Chapter 2_ Constitutional Foundations
Decisions for Revolution and Independence
Lesson 1: Decisions for Revolution and Independence
Lesson 2: Writing and Ratifying the U.S. Constitution
Lesson 3: National Security and Political Stability Under the U.S. Constitution
Topic Overview
The Treaty of Paris of 1763 ended almost 100 years of war between England and France.
The colonists fought with the British in each of the four wars in North America.
After the French and Indian War, Britain shifted from salutary neglect, enforcing mercantilism and tightening control over the colonies.
Political and economic tensions grew between the colonies and British Parliament from 1763 to 1775.
The colonies developed beliefs about government, governing, representation, self-government, liberty, and individual rights during this time.
War began in Massachusetts in 1775.
The Declaration of Independence was issued in July 1776, declaring independence from Great Britain.
The American and French victory at Yorktown, Virginia in 1781 ended the war.
The Treaty of Paris of 1783 determined the boundaries of the new United States, stretching to the Mississippi River.
The war impacted many different groups and individuals.
The United States struggled to create an effective government for the newly united nation.
The Articles of Confederation proved too weak and were replaced by the Constitution.
The ratification debate led the Federalists to agree to add a bill of rights to the Constitution.
The new nation confronted the challenge of creating a stable federal republic from 1763-1824.
Key Concepts
11.2a: Following the French and Indian War, the British government aimed to exert greater political and economic control over the colonies, which led to colonial resistance and increasing tensions.
11.2b: Unresolved conflicts between the British government and the colonies culminated in the colonists declaring independence. They eventually won the Revolutionary War, which affected individuals in different ways.
Lesson Overview
British efforts to gain control over the colonies include the Proclamation of 1763, the Stamp Act, the Townshend Acts, the Tea Act, and the Coercive Acts. These resulted in colonial reactions and ultimately the American Revolution.
The Declaration of Independence had a purpose and ideas that affected the development of the new nation.
The American Revolution and the Declaration of Independence had long-term impacts on the people living in the colonies, the nation, and the rest of the world.
Unifying Themes
Time, Continuity, and Change:
What were the causes and effects of the American Revolution?
Why did the British government and the colonists have different views of events?
Power, Authority, and Governance:
What did the colonists see as British abuses of power to govern them?
What were the fundamental principles of government valued by the colonies and the new nation?
Who benefited from the ideals of the American Revolution in the early years, and who did not?
Civic Ideals and Practices:
What were the different responses and reactions of individuals and groups to the events between 1763 and 1783?
Creation, Expansion, and Interaction of Economic Systems:
How did mercantilism influence the events that led to the American Revolution?
Key People
Samuel Adams
Paul Revere
John Adams
Thomas Paine
Richard Henry Lee
Thomas Jefferson
Benjamin Franklin
John Locke
George Washington
John Jay
Key Terms and Events
salutary neglect
confederacy
French and Indian War
Treaty of Paris of 1763
Proclamation of 1763
Navigation Acts
writ of assistance
Sugar Act
Stamp Act
Committees of Correspondence
Stamp Act Congress
Quartering Act
Declaratory Act
Townshend Acts
Boston Massacre
Tea Act
Coercive Acts
“Intolerable Acts”
Quebec Act
natural rights
tyranny
Olive Branch Petition
First Continental Congress
Second Continental Congress
Common Sense
social contract theory
Declaration of Independence
Treaty of Paris of 1783
The Historical Context of the American Revolution
England and France competed for world power for almost a century before the American Revolution, fighting four wars for control in Europe, Asia, and North America.
England governed the colonies under an unofficial policy known as salutary neglect.
This policy resulted in the colonists gaining more independence in their trade practices, and Great Britain benefited from the colonies’ economic prosperity.
The colonies also became used to exercising a large degree of self-government.
Before the American Revolution, colonists saw themselves as British subjects and as New Yorkers, or Rhode Islanders, or Virginians.
