Ratification Of The Us Constitution Dbq Essay

The Federalists and The Anti-Federalists: Two different ideologies After the American Revolution, the United States had to face the war debt and challenges of constructing a new country. In an effort to create a system that solved these problems, they created the Constitution. In order to institute a new government under the Constitution, the ratification required the approval of nine states conventions. States that did not ratify the Constitution would not be considered as a part of the United States. The creation of the Constitution became a complicated process, especially between two political groups with different ideologies, who fought over the distribution of power.

Before Jefferson entered the presidential office he was a states rights supporter and when the tax on whiskey was placed he opposed it, saying “The first error was to admit it by the Constitution.” (Doc A). He didn’t like the constitution because of the fact that it would make central government stronger. When the alien act was passed he was opposed to it and said that the central government should only have a set of specific purposes and the leftover purposes should be left to the states individually. (Doc B) Determining the amount of time it takes to be a citizen, and the ability to jail people opposing the government was too much power to Jefferson. When he came into office he realized the necessity for more central power and took more matters into his own hands, he had become a loose constructionist.

Shortly after Maryland, South Carolina and New Hampshire followed. New York and Virginia, two major states with a massive impact, were hesitant to ratify. These states were filled with Anti-Federalist, who feared strong central government, as well as the president becoming dictator or king. In order to persuade the Anti-Federalists, Alexander Hamilton and John Jay created the Federalists Papers. Then finally, enough states had ratified for the Constitution to go in effect, although Virginia, New York, North Carolina, and Rhode Island had not yet ratified.

The state of Massachusetts had to rely on another state’s militia to control the rebellion. Many people believed that this event was caused by the Articles of Confederation being weak. The Articles of Confederation was a government system created in a time of haste and was a temporary solution. They caused more problems for America then they did solving them. This constitution focused too much on giving more power to the people and not enough on giving the right amount of power to the government.

The Constitution protected the people from tyranny by federalism, checks and balances, and equal power between the Senate and House of Representatives. One way the Constitution guarded against tyranny is federalism. As stated in Federalist Paper #51, by James Madison, he states that “ In the compound republic of America, the power surrendered by the people is first divided between two distinct governments… the different governments will each control each other, at the same time that each will be controlled by itself.” Federalism prevented tyranny because neither the central government or the states had too much power. This is important because the power would be split between the two. For example, things that would happen in the state would be reserved for the state such as holding elections, establishing schools, and passing marriage and divorce laws.

These problems arose with a weak government established by the Articles of Confederation. Many Americans found that the Confederation needed to be revised. In 1787, at the Constitutional Convention, a New Constitution was made, but not all agreed. Due to this, there was a major debate among many people. In my opinion, I think the New Constitution should be approved.

The only way to change our country is by working with each other, not against each other. With some Americans refusing to stay open minded to the beliefs of the opposite political party, our country will get nowhere. As one of our country’s Founding Fathers, Washington would not approve of this, and demand the next president change this. If George Washington was still alive today, he would be able to give the next president advice to transform our country. Someone with the unbiased mindset toward the two main political parties would be a much needed perspective for the next president.

There is always another side to the story. Federalist, these people supported the constitution. Though they knew that the constitution wasn’t perfection yet, According to document 3 George Washington state 's ”We have errors to correct… would to God, that wise measures may be taken in time to avert the consequences we have but too much reason to apprehend”. George was sure that the constitution wasn’t perfect but that in this time of need they need something like it. They need a strong government, to win over the people who won’t support over fear of loss of natural laws, like mentioned in document 1 “Let us look and behold the distress which prevail in every part of our country… View these things, fellow citizens, and then say we do not require a new, a protection, and efficient federal government if you can” this document was quoted from a newspaper in Massachusetts.

The Articles of Confederation were written during a time when the American people feared a strong national government. Since the United States was relatively a new nation, it needed some form of organization to hold the states together and keep its government and society stable to build a stronger economy (Knoedl, 2003). The first and foremost inherited weakness of the Articles came from the fact that it replaced sovereign power in the hands of the states. This started after the American Revolution, when the American people feared that the colonists would form a new government that could function similarly to King George III’s monarchy after having dealt with the British Crown for years. Since then these states would start creating their own set of rules and laws and because of some states, creating their own constitutions and each state can rule itself, it gave more power to them than the actual Federal Government.

This amendment, along with others in the Bill of Rights, were proposed in order to ensure that the people would have the innate rights that everyone should have. They served as a reminder to the government that they recently fought a war to attain these rights and taking them away was not an option. Overall, the second amendment was found to be a necessity throughout the Revolutionary era in matters of not only the Militia, but also as a defensive tactic and symbol of innate liberties for the American

Many of the state conventions ratified the Constitution, but called for amendments specifically protecting individual rights from abridgement by the federal government. The debate raged for months. By June of 1788, 9 states had ratified the Constitution, ensuring it would go into effect for those 9 states. However, key states including Virginia and New York had not ratified. James Madison, the principal author of the Constitution, knew that grave doubts would be cast on the Constitution if those states (the home states of several of its chief architects, including Madison himself) did not adopt it.

September 17th 1787-The signing of the U.S. Constitution Importance: The signing of the United States Constitution is important to the history of the United States because it was written as a set of laws for the people of the United States to live by. The United States Constitution works well because it is written in a way where it does not give too much power to one section of the government, but is written where they have to work together. The United States Constitution was written to replace the articles of confederation. There was convention convened in Philadelphia to revise the articles of confederation on May 14th 1787, but the convention was postponed from day to day until there was at least a representative from seven states to

The AoC was used to make the Constitution with the weaknesses and failures of it. If our country never made the AoC it would be pretty hard for us to make the Constitution. The Aoc had such a big effect on the Constitution it gave James Madison ideas of what to fix and put on the Constitution. It also gave us facts on what our country succeeded on.

The articles of confederation was written right after the revolutionary war was fought, however, the AOC failed, so they had to start all over with a new document called the constitution. 9 out of 13 colonies needed to ratify the new constitution for it to take effect. When it came to organize the government after the AOC, the people were divided on how the government should handle the fears of social, political, and economic fears which motivated the 2 parties, federalist and antifederalist. The federalists supported the new constitution, while the anti federalists were opposed. The political motivation for the federalists to support the ratification was they believed that a stronger government was necessary as the AOC had failed previously

In Document A, it is clearly stated that James Madison, a main contributor to the Constitution, wanted “[a] compound republic of America” to provide a “double security” for our rights. As both central and state governments in the compound republic have different functions, this helps keep our states in a union while letting the states stay independent. In other words, Madison wanted federalism in our country. Because both state and local governments check each other due to their separate