Essay #1

Jenn Cutter
HIS 101-103
Professor Cheezum

The decision of whether or not the proposed Constitution should be ratified is a difficult
one. There are pros and cons to both positions. Each of these pros and cons carries enormous
weight and needs to be considered. These pros and cons are actually received differently by each
person; what one person thinks is a pro is a con for another and vice versa, which makes it very
difficult to come to a decision on this, especially because so much is at stake. In fact, the
decision to either ratify or not ratify the Constitution will have a huge effect on the future of each
of the states and of the country as a whole, so this decision must be, if not the correct one, the
best one.
In order to truly make a decision about whether or not the Constitution should be ratified,
it is first necessary to understand some of the major problems that some people had with the
Articles of Confederation. Both Alexander Hamilton and James Madison, in their Federalist
Papers, No. 21 and No. 10 respectively, discuss the needs of the country that were not met by the
Articles of Confederation. Alexander Hamiltons main criticism of the Articles of Confederation
was that the federal government did not possess the ability to tax anyone. He said The principle
of regulating the contribution of the states to the common treasury by quotas is another
fundamental error in the Confederation. He continues later, The wealth of nations depends
upon an infinite variety of causes. Situation, soil, climate, the nature of productions, the nature of
the government, the genius of the citizens, the degree of information they possess, the state of
commerce, of arts, of industry these circumstances and many more, too complex, minute, or
adventitious to admit of a particular specification, occasion differences hardly conceivable in the
relative opulence and riches of different countries. Therefore, it is impossible to have a set
number that each state must put into the common treasury; it would have to be different for each
state which would be impossible to decide on how much each state would have to pay. James

Madison focused on how factions among the colonists, under the Articles of Confederation,
began to effect the lives of the citizens. He said that our governments are too unstable, that the
public good is disregarded in the conflicts of rival parties, and that measures are too often
decided, not according to the rules of justice and the rights of the minority party, but by the
superior force of an interested and overbearing majority. Therefore, the Articles of
Confederation are allowing the views of the majority to limit the practice of justice in the states.
The Constitution also has some problems. There were three main problems that some
colonists pointed out about the Constitution, and they are the lack of a bill of rights, having a
standing army, and the reduction of the power of the state governments. The most important of
these to most people was the lack of a bill of rights. Both Patrick Henry and Thomas Jefferson
wrote specifically about this; Patrick Henry said In some parts of the plan before you, the great
rights of freemen are endangered; in other parts, absolutely taken away. and Thomas Jefferson
said I will now add what I do not like. First the omission of a bill of rights providing clearly and
without the aid of sophisms for freedom of religion, the freedom of press, protection against
standing armies, restriction against monopolies, the eternal and unremitting force of habeas
corpus laws, and trials by jury in all matters of fact triable by the laws of the land and not by the
law of nations. Both Henry and Jefferson have made it clear that the lack of a bill of rights will
limit the rights of each citizen through not expressing precisely what rights the individual citizen
holds. The next con is the matter of a standing army. Under the Articles of Confederation, only
minimal amounts of an army were allowed to be constantly standing. The worry was that this
standing army would use its power to limit the rights of the colonists and take advantage of them.
The reduction of the power of the state governments was another part of the Constitution that
people found issue with. James Wilson said, as he was attempting to refute the issues people had

with the Constitution, said that The next decision that I shall consider is that which represents
the federal constitution, as not only calculated, but designedly framed, to reduce the State
governments to mere corporations and eventually annihilate them. While James Wilson did not
hold this belief himself, the fact that he felt that this was important enough to speak about shows
that this was a very important issue.
Though the pros and cons listed all have points that different colonists find to be valid, a
decision must be made. It must be decided whether this country will continue to be governed
under the Articles of Confederation or if it will be governed under the Constitution. After
looking at the pros and cons of both of these options, the only decision that makes sense is to
ratify the Constitution, but add one major amendment to the Constitution, an amendment that
would satisfy most of the dissenters. The Constitution needs a bill of rights to protect the citizens
of this great country; there needs to be a line drawn exactly where each citizen has or does not
have rights and what those rights are. If this is not added, then there is no limit to the rights a
person has or the rights the government has. While this decision will not satisfy everybody, it
will be a big enough compromise to, at the very least, keep riots or rebellion from surfacing in
each of the states. This is the best decision for each of the states individually and for the country
as a whole.