ed during the convention. Charles Pinckney submitted a list of thirteen propositions on the liberties of the citizen for consideration, but no action was taken on his proposal. As the final vote on the Constitution approached, George Mason urged that it be prefaced by a Bill of Rights to "give great quiet to the people." This plea was brushed aside. Many members of the Convention, particularly the Federalists, believed that such a bill was unnecessary. Its purpose, they contended, was to protect the subject from tyrannical rulers, and such provisions had no place in a constitution in which the ultimate power was in the people: moreover, to specify particular rights was to limit constitutional protection to those rights only. This was the prevailing view: nevertheless, the omission of a bill of rights became a rallying point for the Anti-Federalists in the state ratifying conventions. The Constitution of 1787 was a practical document aimed at creating a machinery of government. Inherent in that machinery was protection against arbitrary authority in the division of power among the executive, legislative and judicial branches. The Constitution represented an experiment in government, and was necessarily written with little basis in practical experience. Still, in the minds of many of the delegates were principles of the British constitution, which Pinckney declared to be "the best constitution in existence." Those principles would be evidenced more clearly in the subsequently enacted Bill of Rights, as well as Constitutions of individual States. Most of the original founder-States of the USA had produced their own Constitutions, and as territories were granted statehood, they too felt the need to set forth the essential procedures, obligations and limitations controlling the function and laws of their governments. Right from her very birth, America would espouse and never abandon the principles of constitutional supremacy and popular part...
