Early State Constitutions Most of the former colonies adopted state constitutions during the early days of the Revolution. Americans’ long experience with written charters of government made any other political arrangement almost unthinkable. Rhode Island continued to be governed by its royal charter (with references to Britain deleted) until 1842, when the state drafted a constitution in the wake of the Dorr Rebellion. Power was shared by state executive, legislative, and judicial departments, but the elected legislatures wielded most of the power in day-to-day governance. All state constitutions contained provisions establishing property qualifications for suffrage, so the vast majority of people were disfranchised. Yet all state constitutions also contained bills of rights that anticipated many of the liberties subsequently enshrined in the national Bill of Rights.

Articles of Confederation The Articles of Confederation, approved by the Second Continental Congress in 1777 and ratified by the states in 1781, established the first de jurenational government of the United States of America. The union was organized on the principle of the sovereign equality of all states and established a national government administered by the Congress of the Confederation. Article XIII anticipated the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution of 1787, declaring that “the Articles of this Confederation shall be inviolably observed by every state, and the union shall be perpetual.” It constituted for the first time a federal union that has endured down to the present.

Treaty of Paris The greatest achievement of the Confederation government was the negotiation and conclusion of the Treaty of Paris, which ended the Revolutionary War in 1783. Under the treaty Britain ceded to the United States not only the land within the boundaries of the original colonies, but also all the territory between the Allegheny Mountains and the Mississippi River. This set the stage for a westward expansion that eventually led settlers to the shores of the Pacific. The treaty also provided for the compensation of Loyalists for property confiscated from them during the war, an issue that led to much public debate. Alexander Hamilton himself represented a number of former Loyalists in their claims under the Treaty of Paris against the newly independent government.

Territorial Ordinances The Confederation government passed two measures providing for the administration of the newly acquired national territories. The Land Ordinance of 1785 dealt with the division and disposition of the western territories. The Northwest Ordinance of 1787 dealt with political arrangements in the territories north and west of the Ohio River.

Shays’s Rebellion The fragile authority of the Confederation government was tested in 1786 when rebellion broke out in Massachusetts. When the Massachusetts government refused to pass debt amelioration measures, debtors rose up under the leadership of Daniel Shays, a former captain in the Continental Army. From Paris, Thomas Jefferson wrote of the rebellion, “I hold it that a little rebellion now and then is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical.” It was the sort of thing he could write from an ocean away. In the young nation, the rebellion shook confidence in the national government and inspired calls for reform.

Failures of the Confederation Government With its limited mandate for governance and its inability to raise sufficient revenue, the Confederation government found itself embarrassed in its foreign affairs and frustrated at home. In 1786, delegates of five states met at Annapolis to discuss reform. The Annapolis Convention called upon the states to send delegates to a gathering to be held in Philadelphia the following year for the purpose of proposing constitutional changes. As George Washington wrote to James Madison shortly after the Annapolis Convention adjourned, “Thirteen Sovereignties pulling against each other, and all tugging at the fœderal head, will soon bring ruin on the whole; whereas a liberal, and energetic Constitution, well guarded & closely watched, to prevent incroachments, might restore us to that degree of respectability & consequence, to which we had a fair claim, & the brightest prospect of attaining.”

The Philadelphia Convention On February 21, 1787, Congress approved a convention of delegates “appointed by the several states be held at Philadelphia for the sole and express purpose of revising the Articles of Confederation and reporting to Congress and the several legislatures such alterations and provisions therein as shall when agreed to in Congress and confirmed by the states render the federal constitution adequate to the exigencies of Government & the preservation of the Union.” All present at the Convention agreed that change was needed. The question was only one of degree. Some favored shifting the center of political authority from the states to a strong national government, whereas others favored keeping the states the central units of political power. Two plans were circulated early on. The Virginia Plan, drafted by James Madison and presented by the Virginia delegation, proposed the creation of a strong national government. The New Jersey Plan, presented by William Paterson of New Jersey, proposed a federal government in which all states were equally represented and thereby protected the interests of the smaller states. Both plans took for granted that the only way forward was to abandon the Articles of Confederation, which clearly exceeded the authority granted by Congress in approving the Convention. The Connecticut Compromise, presented by Roger Sherman of Connecticut, struck a balance between the interests of large states and small states. It called for a bicameral legislature with proportional representation in one house of congress and equal representation in the other.

Slavery and the Constitution The status of slaves and slavery under the Constitution was the subject of substantial debate at the Philadelphia Convention. The delegates from the southern states favored counting slaves for purposes of representation in Congress, while antislavery delegates feared that this would give slave states a political incentive to continue and expand the institution of slavery. The hypocrisy of treating slaves as chattel property under state slave codes but as free citizens for the purpose of national representation was not lost on antislavery delegates. The controversy was resolved by the notorious Three-Fifths Compromise under which a slave counted as three-fifths of a free person for purposes of state representation. The Constitution also included a provision barring Congress from prohibiting the slave trade until 1808, thereby ensuring a steady supply of African slaves for the near future.

The Final Draft When the final draft of the Constitution was presented to the Confederation Congress on September 20, 1786, many were shocked that the Convention had so far exceeded its mandate. The Congress was unable to do anything about it, however, because the document had been drafted by the most esteemed leaders of that generation, indeed, the most esteemed leaders of any generation. So the draft was sent to the several states for ratification by state constitutional conventions.

The Debate on Ratification Debate over ratification was heated, with Federalists pitted against Antifederalists. The Federalists, led by John Jay, Alexander Hamilton, and James Madison, argued that the proposed constitution would enable the fledgling nation to protect its interests both at home and abroad while ensuring a strong and vital union for the benefit of posterity. Antifederalists argued that the proposed government would swallow up the states and, with its glaring omission of a bill of rights, pave the way for abuses of power. Much of the debate took place in the popular press.

Ratification of the Constitution On December 7, 1787, Delaware became the first state to ratify the Constitution. As more states ratified, the Constitution gained momentum; but Virginia, Massachusetts, and New York became battlegrounds for ratification. The fate of the proposed union depended on the support of these large and influential states. All three eventually ratified: Virginia by a margin of five votes and New York by a margin of three. After initially rejecting the new Constitution, Rhode Island was the last state to ratify in 1790.