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The Pros And Cons Of The Constitution

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The constitution was a collaboration project where several different people and ideologies worked together to form a fair and just government in the colonies. Due to the large number of different ideas battling for dominance within the formation of this new government, compromise had to be made. This level of compromise allows the modern interpreter to find the existence, both in large and small ways, of the ongoing battle in regard to individual and civil rights in every part of the document. These contributors had very different ideas about the concept of ‘rights’ and more specifically, their ideal level of priority within a society. Locke, Rousseau, Paine, Dickinson, Madison and Blackstone all had varying ideas of what this balance should …show more content…

amend. IX). This amendment displays the idea that the readers of the constitution should not assume that the rights clearly protected within it are the extent of all human rights. This amendment fights for the idea that everyone deserves their natural human rights, even if they are not explicitly given in the constitution. Locke and Rousseau both have opinions on this topic of natural rights shown in their respective texts, and it can be argued that the ninth amendment was influenced by both contributors, however Locke would have much less conflicted opinions on the amendment than …show more content…

The two sides again were the Lockean idea that individual rights should always be held above civil rights and the more conservative idea from Rousseau that some individual rights need to be sacrificed in order for the government to provide more important civil rights for the general will. James Madison was quoted in the work “The Federalist Essays” written by Publius about the importance of the inclusion of a Bill of Rights in the constitution. He believed that there needed to be something within it that secured the individual rights of the people. In contrast, William Blackstone focused more on a balance, much like Dickinson and Rousseau, between civil and individual rights in his work “Commentaries”. He believed that some individual rights needed to be given up in order to allow civil society to promote the greater good and maintain order. However, he believes that the individual rights to life, liberty and property should be protected before all

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