However, the other reason--a foundation for other rights--is right on target. An enumeration of rights could not but eventually be interpreted as a granting of rights, and if government grants these rights, why not more?
Plus the "Bill of Rights" has been for about sixty years or so the number one excuse for centralizing all power in the Federal Government--specifically the US Supreme Court, allowing it to sit in judgment on ever local ordinance in the country. And conservatives are at fault as well as liberals (though not so egregiously). But if a high school principal is "violating the First Amendment" by censoring the "f-word" out of a student newspaper, of course universities are "violating the First Amendment" by enacting speech codes. In other words, only the Federal Government can violate the "Bill of Rights." Conservatives who want to apply them to universities are as wrong as liberals who want to apply them to high school football prayers.
We'd have been much better off without a "Bill of Rights."
My take on Hamilton’s writings (and Madison) is that they understood the balances of the initial Constitution. As it was originally designed it worked well and preserved rights and liberties.
But when the first serious challenge of limited government was debated (the Cod Fisheries Act) Madison rose and challenged the proposal for all he was worth.
We now have no such member of Congress. Heck, they do not even understand the Constitution. How else could they take an oath to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution and then nominate and confirm a character such as Sotomayor?
The pressure continues to build......