Episode 16: Brutus, The Anti-Federalist | The Bill of Rights (Amendments 1-10)

Creating America · Apr 30, 2026 · 25m · transcript

ive into the origins of the United States Bill of Rights (Amendments 1–10) in this episode of Creating America: The Documents and Speeches That Shaped the United States, hosted by Will Sarris.

Before the Bill of Rights became law, fierce debate surrounded the ratification of the Constitution. In this episode, we explore the powerful Anti-Federalist argument against the Constitution’s lack of explicit protections—through the words of “Brutus” (Robert Yates), whose 1787 essay helped spark the creation of the Federalist Papers.

You’ll hear:

The full reading of “On the Lack of a Bill of Rights”…