UNIT 2: STRUCTURES OF GOVERNMENT U.S.

GOVERNMENT | Peterson

Chapter 4 The Constitution
The Colonial Background
The first British settlement in North American was Roanoke Island, which mysteriously disappeared.
Recent research has indicated that a severe drought must have wiped out the colony. Jamestown,
Virginia, and Plymouth, Massachusetts, in 1607 and 1620, respectively, were the first successful
settlements. Additional settlements followed in Massachusetts and Connecticut.
British Restrictions and Colonial Grievances
The British government decided to tax the colonists to pay for the enormous expenses associated with
the French and Indian War. The Sugar Act in 1764 and Stamp Act in 1765 led to the Boston Tea Party,
which caused the British Parliament to pass The Coercive, or Intolerable, Acts in 1774.
The Colonial Response: The Continental Congresses
The colonists responded to the British by the First Continental Congress held in 1774, which issued a
petition of grievances and attempted to create committees to bring the colonists together. The Second
Continental Congress met in 1775 as fighting began between the colonists and the British. The Second
Congress established an army, with George Washington as commander in chief.
Declaring Independence
In early 1776, the Second Continental Congress approved the Resolution of Independence to establish
legitimacy and to seek foreign military aid. The Second Congress assigned Thomas Jefferson the task of
writing a formal declaration of independence. This Declaration of Independence was approved on July 4,
1776, and contained three major principles, based on the ideas of English political philosopher John
Locke. These concepts were natural rights, consent of the governed, and the right to change the
government.
The Articles of Confederation: Our First Form of Government
In 1781, the Articles of Confederation, a voluntary association of independent states, was created. The
lack of taxing authority made the Articles too weak to survive. Shays Rebellion in 1786 spurred political
leaders to take action to change the Articles.
Drafting the Constitution
The Annapolis Convention was called in 1786 to discuss the weaknesses of the national government. At
this meeting, a call was sent out for all of the states to attend a general convention in Philadelphia, to be
held in May of 1787. Fifty-five delegates from every state except Rhode Island attended the
Philadelphia convention. The delegates were mostly nationalists, but included monarchists, democratic
nationalists, non-democratic nationalists, and some strong state government advocates.
Two significantly different visions of government were presented at the convention. The Virginia Plan
proposed an entirely new national government favoring big states. The New Jersey Plan resembled an
altered form of the Articles of Confederation, with all states having an equal role in governing the
nation. The Great Compromise offered by the Connecticut delegation broke the deadlock between
these two factions. This compromise called for a bicameral legislature and a new form of national
government. Slavery and other issues between the agrarian South and the mercantile North were
resolved by additional compromises, including the Three-Fifths Compromise. The final agreement
included the separation of powers, sometimes known as the Madisonian model, a system of checks and
balances and an electoral college to select the president.
UNIT 2: STRUCTURES OF GOVERNMENT U.S. GOVERNMENT | Peterson

The Final Document
Thirty-nine delegates approved the Constitution on September 17, 1787. The document established five
fundamental principles: 1. popular sovereignty, 2. a republican form of government, 3. limited
government, 4. separation of powers, and 5. a federal system.
The Difficult Road to Ratification
The opposing forces in the battle for ratification were the Federalists, who favored ratification, and the
Anti-Federalists, who were opposed to ratifying the Constitution as it was drafted. Alexander Hamilton,
James Madison and John Jay wrote the Federalists Papers, which explained and urged support for the
Constitution and were influential in the success of the ratification effort.
In 1788, the ninth state, New Hampshire, ratified the Constitution, which provided the necessary final
vote to formally ratify the Constitution. However, the battle was hardly finished, since New York and
Virginia still had to approve. Charles Beard put forth a theory that wealthy property owners were
behind the Constitution and a majority of Americans did not actually support it.
The Bill of Rights
Some states conditioned their ratification of the Constitution on the Federalists promise to add a Bill of
Rights to the Constitution, in order to protect individual liberties from this new central government.
James Madison culled through state convention recommendations to produce what became the Bill of
Rights. The Bill of Rights was ratified in 1791.
Altering the Constitution: The Formal Amendment Process
The Framers of the Constitution wanted it to be possible to amend the Constitution but by no stretch of
the imagination did they want it to be easy. Thus they created a two-step process. The first step is the
proposal of an amendment. This can be done by either a two-thirds vote in both houses of Congress or
by a national convention called by Congress at the request of two-thirds of the states. The second step
in amending the Constitution is ratification of the amendment. Ratification can be accomplished by
either support of three-fourths of all state legislatures or by three-fourths of state conventions called to
debate and consider the amendment. Congress has considered more than 11,000 amendments, of
which 33 have been submitted for ratification. Only 27 have been ratified and become part of the
Constitution.
Informal Methods of Constitutional Change
While there have been few formal amendments to the Constitution over the centuries, informal change
has occurred on a more frequent basis. These informal changes have been brought about through a
number of different avenues, including legislation enacted by Congress acting under the commerce
clause. The Constitution has also been changed through the practices of the President of the United
States, including the use of executive agreements to conduct foreign policy as an alternative to the
constitutional treaty process. The Supreme Court claimed the power of judicial review in the case of
Marbury v. Madison (1803) and has been making pronouncements on what the Constitution means in
the centuries since. Finally, day-to-day governmental activities, interpretations, customs and traditions
have influenced the meaning of the Constitution.