Forming a New Nation
Essential Question:
How is the Constitution superior to the Articles of Confederation?
 Articles of Confederation
o America’s 1st constitution
o Adopted during the Revolutionary War (1777)
o Weaknesses:
 States had more power than the federal (national) government
 Congress could not:
 Tax
 Regulate trade
 No national court system
 No system of checks and balances
 Critical Period (1781-1789)
o Period between the end of the Revolutionary War and the Ratification of
the Constitution
o Problems with:
 Debt
 Foreign affairs
 Rebellions
 Shays’ Rebellion (1786)
o Rebellion of farmers in rural Massachusetts
o Showed the failure of the Articles of Confederation
 Constitutional Convention
o James Madison
 Author of the Virginia Plan
 Based on Montesquieu’s ideas
 “Father of the Constitution”
o George Washington
 President of the Constitutional Convention
o Important compromises
 Great Compromise
 Proposed by Roger Sherman of Connecticut
 Compromise between large and small states
 Representation in the House of Representatives:
o Determined by population
 Representation in the Senate:
o 2 per state
 Three-fifths Compromise
 Designed to get southern states to agree to the Constitution
 Each slave counted as 3/5 of a free person for both taxation
and representation
 The Constitution
 The U.S.’s formal plan of government
 The supreme law of the land
 Based on Madison’s Virginia Plan
 Unified the states
 Created a strong national government and a national court
system
 A “living document”
o Amendments
o Elastic Clause
 Signed in Philadelphia on September 17, 1787
 Ratifying the Constitution
o Federalists
 People who supported the ratification (approval) of the
Constitution
 Wanted a strong national government
o Anti-Federalists
 People who opposed the ratification of the Constitution
 Two main reasons:
 Some wanted stronger state and local government
 Some wanted a bill of rights
o Federalist Papers
 Essays that supported:
 A strong national government
 Ratification
 Written by:
 James Madison
 Alexander Hamilton
 John Jay
o Bill of Rights
 The first ten amendments to the Constitution
 Some states refused to ratify the Constitution without it
 Written by James Madison in 1789
 Added to the Constitution in 1791