In 1754, Benjamin Franklin tried to get the colonies to join together to better protect themselves against the French with the Albany Plan of Union.
The Albany Plan of Union was rejected by the colonies because each feared loss of power and independence.
The French and Indian War
The French and Indian War (1754–63) began when the English challenged the French for control of the Ohio River Valley.
The war pitted the British army and colonists against the French and their Native American allies.
Native Americans tended to support the French, who traded furs and built forts rather than settlements.
Toward the end of the war, the Iroquois supported the British due to an earlier conflict with the French over trade.
The Treaty of Paris of 1763 marked Great Britain’s victory over France in the French and Indian War, or the Seven Years War, as it was called in Europe and India.
France lost all its land claims on the North American continent.
France kept only its valuable sugar cane islands in the West Indies.
France turned its land claims west of the Mississippi River including New Orleans over to its ally, Spain.
Spain gave up Florida to the British, while the British returned Cuba to Spain.
The treaty made it clear that Great Britain was now the major force in North America as well as the world’s greatest naval power.
Native Americans could no longer benefit from balancing French and English interests against one another.
The colonists felt their war efforts earned them the right to move into the newly acquired lands and saw less need for the protection of the British government.
England changed its imperial policy toward the colonies with the French threat ended.
The Proclamation of 1763 was an early sign of the tensions between the British and the colonists over post–1763 British policies, which resulted in the American Revolution.
The Proclamation prohibited permanent colonial expansion west of the ridge of the Appalachian Mountains.
The British wanted to maintain a peaceful relationship with the Native Americans by avoiding conflicts between them and the colonists.
Britain was influenced by Chief Pontiac, an Ottawa leader who led a confederacy of tribes from 1763–1766 in a war called Pontiac’s Rebellion.
The colonists deeply resented the Proclamation and often ignored it.
England Attempts to Gain Greater Control Over the Colonies
The wars with France left the British government with a huge war debt.
Britain also had to pay the costs of maintaining a military force in the colonies to defend against any new French threat.
The British Parliament, needing money and believing that the colonies had also benefited from these two expenses, began to again enforce its policy of mercantilism.
Mercantilism held that a nation’s power was based on how much gold and silver it accumulated, a favorable balance of trade, protecting manufacturing, and promoting exports while limiting imports.
Colonial economies were controlled to benefit the mother country, supplying raw materials and serving as markets while restrictions limited their manufacturing and commerce.
The Navigation Acts (1650–1673) required that most colonial trade occur only within the British empire and that certain goods could be shipped only to Great Britain.
Until 1763, Britain only lightly enforced the Navigation Acts, while the colonists routinely ignored or avoided them.
While often evading the Navigation Acts, the colonists had accepted the right of England to regulate trade.
Parliament Acts and the Colonies React
Beginning in 1763, Parliament acted to increase its economic and political control over the thirteen colonies.
Its actions were each followed by a negative colonial reaction.
Parliament would often further arouse opposition by trying even harder to enforce the new law.
Eventually Parliament would back down and repeal the act to which the colonists objected.
In time, Parliament would make another attempt to control the colonies and to collect taxes from them.
In 1775, this pattern of act and react led to the first shots of the Revolution fired at Lexington and Concord.
1763: The Proclamation of 1763 is announced.
1763: The English Prime Minister ordered rigid enforcement of the Navigation Acts.
Writs of assistance—open-ended, transferable search warrants—were issued to look for smuggled goods in merchants’ ships, warehouses, and homes.
The U.S. Constitution’s Bill of Rights’ protection against unreasonable search and seizure reflects the colonists’ anger against the writs of assistance.
1764: Parliament passed the Sugar Act to raise money, lowering the duty on molasses but taking steps to ensure collection.
Accused smugglers would be tried in admiralty courts that lacked the two basic English rights of trial by jury and innocence until proven guilty.
1765: Parliament passed the Stamp Act, the first direct tax on the colonists, requiring a tax stamp on printed material from newspapers to wills, deeds, and diplomas.
