“We, the People vs. We, the
State”:
The Virginia Ratifying
Convention
Great minds don’t always agree.
• During the Virginia ratifying convention,
what were the arguments for and against
the new Constitution?
Federalists
Anti-Federalists
• Supported the
Constitution created
by the Constitutional
Convention of 1787
• Did not support the
Constitution created
by the Constitutional
Convention of 1787
• James Madison
• George Washington
• Patrick Henry
• George Mason
Anti-Federalists
Patrick Henry
• Lawyer
• Anti-Federalist: feared that the
Constitution would create too strong
a national government that would,
without a bill of rights, endanger the liberties of
Americans
• Represented Virginia at the First and Second
Continental Congresses
• Attended four of Virginia's five Revolutionary
Conventions
• Commonwealth of Virginia's first governor
George Mason
• Planter
• Anti-federalist: argued that the
government would be too powerful,
that it blended, rather than separated,
the legislative and executive powers, and that it
lacked a bill of rights
• Served in three Virginia Revolutionary Conventions
and wrote first drafts of the Virginia Declaration of
Rights and the first Virginia constitution
William Grayson
• Lawyer
• Anti-Federalist: feared the Constitution would
allow northern and northeastern states to form
majorities in Congress against the interests of
southern states and also jeopardize essential
interests of westerners
• Represented Virginia in Congress from 1785 to
1787
James Monroe
• Lawyer
• Anti-Federalist: believed the
Constitution needed a bill of
rights and that the executive
should be directly elected
Image courtesy of the Library of Congress:
http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/cph.3g12215
• Representative to the Continental Congress 1783
Federalists
James Madison
• Politician/planter
• Federalist: “Father of the
Constitution,” he drafted the
Virginia Plan, which was the basis
for the debates at the Convention
of 1787
• Attended the fifth Virginia Revolutionary Convention
and drafted one of the amendments to the Virginia
Declaration of Rights that guaranteed all men the right to
the free exercise of religion
• Virginia Representative to the Continental Congress
Edmund Pendleton
• Lawyer
• Federalist
• Member of the First and Second
Continental Congresses
• President of the Virginia Committee of Safety that
governed the colony from the summer of 1775 to the
summer of 1776
• President of the fourth and fifth Virginia Conventions
• President of the Virginia Ratifying Convention
George Nicolas
• Lawyer
• Federalist
• Served in the House of Delegates, 1778–1779,
1781–1782, 1783, and 1786–1788
Edmund Randolph
• Federalist
• Lawyer/ Politician
• Federalist: felt that adopting the
Constitution was the best way to
keep the states together as a union.
• First attorney general of the
Commonwealth of Virginia (1776–
1786)
• Delegate to the Continental Congress (1779, 1781–1782)
• Governor of Virginia (1786–1788)
• Delegate to the Philadelphia Constitutional Convention (1787)
John Marshall
• Lawyer
• Federalist
• Later the first chief
justice of the U.S.
Supreme Court
Image courtesy of the Library of Congress.
<http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.rbc/bdsdcc.c0301>