Building A Republic : Who Exactly Are The People?

On September 17, 1787 framers in Philadelphia signed “The Constitution of the United States in which it was approved on June 21, 1788 by the ninth state. Once confirmed, along with the addition to the Bill of Rights it developed a mutual standard by which Americans determined the responsibilities and limits of their government. Looking to the Constitution to decide political discrepancies has helped to substitute and preserve a general agreement among people that are otherwise diverse. The Constitution, although two centuries of complications and trials of the American experiment in self-government, is a testament to the cleverness and anticipation of its framers.

In the books The Quartet and Thomas Jefferson, Joseph Ellis and Joyce Appleby discuss their thoughts on two important moments in American history and how they believe them to be revolutionary. The Quartet describes the political situation of the United States immediately following the American Revolution and how it made the transformation from a confederation into a republic. To do this, it follows the actions of four prominent men – George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison – as they work toward their goal of bringing about a new national government and discusses nationalism, issues such as economics and expansion, and arguments about personal, state, and federal powers. He argues that the debate over the Constitution was between “nationalists” and “confederationists”, that the second Revolution was a by-product of the first in that it took the systems of the newly-independent states and reworked them into a coherent national collective, and that without this change, the United States couldn’t have become a modern model of government.

. If people like Abigail Adams, Daniel Gray and the slaves in Massachusetts have been delegates in the Philadelphia convention the constitution would had written with better rights for all people, just like today. In a letter to John Adams, his wife Abigail Adams asked of him to remember all of the women who have been loyal with their husbands and who have little to no rights. She goes on by saying that they are equal to men because were made by god’s image and that they should be treated this way as men in the new constitution. She also says that women are not given the care and attention the they should be given to them (146). So if she were a delegate in the Pennsylvania convention women probably would not have been seen as week and households

The United States would lose its name and stand divided if the Constitution did not bring the thirteen colonies into one body. Within this governing body, fears arise from the difficulty of controlling power in a central government, while still trying to keep unity between the states. Understanding that the United States was formed based on the people’s irritation with the corruption of the control of power in England, the Constitution reassured the people that their freedoms were going to be kept, but it required their trust. The founders of the United States Constitution established a just government through encompassing equal representation, with the people as the foundation, and protecting the injustices that could arise with the misuse of power.

After the colonies gained independence, the founding fathers soon found that becoming a new independent nation was going to be a difficult task. The biggest task was deciding on the division of power in the government. This issue divided the people into two groups, the federalists and the Jeffersonian republicans. Alexander Hamilton led the federalists and Thomas Jefferson led the republicans. These two important men in history would later show how the challenges of becoming a new nation. In this essay I will be analyzing the ideas of Linda K. Kerber’s “The Fears of the Federalists,” to Drew R. McCoy’s “The Fears of the Jeffersonian Republicans.” Furthermore, comparisons will be made about both essays to gain a better understanding of the struggles of government in early America.

In offering alternative interpretations of the origins of the Constitution, the author accomplishes his secondary purpose, to make the reader challenge what they know about the framing of the Constitution. Holton details the rebellion of the “Unruly Americans” against the state and national governments, using Adonijah Mathews as an ultimate example of the “common man.” Mathews’ views are presented in order to contrast the views of James Madison, whom it seems the author

After the American Revolutionary War, the men in the Second Continental Congress were faced with a monumental challenge, creating a document that would democratically frame the new United States government in the spirit of liberty and freedom. While they spent much time and effort writing and ratifying this document, they were hindered by past experiences and prejudices against their previous mother country, Great Britain. The memories of imperial Britain, still fresh in the minds of the ex-colonists, caused them to include certain concepts of the Articles of Confederation that would prove detrimental to the functionality of the federal government. Although the American people desired to retain state sovereignty, they fashioned a form of government that bestowed excessive powers to the states, so severely that the national government could not effectively govern them

Over the course of the Revolutionary War, the people of the colonies fought for freedom, liberty, and a fair government. They were pursuing a better society, and wanted a non-tyrannical administration. They needed their government to reflect this. The Constitution addressed and embodied the ideals and opinions of the people during the Revolutionary Era, which included a need for a representative democracy, checks and balances on the government, and a protection for the citizen’s rights.

