For more than 200 years the American Constitution has served as much more than a framework of government. Our belief in the great document's guarantees of freedom, justice, and equality has come to define what it means to be an American. From 1787 to today, in times of both tragedy and triumph, Americans have anchored themselves to the Constitution.
             The first draft of the Constitution was remarkable, but deeply flawed. For one thing, it did not include a specific declaration – or bill – of individual rights. It specified what the government could do but did not say what it could not do. For another, it did not apply to everyone. The "consent of the governed" meant propertied white men only.
             Recently freed from the tyrannical English monarchy, the American people wanted strong guarantees that the new government would not trample upon their newly won freedoms of speech, press and religion, nor upon their right to be free from warrantless searches and seizures. So, the Constitution's framers heeded Thomas Jefferson who argued: "A bill of rights is what the people are entitled to against every government on earth, general or particular, and what no just government should refuse, or rest on inference."
             The protection of individual rights was not the government's only purpose. It was still expected to protect the community against foreign and domestic threats, to ensure economic growth, and to conduct foreign affairs. It was not, however, the government's job to tell people how to live their lives, what religion to believe in, or what to write about in a pamphlet or newspaper. In this sense, the idea of individual rights is the oldest and most traditional of American values.
             The rights that the Constitution's framers wanted to protect from government abuse were referred to in the Declaration of Independence as "unalienable rights." They were also called "natural" rights, and to James Madison, they were "the great rights ...