An Independant Nation
The American Revolution ended two centuries of British rule for most of the North American colonies and created the modern United States of America. The Revolutionary era was both exhilarating and disturbing---a time of progress for some, dislocation for others. In the wake of the Revolution came events as varied as the drafting and ratification of the Constitution of the United States of America. In the 1770s, as the Americans moved toward independence and began to lay the groundwork for state constitution making, they tried, but more hesitantly and nervously, to do the same at the national level. Few were ready for a unified national government. Most distrusted centralized government because they associated it with the failure of the British colonial empire. In the summer of 1776, the Second Continental Congress adopted the resolution authorizing American independence and the framing of the Declaration of Independence and also created the Articles of Confederation. These Articles created a one-house Confederation Congress where each state delegation had one vote. On most matters, a majority vote was needed; on certain key matters, such as treaties, a two-thirds vote was needed; Article 13 required consent by all thirteen
Problems arose with the Articles of Confederation and a committee was created to look into the problems and to find a way to correct them, thus creating the Federal Convention. When the delegates met in Philadelphia as the Federal Convention, they remembered that both the Articles of Confederation and any amendments that might be proposed to them had to be adopted, or ratified, by all thirteen states' legislatures. All attempts to amend the Articles thus failed, as would the proposed Constitution if it were subjected to the procedure codified in Article 13 of the Articles. There were three reasons why both earlier amendments to the Articles and the proposed Constitution would fail under Article 13's procedures: First, it was simply impossible to secure unanimous endorsement by all thirteen states of even the most modest amendment -- and the proposed Constitution was far more than a modest amendment to the Articles. Second, the framers of the Constitution realized that the state legislatures would not accept a system that diminished their authority. Third, the framers noted that they were creating a new constitution for a united American people. On the grounds of political and constitutional principle, the state legislatures, as agents of the people of the several states, could not exercise the power to constitute a government on behalf of their citizens -- only the people of the several states, or representatives whom they elected solely for that purpose, could exercise that constituent power. In September of 1787, the Federal Co
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Approximate Word count = 1039
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)
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