The Virginia Declaration of Rights was the forerunner of the Bill of Rights. Thomas Jefferson also drew heavily on this document when he wrote the Declaration of Independence.
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To listen to The Declaration of Independence, as read by Bill Barker, who interprets Thomas Jefferson for Colonial Williamsburg, go to Monticello Podcasts. You’ll need to page most of the way down the page, to the podcast titled Jefferson’s Words: Two Declarations.
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Total running time: 19 hours, 52 minutes
Summary: During the period of debate over the ratification of the Constitution, numerous independent local speeches and articles were published all across the country. Initially, many of the articles in opposition were written under pseudonyms, such as Brutus, Centinel, and Federal Farmer. Eventually, famous revolutionary figures such as Patrick Henry came out publicly against the Constitution. They argued that the strong national government proposed by the Federalists was a threat to the rights of individuals and that the President would become a king. They objected to the federal court system created by the proposed constitution. This produced a phenomenal body of political writing; the best and most influential of these articles and speeches were gathered by historians into a collection known as the Anti-Federalist Papers in allusion to the Federalist Papers. (Summary by Ticktockman for Librivox)
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Total running time: 21 hours, 12 minutes
The Federalist Papers (correctly known as The Federalist) are a series of 85 articles advocating the ratification of the United States Constitution. Seventy-seven of the essays were published serially in The Independent Journal and The New York Packet between October 1787 and August 1788 . A compilation of these and eight others, called The Federalist, was published in 1788 by J. and A. M’Lean.
The Federalist Papers serve as a primary source for interpretation of the Constitution, as they outline the philosophy and motivation of the proposed system of government.The authors of the Federalist Papers wanted to both influence the vote in favor of ratification and shape future interpretations of the Constitution. According to historian Richard Morris, they are an “incomparable exposition of the Constitution, a classic in political science unsurpassed in both breadth and depth by the product of any later American writer.
(Summary by Wikipedia)
