Over George Mason's (among others) protest the convention decided not to include a bill of rights in the constitution. There are a few reasons for this, one of

Over George Mason's (among others) protest the convention decided not to include a bill of rights in the constitution. There are a few reasons for this, one of the two more traditionally held is that it was seen as unnecessary given that many states already had their own bills of rights. The other reason supported by the historical record is that many of the delegates were concerned about giving the appearance of those being the only rights guaranteed to the people. There is a third popular opinion, which is that the convention had been a hot, contentious affair that dragged on for months and everyone wanted to go home so they tabled the bill of rights for a later date. You will note that none of these reasons is that anyone objected to the principles in the bill of rights. More importantly, many of the rights guaranteed in the first 10 amendments are directly targeted at the causes of the revolution. This lends significant credence to the "it's important but let's not do it now" argument, and undercuts rather dramatically the idea that the country was not founded on those ideals.