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Bill of Rights
Federal representatives from crucial states had supported the Constitution expecting amendments that would explicitly protect individual rights. The Anglo-Saxon Protestant legal tradition of a precise statement of individual rights had deep roots and it wasn’t surprising that the first Congress added what became known as the Bill of Rights. On December 15, 1791 Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson certified that ten proposed amendments to the Constitution had been ratified. Drafted by James Madison in 1789, but modified by debate in the House and the Senate, the amendments responded to fears that the new national government might trample on basic Anglo-Saxon Protestant liberties such as freedom of speech, press, assembly, and religious practice, or denying people fair trials and due process of law. These first ten amendments to the Constitution, most of which concerned legal protections for those accused of crimes, stand as both the symbol and foundation of American ideals of individual liberty, limited government, and the rule of law.
The Bill of Rights was based on the Anglo-Saxon Protestant legal tradition of a writ of habeas corpus, which provided the right to be brought before courts and have a trial by jury. Meant to prevent the government from throwing people in jail without charges, the writ of habeas corpus was seen as fundamental for preventing the arbitrary or illegal imprisonment of people. In America, free human beings with black skin were constitutionally denied, through the fugitive slave clause, the right to a writ of habeas corpus. Anglo-Saxon Protestants had the constitutional right to deny alleged self-liberated (fugitive) black-skinned slaves criminal hearings, and to seize them without allowing them to have a defense, attorney, or witnesses. Under American law, free human beings with black skin, existed as alleged self-liberated (fugitive) black-skinned slaves. It was constitutional to deny them fair trials, due process of law, and the right to prove their freedom in court because they were denied the basic Anglo-Saxon Protestant constitutional right to the writ of habeas corpus.
Public Debt
In response to Congress requesting a comprehensive plan for “the support of the Public Credit,” Hamilton sent his “Report on Public Credit.” His plan argued the national government should begin paying interest payments within a year, and pay debts specific to the Revolution within two years. James Madison opposed Hamilton’s plan on the grounds that it had centralizing tendencies. Hamilton wanted to consolidate debts so that the national government would assume all of the state debt. The political problem was people had lent the Continental Congress money but sold their Certificates of Credit to speculators for less than face value. Hamilton wanted to restrict payment to current certificate holders, and ignore the original purchasers. The principle of contracts, he argued, required they assume the risk of debt. Hamilton believed this policy would standardize the nation's accounts, help establish America's credit abroad, and make the federal government of necessity the chief taxing authority. Furthermore, it would bind the small group of wealthy businessmen who held most of the debt to the national government.
Virginians objected because they believed the nation's future would be best realized through a decentralized agrarian economy. To them the wealthy debt holders were enemies of American democracy, corrupt urban elites who would use their economic power to buy influence in Congress. Many had purchased debt for fractions of its face value from Revolutionary War veterans and Madison saw them as undeserving speculators. Furthermore, states like Virginia, which had paid off nearly all their debts, would now be forced through federal taxation to subsidize other states that had not. Far from helping states out, the federal government was taking control of their economies. "It seems to me," Revolutionary hero Henry Lee wrote Madison, "that we Southern people must be slaves in effect, or cut the Gordian knot at once. ... Is your love for the Constitution so ardent ... that it should produce ruin to your native country [Virginia]?"
It was in this context that Jefferson ran into a Hamilton who looked “somb[er], haggard, and dejected beyond comparison.” If Congress rejected his plan, he told Jefferson, he would resign as Treasury Secretary. Though claiming ignorance of the larger issues, Jefferson offered to host a dinner with Hamilton and Madison to discuss the situation.