But many people resisted increasing the powers of the national government at the expense of the states. This right, Henry believed, should remain with the states. Other delegates, such as Edmund Randolph of Virginia, disapproved of the Constitution because it created a new federal judicial system.
Their fear was that the federal courts would be too far away from where those who were tried lived. State courts were located closer to the homes of both plaintiffs and defendants, and it was believed that judges and juries in state courts could better understand the actions of those who appeared before them. In response to these fears, the federal government created federal courts in each of the states as well as in Maine, which was then part of Massachusetts, and Kentucky, which was part of Virginia.
Perhaps the greatest source of dissatisfaction with the Constitution was that it did not guarantee protection of individual liberties. State governments had given jury trials to residents charged with violating the law and allowed their residents to possess weapons for their protection.
Some had practiced religious tolerance as well. The Constitution, however, did not contain reassurances that the federal government would do so.
Although it provided for habeas corpus and prohibited both a religious test for holding office and granting noble titles, some citizens feared the loss of their traditional rights and the violation of their liberties. The lack of a bill of rights was especially problematic in Virginia, as the Virginia Declaration of Rights was the most extensive rights-granting document among the states. The promise that a bill of rights would be drafted for the Constitution persuaded delegates in many states to support ratification.
John Adams and Thomas Jefferson carried on a lively correspondence regarding the ratification of the Constitution. I am happy to find that on the whole you are a friend to this amendment. But the good in this instance vastly overweighs the evil. It should therefore guard us against their abuses of power. Experience proves the inefficacy of a bill of rights. But tho it is not absolutely efficacious under all circumstances, it is of great potency always, and rarely inefficacious.
There is a remarkeable difference between the. What were some of the inconveniences of not having a bill of rights that Jefferson mentioned? Why did he decide in favor of having one? It was clear how some states would vote. Smaller states, like Delaware, favored the Constitution. Equal representation in the Senate would give them a degree of equality with the larger states, and a strong national government with an army at its command would be better able to defend them than their state militias could.
Larger states, however, had significant power to lose. They did not believe they needed the federal government to defend them and disliked the prospect of having to provide tax money to support the new government. Thus, from the very beginning, the supporters of the Constitution feared that New York, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Virginia would refuse to ratify it. That would mean all nine of the remaining states would have to, and Rhode Island, the smallest state, was unlikely to do so. It had not even sent delegates to the convention in Philadelphia.
And even if it joined the other states in ratifying the document and the requisite nine votes were cast, the new nation would not be secure without its largest, wealthiest, and most populous states as members of the union.
On the question of ratification, citizens quickly separated into two groups: Federalists and Anti-Federalists. The Federalists supported it. They tended to be among the elite members of society—wealthy and well-educated landowners, businessmen, and former military commanders who believed a strong government would be better for both national defense and economic growth.
A national currency, which the federal government had the power to create, would ease business transactions. The ability of the federal government to regulate trade and place tariffs on imports would protect merchants from foreign competition.
Furthermore, the power to collect taxes would allow the national government to fund internal improvements like roads, which would also help businessmen. Support for the Federalists was especially strong in New England. Opponents of ratification were called Anti-Federalists. Anti-Federalists feared the power of the national government and believed state legislatures, with which they had more contact, could better protect their freedoms.
Even members of the social elite, like Henry, feared that the centralization of power would lead to the creation of a political aristocracy, to the detriment of state sovereignty and individual liberty.
Related to these concerns were fears that the strong central government Federalists advocated for would levy taxes on farmers and planters, who lacked the hard currency needed to pay them. Many also believed Congress would impose tariffs on foreign imports that would make American agricultural products less welcome in Europe and in European colonies in the western hemisphere.
For these reasons, Anti-Federalist sentiment was especially strong in the South. Some Anti-Federalists also believed that the large federal republic that the Constitution would create could not work as intended. Americans had long believed that virtue was necessary in a nation where people governed themselves i. In small republics, similarities among members of the community would naturally lead them to the same positions and make it easier for those in power to understand the needs of their neighbors.
In a larger republic, one that encompassed nearly the entire Eastern Seaboard and ran west to the Appalachian Mountains, people would lack such a strong commonality of interests. The Constitution, however, was still evolving. Madison introduced 17 amendments to the Constitution born from the Massachusetts Compromise, of which Congress adopted twelve on September 25, , to send forth to the states for ratification. Ten of those amendments, known as the Bill of Rights , were ratified on December 15, The Constitution was not ratified by all states until May 29, , when Rhode Island finally approved the document, and the Bill of Rights was not ratified to become part of the Constitution until the end of the following year.
Moreover, the capital was not set until July 16, , almost a year and half after the general elections took place. The location of the capital was born, like most decisions in the formation of the budding nation, out of negotiation. Hamilton, now Secretary of the Treasury, sought passage of the Funding Act so that the federal government could assume state Revolutionary War debts and thus endow the government with more economic power.
In return, Hamilton would help Jefferson and Madison secure the votes needed to pass the Residence Act. They also served as forums for proponents and opponents to articulate their ideas before the citizenry. Significantly, state conventions, not Congress, were the agents of ratification. This approach insured that the Constitution's authority came from representatives of the people specifically elected for the purpose of approving or disapproving the charter, resulting in a more accurate reflection of the will of the electorate.
Also, by bypassing debate in the state legislatures, the Constitution avoided disabling amendments that states, jealous of yielding authority to a national government, would likely have attached. Ratification was not a foregone conclusion. Able, articulate men used newspapers, pamphlets, and public meetings to debate ratification of the Constitution. Those known as Antifederalists opposed the Constitution for a variety of reasons.
Some continued to argue that the delegates in Philadelphia had exceeded their congressional authority by replacing the Articles of Confederation with an illegal new document. Others complained that the delegates in Philadelphia represented only the well-born few and consequently had crafted a document that served their special interests and reserved the franchise for the propertied classes.
Another frequent objection was that the Constitution gave too much power to the central government at the expense of the states and that a representative government could not manage a republic this large. The most serious criticism was that the Constitutional Convention had failed to adopt a bill of rights proposed by George Mason.
Those who favored ratification, the Federalists, fought back, convinced that rejection of the Constitution would result in anarchy and civil strife. Beginning in October , these three penned 85 essays for New York newspapers and later collected them into 2 volumes entitled The Federalist , which analyzed the Constitution, detailed the thinking of the framers, and responded to the Antifederalist critics. They successfully countered most criticism.
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