That is an extremely simplified view of the founding principles of the US. The federalists were a pretty well known contingent of the founding fathers as well.
Of course, it's two sentences on HN where I'm as likely to be down voted to oblivion as anything else...
This said, the Federalists also argued that a Bill of Rights wouldn't be necessary because good governments don't infringe the rights of the people and nothing in the Constitution allowed them to.
Turns out they were wildly optimistic, like every project/ideology that relies on a unbounded set of humans to be rational, forward-thinking, altruistic, unselfish, etc. for more than a day or three for success.
But that's just, like, your opinion man. It's not actually one of the founding principles of the country. Even when they were talking about limiting the powers of the federal government explicitly, as in Federalist 45, they were talking about devolving it out to the states. The Bill of Rights didn't even apply to the states for almost 100 years after Madison.
Second paragraph of "Common Sense" (1775): "... Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil;". Second article of the Articles of Confederation (1777):
Each state retains its sovereignty, freedom and independence, and every Power, Jurisdiction and right, which is not by this confederation expressly delegated to the United States, in Congress assembled.
Those powers delegated were foreign diplomacy and declaration of war, minting of coinage, and resolving disputes among/between the states. Pretty "small government" stuff. In fact, the entire purpose of the Constitution (pushed by the Federalists, opposed by the Anti-Federalists, including many of the founding fathers) was to centralize power and remove it from the states. That's why the second article of the Articles of Confederation (where Article I is the name of the country) guarantee sovereignty of the states, but a similar guarantee is not seen in the Constitution until the 10th amendment (all of which amendments were opposed by the Federalists).
The Federalists papers are just the opinions of Madison, Hamilton, and Jay (which is not to diminish them entirely, only to apply needed perspective). The powers were almost entirely with the states at that time, so the papers are mostly convincing the states to give that power up. It was the first step away from the small federal government of the founders.
First: note that the Articles of Confederation devolve all the powers of the governments to the States. It doesn't repudiate those powers, it just keeps the out of the federal government.
Second: the Constitution is a repudiation of the Articles of Confederation. It doesn't incorporate the principles of the Articles even implicitly.
So the best case for your argument is that the federal government is untrustworthy, but the governments of the several States are not. But you don't even get to that best case, because your evidence is refuted by our controlling founding document.
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