Constitution of the United States (1787)
George Washington (holding the Constitution) presided at the Philadelphia convention where the historic document was drafted; Benjamin Franklin, The convention's oldest member, is ated cond from left.
By the mid-1780s, the weakness of the Articles of Confederation had become clear to many obrvers. In their reaction to what they considered the authoritarian government of George III, the framers of the Articles had deliberately created a weak government, although they believed that it had sufficient powers to govern. That assumption proved fal. Among its other defects, the Articles of Confederation gave the Congress no power to tax or to regulate commerce among the states, it lacked both executive and judicial branches, and amending the Articles required unanimity of all the states.
James Madison of Virginia, working with the blessing of George Washington, led the drive to get Congress to call a convention for the express purpo of revising the Articles of Confederation. But once the delegates had gathered in Philadelphia in the summer of 1787,
they took the bit in their teeth and decided to draft an entirely new document, one that would meet what they perceived to be the current and future needs of the country.
Government under the Constitution remained federal in nature, that is, power was shared between the states and the national government. But where under the Articles the states had been the dominant force, under the Constitution the national government would be supreme. The framers saw both state and national governments as active participants in the political process.
One of the key features in the Constitution, and one that would become a critical factor in the nineteenth century, is that the source of sovereignty, the source of the authority for the document, is the citizenry. "We the People of the United States" ordain and establish the Constitution. This is a direct link to the Declaration of Independence, which declared that governments derive their legitimacy from the connt of the governed.
Perhaps the most striking feature of the Constitution was how extensively it implemented the prevailing notions of paration of powers. Clear lines divided the legislative, executiv
e and judicial branches. In a sharp departure from their experience under the Articles, the framers put a great deal of power in the hands of the president. At the same time, a system of checks and balances ensured that no one branch of the government would dominate the others.
In the debate over ratification of the Constitution that took place in the fall and winter of 1787-88, proponents of the new document -- called Federalists -- claimed that not only would it remedy the defects of the Articles of Confederation, but it would provide a strong yet limited government that would ensure the peace and curity of the new nation. Tho oppod to the Constitution -- known as Anti-Federalists -- operated at a disadvantage, becau they recognized and admitted that the government under the Articles had not been a success. They did, however, demand that as a price of ratification a bill of rights should be added. The Federalists believed that no such listing was necessary, becau as a government of limited powers, the new government would have no authority to invade the rights of the citizens. But as Thomas Jefferson explained to James Madison, "A bill of rights is what the people are entitled to against every governme
nt on earth, general or particular, and what no just government should refu, or rest upon inferences."
With the ratification of the Constitution, the new government met in the spring of 1789, and Congress immediately adopted and nt to the states a ries of propod amendments. The states ratified ten of them by 1791, and the have since been known as the Bill of Rights. Other amendments have followed, a few of them primarily technical in nature, but for the most part they have expanded the democratic nature of American society -- by abolishing slavery, widening the suffrage or making government more responsive to the people, as in the direct election of nators.
The Constitution has rved the people of the United States admirably for over 200 years, in part becau the framers were wi enough to recognize that they could not foree every problem. Tho who followed them thus had the ability to take the document and adapt it to new needs and new conditions.
