The founding fathers were very concerned about guarantees of civil rights because?

Answer 1

Several of the founders shared a common concern about the guarantee of civil rights. To understand this concern one need only look at Colonial life under English rule. The King was constantly abridging rights and "ruling" with a heavy hand. The fear that the new elected "president" might one day morph into a dictator or quasi-king was real, and, therefore, the idea of "guaranteed rights" was attractive. The argument against such usurpation of rights by an elected American president was struck moot with John Adams'support for the terrible Alien and Sedition Act of his presidency, which proved such a guarantee both wise and necessary.

At the same time, many of the Framers felt enumeration of civil rights was counterproductive, because government would one day use that enumeration to the exclusion of non-enumerated rights. This is why we have the 9th and 10th Amendments. As we see, our government does not care about these anymore. What Leviathan in DC wants, it gets. We sovereign citizens of the US have darn few rights remaining compared to what our forefathers bequeathed.

Answer 2

they believed that the power of government should be limited =)