Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Zink, James R.

Titel

James Wilson versus the Bill of Rights: Progress, Popular Sovereignty, and the Idea of the U.S. Constitution

Ist Teil von

• Political research quarterly, 2014-06, Vol.67 (2), p.253-265

Ort / Verlag

Los Angeles, CA: SAGE Publications

Erscheinungsjahr

2014

Quelle

PAIS Index

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• Americans today may take the Bill of Rights for granted, but its inclusion in the U.S. Constitution originally was controversial. To understand why, I turn to James Wilson, a leading statesman of the founding era and the chief opponent of the Bill of Rights. Among other things, Wilson thought a bill of rights would bind future generations to an incomplete list of rights and deprive them of the right to define individual rights over time. His arguments against a constitutional bill of rights also offer a useful view of the complexity and diversity of American founding era thought.