Why did some leaders feel the Bill of Right was important?

Answer 1

In fact, there was general agreement about the importance of these RIGHTS. The disagreement was over whether it was wise and useful to specifically LIST them in the U.S. Constitution. Those who fought for inclusion of a specific listing - a "Bill of Rights" (something already found in several state constitutions) believed it was necessary to provide full protection for government abuse, such as that they believed they had experienced from Britain. (Most of these rights were part of a longstanding tradition in British history, but had not always been specifically laid out in written guarantees.) Perhaps the more helpful thing for us to understand today is why some did NOT favor a "Bill of Rights" initially - including Madison, who later led the work of shaping and passing them in Congress (and convinced Washington of the wisdom of such amendments). Those who hesitated thought such a listing was at best redundant, that the Constitution was itself limited so that the rights were implied (whatever wasn't given to the government was prohibited to it), that STATE laws & constitutions were the more important guarantee of rights, and that any attempt to list rights if it happened to leave anything out might seem to imply those rights were NOT protected. One other note - one group of those who advocated a "Bill of Rights" for the Constitution was not as much concerned with putting such guarantees in place as with undercutting or even undoing the Constitution, which they opposed as yielding too much power to the central/federal government (major example, Patrick Henry).