William J. Bennett writes, James “Madison’s careful drafting and skilled floor management of the Bill of Rights through Congress gives him just title to two great tributes—Father of the Constitution and Father of the Bill of Rights. The Founders deeply admired classical heroes. But no figure of antiquity—no Greek like Pericles or Solon, no Roman like Cicero or Cincinnatus—can claim an equal standing with Madison as lawgiver and champion of liberty. Madison told his fellow members of Congress, who exercised powers he had carefully crafted for them, why a Bill of Rights was necessary: ‘If we can make the Constitution better in the opinion of those who are opposed to it, without weakening its frame, or abridging its usefulness in the judgment of those who are attached to it, we act the part of wise and liberal men to make such alterations as shall produce the effect.'”
Source:
William J. Bennett, America, the Last Best Hope—Volume 1: From the Age of Discovery to a World at War, (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2006), 143.