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BUILDING BACKGROUND: The new Constitution did not make everyone
happy. Even its framers knew they had not made a perfect document.
Many people still did not want a strong national government. They
were afraid it would become as tyrannical as the British government had
been. Before approving the Constitution, they wanted to be sure that
their rights would be protected.
I.
FEDERALISTS AND ANTIFEDERALISTS
-People reacted in many different ways to the Constitution
when it was made public.
-One group of the people were opposed to ratifying the
Constitution and they were known as Antifederalists.
-Some people opposed the Constitution, because they
thought that the central government gained too much
power while others opposed it, such as George Mason
who did so, because it did NOT grant individual rights.
-While some Antifederalists were wealthy and
Revolutionary War heroes, many were small
farmers and debtors.
-Richard Henry Lee, Samuel Adams and
Patrick Henry were three of these Antifederalists.
-Their political enemies were people who felt that
the United States needed a stronger central
government.
-These supporters of passing the Constitution
were called Federalists and included George
Washington, James Madison, Benjamin
Franklin, John Jay and Alexander Hamilton.
-Many of these included wealthy planters, farmers
and lawyers, while some were everyday workers.
-The biggest struggle that the Federalists
faced was to convince people that the passage
of the Constitution would not make the central
government too powerful.
II.
FEDERALIST PAPERS
-The Federalist Papers were a collection of
essays written by people who supported
passing the Constitution.
-They were published anonymously under the
name Publius.
-John Jay, Alexander Hamilton and James
Madison actually wrote them.
-One of their major goals were to try and
convince people that the new federal
government would NOT overpower the states.
-They were published all through the colonies in
newspapers, before they were put in a collection
and published in book form in 1788.
-To be passed, the Constitution needed only NINE
states to vote for it, but for national unity it
would be necessary for ALL states to ratify it.
-Every state except Rhode Island held a special
state convention that gave citizens the
opportunity to discuss and vote on their views
of Constitution.
-One supporter was Paul Revere, who said, “The
proposed…government, it well calculated to
secure the liberties, protect the property, and
guard the rights of the citizens of America.”
-A collection of pieces also came out called the
Antifederalists Papers and they were against
passage of the Constitution.
-A citizen who was against passage, wrote, “It
appears that the government will fall into the
hands of the few and the great.”
-The first state to ratify was Delaware on
December 7, 1787 and the ninth, making it
official was New Hampshire in June of 1788.
-Even though the Constitution had already passed,
the Federalists knew they needed the other four
states to pass it, especially the two largest ones
in New York and Virginia.
-Resistance was strong in both.
-Madison finally convinced Virginians to vote for
ratification on June 25, 1788.
-Opposition was even stronger in New York, where
riots had been held to protest.
-Hamilton was able to convince New Yorkers to ratify
the Constitution on July 26, 1788 after news of Virginia’s
passage had gotten to them.
-North Carolina became the twelfth state to ratify
more than a year later on November 21, 1789.
-On May 29, 1790, Rhode Island became the final state
to ratify the Constitution after being threatened to have its
exports taxed as a foreign nation.
III.
Bill of Rights
-Many of the states that ratified the Constitution
did so only after being promised that a bill
protecting rights would be added, because
many antifederalists did NOT think the
Constitution would protect personal freedoms.
-Federalists argued that a bill of rights was NOT
needed, because the Constitution was written to protect
the liberty of ALL U.S. citizens.
-In the first Congressional session, James Madison pushed
to get a bill of rights written and then added as
amendments or official changes.
-Article V of the Constitution provided a way to make
changes to the Constitution as things changed.
-For this to happen two-thirds of both houses of
Congress would have to agree on the same idea and then
three-fourths of the states had to agree.
-In writing the Bill of Rights, Congress looked at the Virginia
Declaration of Rights, the English Bill of Rights and the
U.S. Declaration of Independence.
-Congress proposed 12 amendments to the states to be voted
on in September 1789.
-The states had ratified 10 of them by December of 1791, giving
us the U. S. Bill of Rights, which were intended to protect
citizen’s rights.
-The amendment process is what provides the flexibility for
our Constitution to be the same one passed 225 years ago with
only 27 changes and 10 of those at the same time when the
Bill of Rights was added.