The Rights We Now Have Because Of Our Forefathers

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.

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 the making of the United States, there were many events that are important. This paper intends to highlight a few of those events including; Magna Carta, Mayflower Compact, Declaration of Independence, Articles of Confederation and the Federalist Papers. Many events in America’s history helped to establish the United States as a free and independent country. The Declaration of Independence in particular explains the rights and freedoms that Americans. Each document is like a stepping stones that leads to the next and building upon the pervious document.

During the time of the Revolutionary War, the American Colonies were upset about the England’s tyrannical rule and exploitation through harsh taxes. Eventually, the colonists revolted and split from England. They wrote the Declaration of Independence and created a new government whose outlines were written in the Articles of Confederation. Unfortunately, the Articles of Confederation had an overall negative impact, as it created a weak central government, a poor financial system, and inadequate militias. There are more disadvantages than advantages to this document.

This book emphasizes the alternative interpretations offered by Americans on the origins of the Constitution. Holton’s purpose with this book was to show that the framers interests involved making America more attractive to investors. In order to do so, they purposefully made the government less democratic with the writing of the Constitution. However, with the addition of the Bill of Rights, one could argue the Framers had at least a slight concern for the American people and their civil liberties.

After the failure of the Articles of Confederation, the founders believed it was necessary to hold a National Convention to revise it in order for it to become the Constitution. After the signing of the Constitution, two groups were created. The Anti-federalists who composed a series of essays one known as An Old Whig V (1787) suggests that an inclusion of a Bill of Rights would be more effective in clarifying the limits of the government, while others, the Federalists, opposed to it. To understand the effects of ratifying a Bill of Rights in the Constitution, both sides must be analyzed. This paper examines An Old Whig V’s arguments against the Federalist, mainly letters from Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison, to propose that the inclusion of a Bill of Rights allows citizens to verbalize their right of protection in regards to the occasion of being shown in the Constitution.

The foundation of a Nation has gone through the occupation from former Native Americans, Freedom of Religion that Pilgrims sought for. Towards the Inhabitants of the American Colonists. Fast forward after the American Revolution. Now that America has broken away from Britain, there was a new sense of freedom and opinions on how the nation must need a republic and form a republic. An upcoming group called the Federalists will clash with the anti- federalists of what must the order of government should be involved with running the country. James Madison who was a federalists and Patrick Henry an Anti-federalists had both given strong opinions on a new Proposition, of taking charge and forming a country that will run fairly and not dominating as a monarch. Many are familiar with the Bill of Rights that is a document listing the protection of every natural born citizen’s freedom. So the two will discuss their view of the constitution.

The most politicized debate in American history has been the arguments made by the Federalists and the Antifederalists over the ideas and powers stated within the United States Constitution. A large number of authors who write about the debates between these two political groups present the ideas of the Federalist and Antifederalist as separate, opposing ideologies about how the U.S. Constitution should either stay the same for the sake of the country or be amended to grant border rights to the public and states. To begin a paper about how this assumption of the two factions always being at odds, first there should be an explanation about the Federalists’ and Antifederalists’ main arguments. The Virginia debate over ratification will be the used as the platform to present the details of their arguments. After those two main objectives are complete, the presentation of information found on the topics that the two parties had arguments between themselves over the true future of the Constitution, and that certain Federalists and Antifederalist shared certain ideas about the problems this Constitution could cause or solve for the United States. To conclude those ideas, a presentation of the political figures of this time period will be used to understand the similarities and differences between the parties. Towards the end of the paper, there will be an explanation of how the ideas of the two parties, mostly Antifederalists, have led to the creation of amendments added to the

Using information from the evidence below as well as your knowledge of the period, discuss the development of the United States Constitution as a document which ensured popular sovereignty.

The time between the American Revolution and the presidency of George Washington was one of learning, experimentation, and confusion. No patterns existed to model the new government being established for the thirteen American states. Although it would be incorrect to say that the government of the Articles of Confederation was a complete failure, it would be logical to advance the idea that the more powerful national government established under the constitution of 1787 was essential to the survival of the American Union. Between the two documents there were some drastic differences of opinion on governing tactics as mentioned in the Articles of Confederation compared to the Constitution of 1787 (Doc. C). Major differences were composited

When the founding fathers wrote the Constitution and Declaration of Independence, they wrote them with the future in mind. In the newspaper and TV headlines today, many of the topics in the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence are even more relevant and hotly debated today than back then. But they each have a different purpose and handle many topics differently. This essay will compare the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution in three areas: style, structure, and tone, the topic of religion and government, and the issue of African slavery.

The argument between Federalists and Anti-Federalists might seem long gone to American citizens, but still their philosophical foundations shape the teams, scope and size of the battlefield. These philosophies go back to two lone men, Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson. Both fought aggressively for a government based on their ideas, and both did make portions of the now-standing American government. This essay will outline the political, social and economic philosophies of both men, how their philosophies influenced the government today, and a closing opinion.

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

This debate greatly contributed our understanding of our national government and provided for stronger protections and the addition of a bill of rights. Although the Constitution did ultimately get passed, this did not necessarily prove the Federalists right in every instance and the Anti-Federalists wrong. This is particularly is proven in the evidence of the many predictions of the Anti-Federalists that have come true and the change of opinion on several essays from "The Federalist" that the authors later changed their opinion on. The decisive reason for the Constitution's eventual ratification and the alleged failure of the Anti-Federalist can be pinpointed to several key issues, some of which are the lack of an cohesive opinion of the Anti-Federalists, the absence of a worthy alternative, and a weaker argument to be debated. This is notably portrayed in the Anti-Federalist dissention of the Constitutions clauses for the office of the President and reveals similarities to the failures they suffered in their position against Constitution as a whole.