Bill of Prohibitions Day

The Bill of Rights was actually misnamed. It should have been called the Bill of Prohibitions. It doesn’t give people any rights whatsoever. The people who crafted the Bill of Rights were careful to make certain that the language prohibited the federal government from infringing upon preexisting rights. Consider, for example the First Amendment. It doesn’t give people the right of freedom of speech. It prohibits the government from infringing on the preexisting right of freedom of speech. The same goes for the Second Amendment. It doesn’t give people the right to keep and bear arms. Instead it prohibits the government from infringing on this fundamental, preexisting right. In other words, if the Bill of Rights had never been enacted, people would still have the fundamental rights of freedom of speech, the right to keep and bear arms, and all other natural, God-given rights. Why did our American ancestors deem it necessary to have a bill of prohibitions, which expressly protected the people from the federal government? Because our ancestors were certain that in the absence of those express prohibitions, federal officials, including those in Congress and the military, would do the things that were being prohibited...more