Why did the Founding Fathers amend the Constitution with the Bill of Rights?

Answer 1

One of the most important points is to understand that many people fled to America to escape persecution and religious wars in Europe. The Founders very much kept this in mind while constructing the Constitution. They sought to prevent another series of massacres, religious wars, and feuds over papal control like the ones that dominated history from the beginning of the Early Middle Ages to the Thirty Years' War (roughly 700 years or so of death in the name of state-imposed religion and power struggles). Therefore, The Bill of Rights not only enforces guidelines for proper government behavior, it is a means for protecting minority rights from majority oppression, otherwise known as mob rule. For example, the First Amendment's Freedom of Religion is not only a freedom for one to worship as they choose, but it also protects their right not to worship at all, if that is their thing. So, the point being, there is to be no official religion that would relight nationalistic religious fever, and the witch hunts and chaos that often follows. The same applies for every other aspect of the Bill of Rights as well. I believed the Founding Fathers would have shuddered at the thought of having a government invade in a person's privacy and home without a justified reason for doing so (ahem, Patriot Act). Therefore, the minority's rights to liberty, in theory, should be protected from whatever majority is in charge of the government, or from the actual government itself.

Answer 2

The colonists weren't satisfied that the Constitution spelled out their rights as a citizen, hence the making of the Bill of Rights.

Answer 3

so that the anti-federalist would be okay with the constition

Answer 4

no