The taxes would be used to pay for the British army stationed in the colonies.
The Stamp Act most affected colonial merchants, printers, and lawyers, most of whom were already active in colonial politics.
Protests against the Stamp Act were widespread and took many forms, passive and violent.
The rallying cry was “Liberty.”
New York organized nonimportation agreements or boycotts of British goods, and other colonies soon participated.
Samuel Adams helped create the Sons of Liberty and the Massachusetts Committee of Correspondence.
Committees of Correspondence met throughout the colonies between 1765 and 1774 to develop communication systems within and between the colonies.
The Stamp Act Congress met in New York due to the efforts of the Committees of Correspondence, the first time the colonies showed unity at the legislative level in reaction to British policies.
The secret Sons of Liberty also spread throughout the colonies, organizing protests and tried to control riots and other acts of violence.
The stamp tax collectors were pressured to resign, and only Georgia failed to make sure that no stamp could be sold in a colony.
1765: The Quartering Act required that the colonies house in public buildings and provide food to British troops being sent to protect the colonies.
When the New York assembly would not vote for the supplies, Britain dissolved it.
1766: The Stamp Act was repealed.
The Declaratory Act was issued stating that Parliament had the right and authority to make laws for the colonies “in all cases whatsoever.”
1767: The Townshend Acts taxed imports such as glass, lead, tea, paper and paint, but again, producing revenue, not regulating trade, was the objective.
The money raised would be used to pay some of the English officials in the colonies.
Colonial legislatures believed this action undermined their power to exert control over English officials by withholding their salaries.
The colonists reacted to the new taxes with petitions, boycotts, and other more violent protests.
The Sons of Liberty reorganized, and All of the import duties, except that on tea, were repealed.
1770: The Boston Massacre occurred as a result of the presence of British troops sent to Boston in 1768 to enforce the Townshend Acts.
The troops, who made up 20 percent of the city’s population, were often the targets of demonstrations.
A mob of sixty citizens attacked ten soldiers with sticks, snowballs, and rocks.
The soldiers opened fire, killing five and wounding other protestors.
Paul Revere and Samuel Adams used the massacre as a means of stirring up anti-British sentiment.
John Adams defended the soldiers at their trial.
1773: Parliament passed the Tea Act, giving the British East India Company a monopoly on the American tea trade at a price less expensive than tea imported by colonial tea merchants.
Colonists saw the Tea Act as another British attempt to tax them without representation.
Members of the Sons of Liberty staged the Boston Tea Party, dumping three shiploads of East India Company tea into Boston Harbor.
1774: The British government punished Massachusetts with the Coercive Acts, labeled the “Intolerable Acts” by the colonists.
They closed the port of Boston, forbid town meetings, reduced the powers of the legislature, and sent more British troops to the colony to enforce the acts.
The colonies responded with support for Boston and unity in opposition.
1774: The Quebec Act added the land all the way to the Ohio River to Quebec province, land for which the colonists had fought and which they were already settling.
The French Catholics were given legal toleration, further arousing fears of colonial Protestants for their own religious and political liberties.
Causes of the American Revolution
The fundamental cause of the Revolution was Britain’s belief that it could bring the North American colonies under centralized control to take their place as English subjects of the British empire.
Leaders in Great Britain failed to understand that:
Separation by 3,000 miles of ocean had led, over generations, to a sense of self-sufficiency and independence in the colonies.
The colonies had developed their own self-governing bodies based on English traditions and Enlightenment views.
About 70 percent of the white male population held enough land to qualify them for the right to vote, involving them directly in political issues, compared to only 10 percent in Britain.
Colonial actions were grounded in the colonists’ belief in their natural rights as English citizens.
Colonists viewed these new taxes as a threat to their liberties, including the right to property.
The colonists valued the republican principles of limited government grounded in representation of the people and the consent of the governed supported by the civic virtue of men with property who put the public good over their own self-interest.
