Max Farrand The Constitution And The Pros Of The Confederation Summary

In his article “The Federal Constitution and the Defects of The Confederation”, Max Farrand delves back into the 1700s in order to examine the creation of the Constitution and even moreso the reasons behind its inception. The Constitutional Convention was a very interesting event that has always had some historical mystery and even some common ignorance around what happened at the convention. As a way to inform the people reading this articles of the intentions of the convention, Farrand formulates his thesis around this idea of how and why the Constitution was made. On the first page of his article, he states, “That the Constitution was framed because of the defects in the Articles of Confederation is universally accepted, but it does not

The author argues that at the time, the people didn’t want a completely new government but rather just a fixing of the defects in the Articles. The author even shows this when it is stated that the Constitutional Convention was convened for the, “express purpose of revising the Articles of Confederation” (Farrand 534). All of the people at the time would only coalesce for the purpose of revising the Articles, not for creating an entirely new government. Additionally, one of the members of the convention (Roger Sherman) even stated that, “the object of our convention is to amend these defects.” (Farrand 538). This shows the original intention behind the Convention was not actually to create an entirely new government. It was just that after long examination of the Articles, most found it to be more expedient and pragmatic to create a new form of government (the Constitution). But even after the drafting and acceptance of the constitution, the author still contends that it was made for the sole purpose of fixing the underlying defects. The authors shows this by saying, “a careful examination of the Constitution… shows that there is nothing in the completed document that did not arise from the effort to correct the specific defects noted” (Farrand 540). This adds together to make the second main argument of the author’s paper, which is that the Constitution was made for the sole purpose to fix the stated defects of the Articles of