Road to Ratification: Preamble
Setting the stage for how the Constitution became the government of the United States.
It was a hot, sweaty summer in 1787 Philadelphia, USA. From May 25 to September 17th, every day some 30-40 delegates from across the former Thirteen Colonies, today called the Framers, would meet to debate the shape and form of a new government. One capable of saving the young nation from its own incompetence.
Since independence in 1781, the young nation had been stuck in a 6 year long malaise largely of its own making. After the War, Britain closed her ports to the nascent nation causing a commercial downturn. The Continental Congress, bound by the weak Articles of Confederation, was incapable of responding in kind and the individual states refused to mount a united response preventing any economic settlement from being reached. As economy starting contracting, most of the states dramatically increased taxes to start paying off their crushing Revolutionary War debts. Most of these taxes were regressive, strangling small farmers. With reduced incomes and increased taxes, anger and resentment became widespread. In Massachusetts it was especially painful, to the point an armed rebellion (now called Shay’s Rebellion) broke out demanding debt relief. To the absolute embarrassment of the nation, the Continental Congress was incapable of marshalling an armed response as it not only lacked the clear legal authority to do so, but more critically lacked the funds. The rebellion had to be put down by a volunteer army privately funded in large part by wealthy Bostonians.
The United States was in shambles.
Believing the source of these problems was the weakness of the federal government under the Articles of Confederation, the Constitutional Convention would come to publish a new frame of government which vastly expanded federal powers.
However, the Framers could not simply declare the government operational. The Convention lacked legal authority to do so, and more practically, if the broader public and the thirteen state governments refused it, there was nothing the Convention could do. The new government, the Constitution, would have to be willed into being by the People and the States themselves. It would have to be approved by vote.
Each state was to declare a special convention to decide the great matter of Ratification: yea or nay to the Constitution. The delegates to the special convention were to be chosen by a special vote. If nine states ratified, the new government would go into effect with those nine states. If every other state rejected, those states would simply be cast adrift.
There was strong reason to worry. While the bulk of the nation recognized that the Articles of Confederation were too weak to support the collective interests of the states, they were only 6 years removed from the yoke of Parliament and King George III. Most people thought that only a few tweaks to the Articles of Confederation were necessary. Not a wholesale redesign.
More poignantly, even the Framers saw the Constitution as a mixed bag. Most delegates found one part of the new government too powerful, while another spot was too weak. Some even declared it dead on arrival and refused to endorse. Not a single delegate believed the document was perfect, or even good, but nearly all concluded it was better than what was available now. It had to be, they had no other option.
But would The People of the United States see it that way?
The Constitution was submitted to the Thirteen States and the current Congress under the Articles of Confederation. The most impactful & insightful of all the debates and conventions were those of Massachusetts, Virginia and New York.