The colonists feared power as dangerous to their rights and liberties, and came to believe that the actions of both King George III and Parliament were a deliberate plan to force tyranny on the colonies.
Because they had no representation in Parliament, colonists claimed that taxation could come only from the colonial legislatures.
Great Britain insisted that the colonists had “virtual representation” because Parliament acted for all of its subjects.
The Great Awakening, a religious movement, had encouraged people to question authority and increased a sense of equality among people.
War and Independence
Tensions between the colonists and Parliament continued to mount, and although efforts to prevent war were made, war proved to be inevitable.
Attempts to Avoid War
In 1774 and 1775, Congress attempted to avoid war with Britain.
The First Continental Congress (September–October 1774) approved the Petition of the Grand American Continental Congress; it listed colonial grievances but emphasized loyalty to the king; the Petition was rejected.
In May 1775, in the Conciliatory Proposition, Parliament would continue to pass laws to govern the colonies, but tax laws would be only to regulate trade, and the money raised would go to the colonies who would agree to take on additional defense responsibilities; it was an offer too little and too late.
In July 1775, the Second Continental Congress (1775–81) approved the Olive Branch Petition; it was one last effort to avoid war against Britain, but the king would not even read this petition.
In August 1775, he proclaimed that the colonies had “proceeded to open and avowed rebellion” and in October declared an official state of war against the colonies.
The American Revolution and the Declaration of Independence, 1775–1783
1775: Second Continental Congress; Battles of Lexington and Concord
1776: Common Sense published; Declaration of Independence signed
1777: Battle of Saratoga
1781: Cornwallis surrenders at Yorktown
1783: Treaty of Paris
Resistance Leads to Crisis and War
In the late summer of 1774, twelve of the colonies sent representatives to Philadelphia to plan a response to the British actions; this meeting became known as the First Continental Congress.
After the start of the American Revolution in 1775 at Lexington and Concord, a Second Continental Congress met and took charge of the war effort.
While the colonies moved toward war and demands for independence, colonists were divided.
Those known as Tories, or Loyalists, (about 16 to 20 percent of the white colonial population) supported the king and obedience to English laws, tending to be upper class and from the middle and most southern colonies.
Opposing independence, 20,000 to 80,000 went to Canada and Great Britain during the war; some returned after the fighting ended.
Many thousands more left the United States at the end of the Revolution, including large numbers from New York.
Over 20,000 Loyalists fought in the British army against the Patriots, and others joined local Loyalist militias.
The revolution pitted Americans against each other.
Decision for Independence
The decision to declare independence was made over a year after the American Revolution began.
Thomas Paine, in his pamphlet Common Sense, was influential in persuading the colonists to end their relationship with Great Britain.
In June 1776, Richard Henry Lee of Virginia presented a resolution to the Second Continental Congress calling for independence from Great Britain.
The Congress appointed a committee (including Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, and John Adams) to draft a formal declaration.
The resulting Declaration of Independence was almost entirely the work of Thomas Jefferson.
In writing the Declaration, Jefferson relied heavily on John Locke’s Enlightenment ideas of social contract theory and belief in natural rights.
The delegates adopted the Declaration of Independence on July 4, which marks the birth of the United States of America.
The Declaration of Independence
Purpose:
To explain and justify the reasons that the united colonies had decided to become the United States of America.
To persuade European nations to support their cause.
To announce to the world that the colonies were now a new independent nation.
Key Ideas of Government:
“All men are created equal”; they are created with natural rights including the rights to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”
Legitimate governments receive their power to govern “from the consent of the governed”; that power is for the purpose of protecting the people’s natural rights.
When a government fails to protect and instead abuses those rights, it is the “right of the people to alter or abolish” that government.
Four Parts:
A preamble stating why it was written.
A new theory of government.
A list of grievances against the King.
A formal resolution declaring independence.
The Long-Term Impact of the Declaration of Independence
The ideals of the Declaration of Independence are still a goal for our nation.
In 1791, the Bill of Rights reemphasized the importance of individual liberties and limits on government power first stated in the Declaration of Independence.
