When the Constitution was signed in 1787, it contained no explicit guarantees of freedom — no right to speech, religion, or due process. That silence nearly doomed it. Across an ocean, Thomas Jefferson demanded those rights be written down; James Madison hesitated, then listened. Their exchange of letters — one pushing from Paris, the other reasoning in New York — changed American history. “How We Got the Bill of Rights” tells the story of friendship, persuasion, and the birth of the ten amendments that turned the Constitution into a promise of liberty — for every American.
