Bill of Rights Many people aren’t very informed with the history of the Bill of Rights. The Bill of Rights consists of the first 10 amendments of the Constitution. A strong debate began between Federalist and Anti-Federalist over the newly established Constitution and if it gave “too much power” to the government. Anti-Federalist agreed on the idea of a Bill of Rights being added. They wanted guarantees for jury trial, freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and many others which were already listed in the Constitution. On the other hand, Federalists didn’t agree because they believed the Constitution only gave limited powers to the government. James Madison carefully studied over the declarations of rights listed in the early state constitutions. Madison gave the House of Representatives a set of amendments. Only ten were ratified and were then known as the Bill of Rights. On September 25, 1789, the Bill of Rights passed both houses of Congress and by December 15, 1791; these amendments had been ratified for more than three-fourths of the states. The Bill of Rights allowed us to be a democracy instead of a tyranny and was also in use to protect certain rights which belonged to all Americans such as freedom of speech, freedom of religion and freedom from cruel and unusual punishment. If a Bill of Rights had not been added to the Constitution, a large percentage of Americans would never have supported it, and if they hadn't, the United States probably would be a different place than what we live in today. The significance of the Bill of Rights is simply