by RNH Nello

Created on: February 18, 2009   Last Updated: February 26, 2009

The Constitution means the creation of a general government, stronger than the Articles of Confederation, within the context of a limited representative government.

Not trying to be flippant, it means what it says. We should keep in mind that the several State Delegates came to the convention with the intent to alter the Articles of Confederation to achieve a confederated central government function more attuned to a peace time environment. Some made the point that this would not meet future needs and that a stronger, more fully functional central government was the real need.

Not all found such a proposal attractive. At this time (1787) each State had already written their own individual State Constitution and, as a member of the "Articles of Confederation" was a Free, Independent, and Sovereign Nation State as detailed in:

"Article II. Each State retains its sovereignty, freedom and independence, and every power, jurisdiction and right which is not by this Confederation expressly delegated to the United States in Congress assemble."

Then too, under the Articles of Confederation the end of the Revolutionary War was negotiated to a final end in Paris with the final result being the "1783 Treaty of Peace" between the United States and Great Britain. In Article One each State is identified and defined as "Free, Independent, and Sovereign."

Since many (probably the majority) of the individuals of those times viewed themselves as Citizens of their States and not as a country as a whole, it is understandable why a move to a stronger central government would find resistance, even to the point that the State of Rhode Island never sent Delegates to the Convention when it did occur.

Within the Convention it didn't take long until it became obvious that developing a new central government was in the interests of each of the States and they then addressed the work of defining what was needed. Even so, there were those who were not happy about it and this came to a head in the ratification debates following the ending of the Convention. The definitive source for these debates within the individual States is the five volume set of "Debates on the Adoption of the Federal Constitution." That they also contain James Madison's diaries on the Convention itself is a plus.

However, the source most often referenced today are what has come to be called the "Federalist Papers." Here John Jay, Alexander Hamilton, and James Madison make the case for the Constitution and a much stronger central

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