[Ads-l] Antedating of "Bill of Rights" (OED Sense 2.b.)

[Shapiro, Fred]

Bill of Rights (OED, 2.b., 1819)

According to Gerard N. Magliocca, The Heart of the Constitution (2018), "During Aaron Burr's treason trial in 1807, his attorney Edmund Randolph ... described the Sixth Amendment right of a criminal defendant to be confronted with any adverse witnesses as part of 'the Bill of Rights.'"  Magliocca's footnote cites to T. Carpenter, ed., The Trial of Aaron Burr on an Indictment for Treason (Washington, DC: Westcott, 1808), I:49.  I have not verified the Carpenter source.

Fred Shapiro



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