Other American documents that were influenced by the Declaration of Independence include Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s “Declaration of Sentiments,” Abraham Lincoln’s “Gettysburg Address,” and Martin Luther King’s “I Have A Dream” speech.
Those ideals have also served to inspire people in other nations and at other times, such as during the French Revolution of the late 1700s, the South American independence movement in the early 1800s, and twentieth-century independence movements in Africa and Asia.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights approved by the United Nations in 1948 states that “All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.”
There was a fundamental contradiction between slavery and the Declaration’s ideals of freedom and liberty.
fighting the Revolutionary War
During the American Revolution, the Second Continental Congress served as the national government.
The Congress had no constitutional basis in law and was extralegal; the Congress was created in a crisis and supported by the colonial and later state governments and popular opinion.
The Second Congress governed until 1781 when the Articles of Confederation went into effect.
The American Revolution pitted Great Britain against thirteen former colonies that lacked financial resources and a regular army.
The American Revolution
British troops included Hessian mercenaries (German soldiers hired to fight the American army).
Assembling and training the Continental Army (the colonists’ army) was the achievement of George Washington, the colonial commander in chief.
The Continental Army was reinforced as it moved from region to region by an untrained and unreliable militia of volunteers defending their homes.
In 1778, the colonists were aided by two alliances with France, one commercial and one military, negotiated by Benjamin Franklin; the French were motivated by its ongoing rivalry with Great Britain and a desire for revenge.
France provided the colonists with military supplies including much needed firearms, troops, and naval support; France, along with her ally Spain, also engaged Great Britain in war elsewhere in the world.
The American victory at the Battle of Saratoga helped bring the French into the war by preventing the British from isolating New England from the rest of the colonies by taking control of the Hudson River Valley and the area north of it to Canada.
The American Revolution lasted from 1775 to the surrender of the British at the Battle of Yorktown in Virginia, in 1781.
A peace treaty, the Treaty of Paris of 1783, was negotiated by John Adams, John Jay, and Benjamin Franklin.
Great Britain recognized the independence of the United States, setting the new nation’s boundaries at Canada to the north, Spanish Florida to the south, and the Mississippi River to the west.
Some Effects of the American Revolution
Great Britain recognized the United States as an independent nation.
Some began to reexamine traditional ideas about women’s roles in society.
Ideas of freedom and natural rights inspired some people to oppose slavery.
Ideals of the revolution influenced events in other parts of the world.
States drafted new constitutions emphasizing limitations on governmental power.
The Iroquois League was destroyed, and Native Americans were pushed farther west.
The Revolution’s Impact on the People in North America
American Workers: Yeoman farmers, craftsmen, and artisans in cities were active in politics, eligibility to vote was made easier, and qualifications for holding political office were lowered.
Enslaved Africans and African Americans: More fought on the British side because of British promises of freedom from slavery. by 1804 every northern state had passed laws that immediately or gradually abolished slavery; The Northwest Ordinance prohibited slavery in that Trans-Appalachian territory. Free African Americans still faced discrimination.
Native Americans: most Indian nations who were not neutral supported the British for fear of a bigger threat from Americans than the English. United States did not consider Native Americans to be citizens and treated them as nations, after the Revolution those living east of the Mississippi were doomed to lose their land and their culture.
Women: Women had participated in protests and boycotts, in the war, a few were soldiers and some were spies; during the war, many women ran the farm or the shop; by the laws, white women were still denied equal citizenship
Writing and Ratifying the U.S. Constitution
Lesson Overview
While the successes of government under the Articles of Confederation were important, its weaknesses resulted in the Critical Period.
A convention was called for the purpose of revising the Articles of Confederation, but the Founders attending the Consitutional Convention wrote a new Constitution instead.
The new Constitution was written during months of major debates and their resolutions, which included compromises over representation, taxation, and slavery.
