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The Articles of Confederation
After declaring independence from Britain in 1776, the delegates at the Second Continental Congress immediately set to the task of creating a government. In 1777, Congress submitted the nation’s first constitution, the Articles of Confederation, to the states, who finally ratified it a few years later.
Problems Under the Articles
Congress proved unable to manage the country’s economic affairs under the Articles. Because most state currencies had become useless due to wartime inflation, Congress printed its own continental dollars to keep the economy alive, but these faltered as well. Congress also proved unable to raise enough money from the states, because the federal government had no way of forcing the states to pay taxes. Most states also ignored Congress’s attempts to resolve numerous interstate disputes that arose.
In addition, many Americans became fed up with their incompetent state legislatures and demanded debt relief and cheaper money. A few even revolted, as in Shays’s Rebellion in 1786–1787, which culminated in Daniel Shays leading 1,200 western Massachusetts farmers in an attack on the federal arsenal at Springfield. Although the rebellion was quickly dismissed, it convinced many American leaders that change was needed if the U.S. were to survive.
Drafting the Constitution
To resolve these problems, delegates from most of the states met at the Annapolis Convention in 1786. When nothing was resolved, they agreed to reconvene in 1787 at a Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia. At this second convention, it was quickly decided that an entirely new constitution was needed rather than just a revision to the Articles.
A major point of contention was the structure of the new legislative branch. Small states supported the New Jersey Plan, under which all states would have equal representation in the legislature. Large states advocated the Virginia Plan to create a bicameral (two-house) legislature in which representatives would be appointed according to population. The Great Compromise among the states created a bicameral Congress in which states would be equally represented in the Senate and proportionally represented in the House of Representatives.
The framers of the Constitution believed strongly in checks and balances and separation of powers to prevent any one branch of government from ever becoming too powerful. As a result, the new government would also have a strong executive branch and an independent judiciary branch.
The Federalist Papers and the Bill of Rights
When the delegates submitted the Constitution to the states for ratification, heated debates erupted between the Federalists, who supported the Constitution, and the Anti-Federalists, who thought it gave the federal government too much power. Federalists Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison coauthored the Federalist Papers in 1787–1788 to convince Anti-Federalist Americans, especially in New York, that the Constitution was necessary. Eventually, the Anti-Federalists conceded on the condition that a Bill of Rights be written to preserve liberties, such as freedoms of speech and religion and the right to trial by jury.
