Ratified in 1791, the Bill of Rights features the first ten amendments to the United States Constitution. Opponents of the Constitution, i.e., the Anti-Federalists, refused to ratify that document without a bill of rights, which many states had already adopted in their own constitutions. Federalists argued that the Constitution did not need a bill of rights because the states and the people retained any rights not given to the federal government. In order to make the Constitution the law of the land, federalist James Madison drafted 19 amendments that Congress reduced to 12 prior to sending them to the states for ratification. The states rejected two of these amendments, but ratified the remaining ten amendments, which specify prohibitions on governmental power by guaranteeing civil rights and liberties to the individual.