During the 1788 New York ratification convention, anti-federalists opposed the new Constitution “for lack of a Bill of Rights”. Alexander Hamilton replied, “The Constitution is itself in every rational sense, and to every useful purpose, A BILL OF RIGHTS” (Federalist 84). Indeed, it was written to safeguard liberty against the worst form of tyranny, the tyranny of the majority, about which Plato, Aristotle, and Montesquieu warned, as did Tocqueville five decades later.

The American Left has always chaffed against the Founders’ “checks and balances” within Madison’s “compound republic” (Federalist 51). If the mission of the Left can be summarized, it is “Tear down every rafter in the Constitutional […]