Pauline Maier

“Wilson had to explain why the Constitution did not, like several state constitutions, include a bill of rights. The reason, he said in one of his most influential arguments, lay in a critical difference between the constitutions of the states and the proposed federal Constitution. Through the state constitutions, the people gave their state governments “every right and authority which they did not in explicit terms reserve.” The federal Constitution, however, carefully defined and limited the powers of Congress, so that body’s authority came “not from tacit implication, but from the positive grant” of specific powers in the Constitution.”
― Pauline Maier, Ratification: The People Debate the Constitution, 1787-1788

“Universal experience,” he began, proved the necessity of “the most express declarations and reservations … to protect the just rights and liberty of Mankind from the Silent, powerful, and ever active conspiracy of those who govern.” The new Constitution should therefore “be bottomed upon a declaration, or Bill of Rights, clearly and precisely stating the principles upon which the Social Compact is founded.”
― Pauline Maier, Ratification: The People Debate the Constitution, 1787-1788