In document 7 it said, “...in the new code of laws which I suppose it will be necessary for you to make I desire you Remember the ladies, and be more generous and favourable to them than your ancestors.” This document clearly indicates that before 1776 and even in that time period women did not have rights at all, and that is exactly what Abigail Adams asks John Adams in the letter. The idea that “unlimited power” was going into the husbands hand could not be suffered by women; that is what led to women's rights movements throughout United States. While the rights gained for women was one of the radical change, there were various

The meetings, drafting, and approval of the Articles of Confederation were timely, innovative, and challenging. The Articles of Confederation, as the first constitution of the U.S., tied the states together in a loose “perpetual union’’ (Sage, 2010). A proposal for a national confederation was introduced by Richard Henry Lee of Virginia in May 1776. Lee stated on that day, “That these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States” (Swindler, 1981). Richard Lee’s resolution focused on three national proposals: to declare the United Colonies independent from Great Britain, to seek foreign alliances for the evident and eventual war with Great Britain, and to establish a plan of confederation to officially unite

Following the Revolutionary War, our union devised the Articles of Confederation, a document which concentrated almost all power in the hands of the states. However, this document yielded problems such as economic disorder, weak central leadership, and legislative inefficiency. As a result, citizens reacted violently, prompting protests such as Shay’s Rebellion, and demanded for change. We can stop these issues for reoccurring by ratifying the Constitution in order to build a solid foundation for the nation’s government. This will create a uniform and centralized power that overlooks and approves the passing of laws, preserves public peace, regulates foreign affairs, and maintains a common defense (national security). Although ratifying the Constitution will reduce the sovereignty of Massachusetts, it will establish a strong federal government, managed by a system of checks and balances, that can further the prosperity of our nation.

It is June of 1789. Nearly a year has passed since the ratification of the Constitution. Imagine your children and wife waking you up and asking you what is for dinner. You are not sure what to say because you lost your farm due to paying off debts. This endures and then something tragic transpires. Your youngest child perishes. In the 1780s there were two diverse types of people with dissimilar lifestyles. These encompassed Federalists and Anti-Federalists. Federalists were the minority of the population at the time and are on behalf of making a stronger unified government by making a new structure of government. Anti-Federalists make up the majority of the population and want to

“This is precisely the principle which has hitherto preserved our freedom. No instance can be found of any free government of considerable extent which has been supported upon any other plan.” (Winthrop, 52) James Winthrop, one of the Anti-Federalists, felt that this new system wouldn’t work because the Constitution didn’t have a bill of rights like the Articles of

The Articles of Confederation, a written agreement that ensured each state’s sovereignty, freedom and independence, led America to victory over the British centralized government. During the late eighteenth century, the empowered government terrified the Americans, hence the thirteen colonies decided to spread governance powers equally to all functional states. The states had absolute dominance over the Congress due to the Articles of Confederation. While the localized power of states seemed to be promising, the system posed great threat to the major components of a democratic government, which are coercion, revenue, and legitimacy (Lecture 1 - The Roots of Government). The system of localized power did not ensure legitimacy, which referred to people’s recognition of national government. Congress’s lack of power to control each state’s actions caused great chaos. Eventually, national government’s lack of power and inability to unify the states exposed multiple flaws in the Articles of Confederation; consequently, a new supreme law, the Constitution was established by the founding fathers. The new supreme law successfully altered the imbalanced system into a novel democratic government.

Federalism was an inevitable and paramount mechanism to creation the of the Union. Therefore, it is acceptable that its governing principles would define and refine a majority of the nation’s history. Shaping the government, laws, and politics of the current and future generations during the creation of the Constitution, federalism permanently altered the life of every American. Federalism and the Constitution were derived from a similar ideal: endurance of free society had to be preserved by a sense of unity that acted as a safeguard against prevalent dangers, advanced the common good while still maintaining responsiveness to the diversity of the nation (Wechsler, 1954). The Constitution established a central government that possessed the capacity to interpret its