Ratifying The Constitution Dbq Essay

After writing the Constitution at the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, the journey to ratification began; however, not all states were eager to ratify it due to fear of a strong central government. In order to better convince each state to ratify the Constitution in place of the Articles of Confederation, the Bill of Rights was added as a barrier against the tyranny of a strong central government. The First Amendment includes protection of many civil liberties including freedom of speech, assembly, petition, religion, and the press. The Founding Fathers included the right of freedom of the press so as to ensure the spread of intellectual, and typically liberal, ideas among the citizens, just as was done in order to inspire the revolution.

As Benjamin Franklin wrote, the press is able “to strike with the Iron in hot,” allowing news and new ideas to spread throughout the people. In the late 18th century, newspapers used “exchanges,” which was a system in which newspapers from different cities would exchange copies and use stories and news from other papers; therefore, no matter where someone lived, they were able to hear the same news and build a sense of small, yet significant, unity. Newspapers, as well as pamphlets, became more radical throughout this time, straying from their typical stories of European news to recounts of events in the colonies, such as the Boston Massacre or the Boston Tea Party. Along with the ability to report on events throughout the colonies as they occurred, the press could spread ideas and rekindle aggravation by returning to and building upon past issues; therefore, the press was not only creating the fire for the revolution but it was also able “to heat it by continual Striking.” As with Common Sense by Thomas Paine, pamphlets were able to incite a revolutionary fever amongst the common man. Throughout the revolution, the press not only grew in radicalism but also in volume, with “more than four hundred pamphlets published in the colonies on the imperial controversy up through 1776, and nearly four times that number by war’s end

As James Madison, the author of the Bill of Rights, wrote in his Report on the Virginia Resolutions, “to the press alone, checkered as it is with abuses, the world is indebted for all the triumphs which have been gained by reason and humanity over error and oppression.” Along the same lines, the Continental Congress wrote in the Letter to the Inhabitants of Quebec that freedom of the press is one of the rights “without which people cannot be free and happy.” Both the men of the First Continental Congress and Madison himself agree that the press is the means by which to achieve freedom from