of two critical constitutional moments in American history: the introduction and adoption by the first federal Congress of the Bill of Rights and the Bill’s rapid ratification by the states. She tells the story briskly, working from comprehensive sources, and she omits nothing of importance. The problem is that Berkin leaves it at that, assuming that a story reveals its significance simply by being told. Readers won’t gather from her account that there are any concerns or controversies over decisions made in that initial Congress—principally by James Madison, then leader of the House of Representatives, but also by his colleagues. Did those men err in some of their choices? Americans have endlessly debated parts of the Bill, especially the Second Amendment of late, while venerating others, such as the First; Berkin briefly alludes to such matters but makes no connection between them and the Bill’s framers. This is narrative, celebratory history at its purest. What it lacks is a point of view in addition to the story. (May)

Publishers Weekly

"A highly readable American history lesson that provides a deeper understanding of the Bill of Rights, the fears that generated it and the miracle of the amendments." —Kirkus

From the Publisher

Fluidly written and readily accessible, Carol Berkin's account of the genesis and adoption of the Bill of Rights is a must-read for every American seeking to learn the history of this iconic addition to the Constitution. The narrative of ‘rights’ included and omitted gives us much to ponder, even in the 21st century.

Mary Beth Norton

"Carol Berkin’s brilliant new book demystifies the Bill of Rights. In crystal-clear prose it demonstrates that James Madison’s shepherding of the first ten amendments through a reluctant Congress was, above all, a successful strategy for preserving the new Constitution, and with it a viable national government. Every American should read this book. I’m thinking of sending five copies to the Supreme Court."

Stuart M. Blumin

"Berkin’s well-crafted and readable narrative focusing on the struggle in Congress over the Bill of Rights in the summer of 1789 should be required reading for those who seek to understand the political divisions among the Founding Fathers and the legacy inherited by future generations. Berkin offers an even-handed account of the forces which supported and opposed a Bill of Rights. She introduces us to intelligent and articulate men such as Roger Sherman, Fisher Ames, and Elbridge Gerry—and the omnipresent James Madison—supplementing the volume with interesting short biographies of the members of Congress."

John M. Belohlavek

"Having crafted the definitive volume on the creation of the Constitution in A Brilliant Solution, Carol Berkin here turns her attention to the men who drafted and battled over that document’s first ten amendments. Bristling with vivid insights, packed with colorful tales and personalities, and narrated with her customary verve, The Bill of Rights reaffirms Berkin’s status as one of the most original, vital, and essential historians of the eighteenth century."

Douglas R. Egerton

"With this concise, wonderfully readable, and masterfully crafted book, Carol Berkin has made the eighteenth-century legislative debates over the Bill of Rights accessible and intelligible to the American public. This book should be required reading in every high school and college civics, history, and social studies classroom in America."

Julie Silverbrook

"Once again Professor Berkin has given us a beautifully written, insightful history about the intricacies of securing American liberty in her new book The Bill of Rights. Her careful treatment of the political process has produced a profound look into the motives both political and personal of the framers of our government, and the role that each one, especially James Madison, performed in creating and securing American liberty. It is amazing how she has been able to bring to new life a topic that has been so often explored by other historians. Her writing is compelling and clear. The Bill of Rights is a dynamic reexamination of the principal document which is at the foundation of American freedoms."

George W. Henry

Carol Berkin unravels the story of our Bill of Rights as only she can. Under her pen the founders come to life—vivid and complex—struggling to meet the challenges of their times. Berkin reveals the intricacy, struggle, political infighting, and self-interest at work in the American political process while celebrating the remarkable and enduring accomplishments of these very human American citizens.

William E. White

★ 05/01/2015
The Constitutional Convention that met in Philadelphia in 1787 was supposed to propose reforms to the Articles of Confederation. Instead attendees wrote an entirely new document. Berkin (history, Baruch Coll.; A Brilliant Solution) tells the story of the Bill of Rights in the Convention, the ratification in the states, and in the First Congress. Those who opposed the ratification of the Constitution cited the lack of a bill of rights to limit the powers of the proposed federal government. James Madison, a key figure in the Convention, opposed such an addition. But Madison agreed to support one in order to appease the opponents of the Constitution. Madison, elected to the First Congress in order to manage the amendment process, was key to the drafting and adoption of the first ten amendments to the Constitution. Berkin is a talented writer, and her story moves swiftly. The book also includes a biographical section profiling all those involved. VERDICT A scholarly and readable book that is excellent for history buffs. [See Prepub Alert, 11/17/14.]—Michael O. Eshleman, Bloomington, IN

Library Journal

2015-01-04
Though we often take the Bill of Rights for granted, it took a monumental fight to get it approved. Berkin (History/Baruch Coll.; Wondrous Beauty: The Life and Adventures of Elizabeth Patterson Bonaparte, 2014, etc.) deftly examines its passage.Of the states that initially ratified the Constitution, many included amendments and cries for a second Constitutional Convention. Replacing the restrictive Articles of Confederation, the Constitution addressed the continuing postwar economic depression and attempted to improve the cooperation of the 13 states. Many states, which had their own currencies and import duties, viewed the power to tax and regulate commerce as tyranny. To those, the checks and balances in the Constitution were not enough to preserve the states' liberties, and the question of states rights vs. federalism was threatening to dissolve the union. As the new Congress met in New York in 1789, James Madison set about presenting a distillation of the hundreds of amendments requested by the ratifying states. It was a way to secure the loyalty of citizens who had fought for representation on a local level but were still wary of central government. Madison feared not an oppressive government but rather abusive practices of social majorities against minorities. He felt that the Bill of Rights was merely a "parchment barrier," but he hoped it had the potential to become a standard of behavior. Even though passage was assured in the Federalist-dominated Congress, the author ably shows how difficult and obstructionist the House debate became as nerves frayed in the summer heat. With constant demands for a new Convention, Madison feared for the Constitution and knew that this Bill of Rights would distract attempts at rewriting it. A highly readable American history lesson that provides a deeper understanding of the Bill of Rights, the fears that generated it and the miracle of the amendments.

Kirkus Reviews