The Constitution, in contrast, is an exercise in creating a representative government. Not one whose animating purpose is to protect the rights of the people, but one that has a general mandate to govern, within specific domains, and derives its legitimacy from the consent of the people.
It is illustrative to read Federalists Nos. 9-10. http://thomas.loc.gov/home/histdox/fed_09.html, http://thomas.loc.gov/home/histdox/fed_10.html. It's a defense by Madison and Hamilton of republican government, intended to counter critics who asserted that republican government must inevitably lead to anarchy. In Federalist No. 10, Madison addresses the question of how a republican government deals with factions that want to trample the rights of others:
"If a faction consists of less than a majority, relief is supplied by the republican principle, which enables the majority to defeat its sinister views by regular vote. It may clog the administration, it may convulse the society; but it will be unable to execute and mask its violence under the forms of the Constitution. When a majority is included in a faction, the form of popular government, on the other hand, enables it to sacrifice to its ruling passion or interest both the public good and the rights of other citizens. To secure the public good and private rights against the danger of such a faction, and at the same time to preserve the spirit and the form of popular government, is then the great object to which our inquiries are directed."
Madison's answer to the latter question is not an appeal to rights enforced by courts, but to republicanism--the idea that elected officials will insulate public policy from the ephemeral whims of the majority:
"A republic, by which I mean a government in which the scheme of representation takes place, opens a different prospect, and promises the cure for which we are seeking."
The posture of Federalist Nos. 9-10 are clear: Hamilton and Madison are making the case for representative, republican government. They do consider the issue of individual rights, but in the context of explaining how rights can be nonetheless protected in a representative government. A libertarian government, at least as I understand it, approaches the question from the opposite direction: the protection of individual rights is the first and foremost concern, and sole purpose, of government.
I think if you understand Locke, natural law, some Hobbes, and the writings of Jefferson you get the picture well enough. No need to make this into a ink-blot test.
"...The posture of Federalist Nos. 9-10 are clear: Hamilton and Madison are making the case for representative, republican government...A libertarian government, at least as I understand it, approaches the question from the opposite direction: the protection of individual rights is the first and foremost concern, and sole purpose, of government..."
I think you're creating a false dichotomy here when there's only a natural tension. A representative, republican government is the most efficient and longest lasting chance the nation had of preserving individual rights. More to the point, though, Madison and Hamilton were describing and promoting their proposed structure, not political theory. The entire discussion was around whether their structure would work or not. (I note that the anti-federalists, like many libertarians throughout history, were labeled as having farcical and far-fetched ideas of dangers that never would actually occur. Those guys turned out to be more right than wrong.)
It was up to the ratifying bodies to align the constitution with what everybody already knew -- the ideals expressed in the DOI by Jefferson and penned by half a dozen philosophers during the Enlightenment. Hence the BOR.
I don't want to get into a long discussion of ratification. HN isn't the place for it. But little-l libertarians trace their lineage back to both sides of the constitutional debates, and back farther than that. I don't think you'll find anybody wearing a hat that says "libertarian" on it in 1787, but if we sat down and described these things that libertarians believe, I'd bet 95% of the founders would be on-board. There is no argument to be had here. There's no direct opposition, but there's always tension between personal freedom and structure. That's what the constitution was: one of the best and most effective compromises man has come up with so far. Libertarians believe in that compromise, and because so many of the founders were libertarians, we got a good one.
Ideological clean-up, aisle 7. Ideological clean-up, aisle 7.
The constitution is nothing but libertarian. Individuals surrender soveriegnty to the states, which form the union. Libertarians have never, and will never place individual rights above all else. They simply acknowledge that rights exist firstly with the individual, to be shared with the state as minimally-necessary to ensure social order and progress. That's they way they felt in 1787. That's the way the feel now. (For the most part) E-gads, man, the document begins "We the people"