Revolutionary War Dbq Essay

During the 17th century, the American colonies declared their independence from Great Britain. They waged war for eight years to obtain their independence, but soon came to a dilemma. The generals and political leaders behind the Revolutionary War were now in charge of thirteen different colonies without a form of government to keep law and order. They were going to have General George Washington become their new leader, however they soon realized that was just like the British monarchy they just seceded from. The Fathers gathered in Pennsylvania to sit together a write a formal government. The first ever constitution of the United states was the Articles of Confederation. It wasn’t a stable government because it was limited in law making,

If the new constitutional congress was to have the states represented by population, the smaller states would be over looked. As stated by Foner, “Anti-Federalists included state politicians…, among them such revolutionary heroes as Samuel Adams, John Hancock, and Patrick Henry” (page 209). These three men had an influence during the Revolutionary War with their speeches like Henry’s “Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death”. They were the ones calling for war originally, so it would make sense that they should have a say in how the new nation is run. As stated by Adams in Jensen’s The Articles of Confederation: A Re-Interpretation, “that the confederation was to make the colonies into a single individual: "it is to form us, like separate parcels of metal, into one common mass. We shall no longer retain our separate individuality” (page 137). Adams wanted the nation to unify under one common name and leave behind our stately names. They didn’t want any of their rights to be harmed as well, since the new constitution was being written without a bill of rights and was going to change the voting to be based on population. The Antifederalist were unhappy about this proposed constitution, and they would only agree to its ratification once the smaller states had equal say in congress and the constitution to have a bill of

It wasn’t a stable form of government. The central government was so weak that it was unable to coin money for taxation and the states could never agree when making laws. The confederation was already split into two parties that either supported the Articles of confederation or a new form of government. In the end, the Articles of Confederation was scrapped and James Madison wrote a new draft that ended up being the present day constitution. The states came to a compromise and made congress into a bicameral legislature that holds the House of Representatives and the Senate. More power wa given to the central government to coin money for taxation and be the only one to declare