The structure, power, and function of the federal government as created by the Constitution was based on key constitutional principles such as the division of power between federal and state government, the separation of powers at the federal level, the creation of checks and balances, the sovereignty of the people, and judicial independence.
The key points of debate expressed in the Federalist Papers and the Antifederalist Papers, focused on the protection of individual rights and the proper size for a republic, and the Bill of Rights was added after the ratification.
Unifying Themes
Time, Continuity, and Change: Why did the Framers first write a weak constitution and then replace it with our present Constitution?
Power, Authority, and Governance: What is the structure, power, and function of the federal government as created by the Constitution?
Civic Ideals and Practices: What basic freedoms and rights and responsibilities of citizens in a democratic republic are protected in the Constitution and its Bill of Rights?
Creation, Expansion, and Interaction of Economic Systems: What evidence is there that economic concerns influenced the writing of our Constitution?
Key People
George Washington
James Madison
Alexander Hamilton
George Mason
Edmund Randolph
John Jay
Key Terms and Events
constitution
Articles of Confederation
ratify
confederation
Constitutional Convention
Virginia Plan
bicameral legislature
New Jersey Plan
unicameral legislature
Great Compromise
Three-Fifths Compromise
Commerce Compromise
Fugitive Slave Clause
Presidency Compromise
Federalists
Anti-Federalists
popular sovereignty
limited government
rule of law
Supremacy Clause
federalism
separation of powers
legislative branch
executive branch
judicial branch
checks and balances
judicial independence
judicial review
amendment
Bill of Rights
The Articles of Confederation, 1781–1789
The Articles of Confederation, the first constitution of the United States proposed by the Second Continental Congress in 1777, went into effect in 1781 after all 13 states had ratified it.
The Articles set up a confederation among the 13 states: an alliance of independent states in which the states give as much power as they choose to the central government, while keeping the greater part of the power and remaining sovereign.
Successes of the Confederation Government
The government under the Articles of Cofederation had the power to make treaties, declare war, and receive ambassadors.
Successful conclusion of the American Revolution.
Negotiation of the Treaty of Paris of 1783, ending the war and setting U.S. borders at Canada, the Mississippi River, and Florida.
Passage of the Land Ordinance of 1785 and the Northwest Ordinance of 1787 that
set the pattern and procedure for settlement of the Northwest Territory
provided the guidelines by which new states would join the nation on a basis of equality with the thirteen original states.
guaranteed equality of citizenship to those settling in the new territory.
contained a bill of rights protecting religious freedom etc.
prohibited slavery in the Northwest Territory.
allowed for the return of fugitive slaves
Weaknesses of the Confederation Government
The Confederation government proved unable to deal with the nation’s problems during the Critical Period of the 1780s.
The Articles of Confederation reflected the colonists’ fear of a strong government and the desire of the individual states to protect their powers.
Limited powers to govern were given to a legislature: unicameral with each state having one vote, amendments had to pass unanimously.
The Articles deliberately lacked a president to direct operations and a national judiciary.
There was no single national currency, and Congress could not tax the people directly but had to ask the states for funds. Congress raise an army only by requesting troops from the states.
The Articles were not working, but it was nearly impossible to strengthen them, so All 13 states had to agree before the Articles could be amended.
Calling for a Constitutional Convention
By the mid-1780s, the fear of too much power in the hands of the government expressed in the Articles of Confederation had created a government unable to function.
The Confederation government was unable to command respect at home or abroad and had difficulty with debt, inflation, international and interstate trade, and foreign relations.
Suspicion of a strong executive power led the Framers of the first state constitutions to emphasize limitations on power of governors and concern that state legislatures were too powerful.
In 1786–1787, Daniel Shays, former captain in the Continental army led Shays’ Rebellion; rebellion exposed basic weaknesses of the Articles as without an army and the Confederation government could not act.
Writing the Constitution, 1787
More Americans saw the need for a stronger national government and supported the call for a Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia in May 1787 for “the sole and express purpose of amending the Articles of Confederation.”
