I just finished James Madison and the Struggle for the Bill of Rights by Richard Labunski. Considering all of the moaning and complaining these days about rights, there is a paucity of knowledge among most of us about how the BOR came about. Labunski provides some information that has been provided before by other authors, but his details about Madison's struggles are enlightening. It's probably little known that Madison had to work his tail off just to get the Congress to take up the Bill let alone pass it. It also took something of a Herculean effort among its advocates to get the states to ratify it.
There seems to be a lot written about Madison lately. Several years ago, Adams was getting all of the attention.
Madison, like almost every other delegate to the 1787 Constitutional Convention, was thoroughly opposed to a Bill of Rights in the Constitution. As you state, many Americans don't know this and today when we speak of the Constitution we often first think of the Bill of Rights. It was the opposite perspective for the Founding Fathers.
My two questions for you concerning Labunski's treatment are:
1. While Madison is known as the Father of the Constitution, several delegates contributed as much, if not more, in the formation of the document that summer. John Rutledge, Gouverneur Morris, James Wilson and Rufus King are some of them. Madison possessed unmatched knowledge on historical political theory and philosophy, but does the author challenge whether the unofficial title of Father of the Constitution is appropriate?
2. Does the author give much detail about the external political influences on Madison to pass a Bill of Rights as a Congressman after the ratification of the Constitution? In Virginia, Massachusetts, New York and a few other states the Constitution faced strong opposition, largely on the issue of the new national government's ability to tax the people, which is something that the Federalists felt was necessary. Madison reluctantly agreed to a Bill of Rights when he realized that he would lose in a Congressional election to James Monroe unless concessions were made to those who challenged the Costitution. Madison thought a Bill of Rights, taken from a survey of other states' declaration of rights would satisfy the people enough not to call a second convention, which might have scrapped the blueprints of the government they had just worked so hard to create.
