ncouraged.

* * * * *

"Art. 6. There shall be neither slavery nor involuntary
servitude in the said territory, otherwise than in the punishment of
crimes whereof the party shall have been duly convicted: * * *"[1]

FORMULATION AND ADOPTION OF THE BILL OF RIGHTS

Two months later, at the very end of its labors, the Constitutional
Convention rejected, with scant consideration, a proposal by Gerry and
Mason, to prepare a bill of rights.[2] This omission furnished the
principal argument urged against ratification of the Constitution.
Hamilton replied with the following ingenious argument: "* * * bills of
rights are in their origin, stipulations between kings and their
subjects, abridgments of prerogative in favor of privilege, reservations
of rights not surrendered to the prince. * * * It is evident, therefore,
that according to their primitive signification, they have no
application to the constitutions professedly founded upon the power of
the people, and executed by their immediate representatives and
servants. Here, in strictness, the people surrender nothing; and as they
retain everything, they have no need of particular reservations."[3]

The people did not find this line of reasoning persuasive. Several
States ratified only after Washington put forward the suggestion that
the desired guarantees could be added by amendment.[4] No less than 124
amendments were proposed by the States.[5] Shortly after the First
Congress convened, Madison introduced a series of amendments,[6]
designed "to quiet the apprehension of many, that without some such
declaration of rights the government would assume, and might be held to
possess, the power to trespass upon those rights of persons and property
which by the Declaration of Independence were affirmed to be unalienable
* * *"[7] After prolonged debate seventeen proposals were accepted by
the House two of which were rejected by the Senate. The remainder were
reduced to twelve in number, all but two of which were ratified by the
requisite number of States.[8]

THE BILL OF RIGHTS AND THE STATES: BARRON _v._ BALTIMORE

One of the amendments which the Senate refused to accept--the one which
Madison declared to be "the most valuable of the whole list"[9]--read as
follows: "The equal rights of conscience, the freedom of speech or of
the press, and the right of trial by jury in criminal cases, shall not
be infringed by any State."[10] The demand for