Madison was actually once the Bill of Rights’ chief opponent. In his book, The Oath and the Office: A Guide to the Constitution for Future Presidents, Corey Brettschneider, a political science professor at Brown University, writes that when the founding father entered the race for Congress as a candidate for the state of Virginia in 1788, the issue of whether America needed a Bill of Rights was a dominating campaign issue. George Mason, a fellow Virginian, had refused to sign the Constitution without a Bill of Rights. But Madison argued it was unnecessary and perhaps even harmful.
His reasoning? “Madison might have felt like a master chef watching a patron pour ketchup all over his perfectly cooked steak,” Brettschneider writes. “He considered his work crafting the Constitution so thorough that there was nothing to amend: Article I limited the powers of Congress, and Article II constrained the president. A Bill of Rights was redundant at best—and dangerous at worst.”
