Mr. Waddell slights a couple of important points in his summary of our
Constitution's origins and content. First, the federal Constitution of 1787 was not
"the first documented attempt to shield the individual from the power and control of
government...." It was preceded by all the early state constitutions, many of which
included lengthy bills of rights , and before them by a host of colonial documents
(charters, covenants, compacts, codes of law, etc.) which sometimes expressed
similar protections (see, inter alia, the collection of essays in The Bill of Rights
and the States: The Colonial and Revolutionary Origins of American Liberties, edited
by Patrick T. Conley, and the fifth volume of The Founders' Constitution, edited by
Philip Kurland and Ralph Lerner). Second, the federal Bill of Rights was not a part
of the "original" Constitution; the latter, not including the former, was ratified
in 1788, and a new government launched thereupon; the latter was created by the
first Congress, with James Madison in the lead and despite a great many differences
of opinion about what to include and how to say it, and was not ratified until 1791
(see Helen Veit, ed., Creating the Bill of Rights). But once ratified, it became
part of the
Constitution as surely as any of the original articles. Finally, few founders, if
any, would have limited the federal bureaucracy (and government's "reach"?) quite as
severely as Mr. Waddell suggests in his last paragraph. "Limited government"... yes,
indeed, but not *that* limited!

Doug Deal
History/SUNY Oswego

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