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As for how they missed the free speech in the original document, I've probably wondered the same thing. Perhaps it wasn't forgotten at all, but planned as an ammendment so that in the future we would know how the document was supposed to work.
It was a very controversial subject to add the Bill of Rights to the constituton at the time of ratification.
The reason was not that people thought that this rights were not important. However some Federalists argued that it was unnecessary and even dangerous to add them to the constitution. They argued that the constitution did not mean that people were surrendering any of their rights, so there was no need of particularly reserving any rights. And they they feared that protecting specific rights might imperil rights that were not mentioned. (This problem was later solved with the ninth ammendment: "The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.")
Since the Anti-Federalists saw the strong federal governement as threat to the rights of the individiuals the "Bill of rights" was later added as ammendments to the constitution.
[edited by: jecasc at 9:46 pm (utc) on April 6, 2006]
