Confederation and Constitution Introduction The first constitution of the United States was the articles of confederation which served the country for a while before being substituted. The articles of confederation were voted and adopted by the Continental Congress on 15th November 1777 and complete ratification by all thirteen states took place on 1st March 1781 (Beeman, 2010). Later, some states came to the realization that the Articles did not adequately resolve the problems experienced by the country and international issues. The result of the dissatisfaction led to the development of a constitution that was meant to replace the Articles. On March 4th 1789, the articles were supplanted by the new constitution. The new composition, which …show more content…
The composition of the Congress under the new constitution gave it flexibility when dealing with the national and international incidences therefore protecting the sovereignty of the country. However, although the articles of confederation are associated with inefficiency and ineffectiveness, they were the major basis of the new constitution (Graebner, Burns & Siracusa, 2011). Additionally, they gave the country direction and a root from which the country was shaped. Moreover, the articles provided the new constitution with the basis of strengthening the federal …show more content…
The faintness of the articles of confederation brought conflict between the two sides in a scenario where the Federalists argued that the ratification of the new constitution would be beneficial to the country while the Anti-Federalists opposed their rivals’ stance ("The Federalist Papers - Congress.gov Resources -", 2018). However, the major issue of the debate concerned the annexation of the Bill of Rights in the constitution. On the one hand, the Federalists, led by Alexander Hamilton, believed that the inclusion of the Bill of Rights was not necessary since the government and not the people were limited by the constitution ("The Federalist Papers - Congress.gov Resources -", 2018). On the other hand, those opposed to the constitution such as John Hancock argued that failure to include the Bill of Rights in it meant that the government would be stronger, therefore threatening the sovereignty of the individual states ("The Federalist Papers - Congress.gov Resources -", 2018). Anti-Federalists also debated that the system created by the new constitution would threaten the liberties as well as fail to protect the rights of