The Framers of the Constitution
Fifty-five delegates, representing all the states except Rhode Island, met in Philadelphia in May 1787 at the Constitutional Convention; they were wealthiest, most educated, and influential men of their time.
The most famous and respected delegate was George Washington, who was elected president of the Constitutional Convention.
Another well-known figure was James Madison, the Father of the Constitution.
Also attending were Benjamin Franklin and Alexander Hamilton.
Some patriots, such as Patrick Henry, refused to attend out of concern for a strong national government.
No women, Native Americans, African Americans or poor white men attended the Constitutional Convention.
The Major Compromises at the Constitutional Convention
The delegates decided not to revise the Articles of Confederation, but to write a new constitution instead and discussions and any written records would be kept secret.
To achieve this goal the founders wrote a constitution containing a contradiction to fundamental national beliefs (related to slavery).
The Great Compromise
The Virginia Plan called for a bicameral legislature (larger states supported this plan).
The smaller states favored the New Jersey Plan, calling for a unicameral legislature in which each state had equal representation.
The matter of representation had to be settled by what is known as the Great Compromise, or the Connecticut Plan, which created the Congress, a bicameral legislature (The states had equal representation in the upper house, or the Senate. In the lower house, or the House of Representatives, representation was based on population)
The Three-Fifths Compromise
Even though Southern laws classified the enslaved as property not people, Southerners wanted their enslaved population to be counted when determining representation in the House but not for determining taxes.
The Three-Fifths Compromise permitted three fifths of the enslaved African Americans in a state to be counted for purposes of both congressional representation and taxation
The Commerce Compromise
Northerners proposed that the government regulate both interstate and foreign trade.
Southerners, feared that the importing of enslaved Africans would be prohibited and that their agricultural exports would be taxed.
Under the Commerce Compromise , no export duties could be passed by Congress and that Congress could not prohibit the overseas slave trade for 20 years (1808).
The controversial Fugitive Slave Clause required all states to aid in the return of an enslaved person to his or her owner.
The Presidency or Electoral College Compromise
The delegates agreed on the indirect election of the president through the Electoral College system to serve a renewable four-year term.
Each state legislature would decide how its electors were chosen.
Signing the Constitution
After four months of debate in September 17, 1787, thirty-nine of the delegates remained in Philadelphia signed the Constitution while objections to the lack of a Bill of Rights or objecting to other parts of the document
The Great Debate and Ratification of the Constitution
In each state people took sides with the Federalists, who favored ratification, or the Anti-Federalists, who opposed it.
Both the Federalists and the Anti-Federalists included patriots from revolutionary days; among these men there was a deep division about the proper role of government.
Federalists vs. Anti-Federalists
Federalists: tended to be wealthier, better educated, influential, lived along the coast and in cities.
Believed an effective national government was essential to provide order and protect the rights of the people.
Created an independent executive and judiciary to share power with the legislature, for a stable government.
Wanted government capable of managing the nation’s economic and financial policies and problems such as the large debt
Saw themselves as representing the ideals of the Revolution.
Claimed that a bill of rights was unnecessary because the new government’s powers were limited by the Constitution.
Anti-Federalists: included most but not all farmers, supporters of state governments, the lower working class, and debtors.
Believed that a strong national government threatened the rights of the people and the powers of the states.
Feared power of executive and judiciary, trusted only legislative branch controlled by consent of the governed.
Feared loss of liberty and return to tyranny and corruption under the Constitution.
Wanted power to remain with local and state government in order to maintain government by the people.
Their most persuasive argument was that Constitution lacked a Bill of Rights.
Important paper support Constitution
The Federalist Papers were 85 essays written by James Madison, Alexander Hamilton and John Jay
The Anti-Federalist Papers, written by independent and anonymous writers, never received the same amount of attention.
By 1791 the states had ratified (Bill Of Rights)
Key Constitutional Principles in the U.S. Constitution
Popular Sovereignty
Limited Government and the Rule of Law
Federal