Philadelphia, 1787. Four months in one of the hottest summers on record, in a stuffy building, with delegates who are agitated and ready to go home. And as the convention reaches its end, George Mason of Virginia stands up and says he would sooner lose his right arm than put it to that document.
Everyone is stunned, because Mason had supported it the whole way through and had written the Virginia Declaration of Rights. James Madison asks him why. Mason says it is because there is no bill of rights, and the government will abuse us without one. Madison answers that they have not given the government enough authority to abuse anyone's rights. Mason's reply is the line the whole episode turns on: but they will, they always do.
Then Governor Edmund Randolph, the man who had presented the Virginia Plan that became the Constitution, says he will not sign it either.
Bill Norton lays out the other side fairly, because it was not a foolish position. Alexander Hamilton made the case, and Madison agreed: list the rights and government will claim the ones you failed to list are not rights at all. Worse, the moment you put them in the federal document, you have handed the federal government the authority to interpret and define them. Norton connects that directly to Congress shall make no law, and asks how many laws Congress has made anyway.
What breaks the deadlock is not the delegates. It is the states. Ratification stalls, the objection is everywhere, and Madison finally gives his word that the first Congress will take it up. Patrick Henry, the finest orator of the age, is fighting him in his own state, saying he smells a rat.
Jenny Beth Martin names the pattern: the people wanted this, and the government answered.
Watch the full lesson at jennybethshow.com. More at teapartypatriots.org. Capitol switchboard: 202-224-3121.
00:00 — Philadelphia, 1787: Four Months in a Stuffy Building
00:22 — George Mason Stands Up and Refuses to Sign
00:42 — Madison: We Have Not Given Them Enough Power
01:12 — Governor Randolph Walks Away Too
01:56 — Hamilton's Argument Against Listing Rights At All
02:34 — The Second Fear: Letting Washington Define Your Rights
03:42 — Ratification Stalls in the States
04:29 — No Bill of Rights, No Ratification
04:51 — Madison's Own State Is the Hardest to Win
05:10 — Patrick Henry: I Smell a Rat
05:58 — The People Wanted It, and the Government Answered
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