After the Revolutionary War Essay

After the Revolutionary War, many Americans realized that the g all overnment established by the Articles of Confederation was not working. America needed a red-hot go of government. It had to be robust enough to maintain national unity over a large geographic area, but not so strong as to become a tyranny. Unable to find an exact determine in history to fit Americas unique situation, deputises met at Philadelphia in 1787 to create their own solution to the problem. Their creation was the United States piece. onwards the organisation could become the supreme law of the land, it had to be ratified or approved by at least nine of the thirteen states. When the delegates to the Philadelphia chemical formula gestural the Constitution on September 17, 1787, they knew ratification would not be easy. many a(prenominal) people were bitterly opposed to the proposed new system of government. A public debate soon erupted in each of the states over whether the new Constitution should be accepted. More important, it was a crucial debate on the future of the United States.The Federalist Papers Nowhere was the furor over the proposed Constitution more intense than in impudent York. Within days aft(prenominal) it was signed, the Constitution became the subject of widespread criticism in the brisk York newspapers. Many commentators charged that the Constitution diminished the rights Americans had won in the Revolution.Fearful that the sweat for the Constitution might be lost in his home state, black lovage Hamilton devised a plan to write a series of letters or undertakes rebutting the critics. It is not surprising that Hamilton, a brilliant lawyer, came forward at this bit to defend the new Constitution. At Philadelphia, he was the only new Yorker to welcome signed the Constitution. The other New York delegates had angrily left the Convention positive(p) that the rights of the people were being abandoned.Hamilton himself was very much in favor of modify the central government. Hamiltons Constitution would have called for a president select for life with the power to appoint state governors. Hamilton soon backed by from these ideas, and decided that the Constitution, as written, was the best one possible.Hamilton published his first essay in the New York Independent Journal on October 27, 1787. He signed the articles with the Roman name Publius. (The use of pseudonyms by writers on public personal business was a common practice.) Hamilton soon recruited two others, James Madison and fast one Jay, to contribute essays to the series. They also used the pseudonym Publius.James Madison, sometimes called the tyro of the Constitution, had played a major role during the Philadelphia Convention. As a delegate from Virginia, he participated actively in the debates. He also kept expand notes of the proceedings and drafted much of the Constitution.Unlike Hamilton and Madison, John Jay of New York had not been a delegate to the Constitutional Convention. A judge and diplomat, he was serving as secretary of foreign affairs in the national government. Between October 1787 and elevated 1788, Publius wrote 85 essays in several New York newspapers. Hamilton wrote over 60 per centum of these essays and helped with the writing of others. Madison probably wrote about a third of them with Jay authorship the rest.The essays had an immediate impact on the ratification debate in New York and in the other states. The demand for reprints was so great that one New York newspaper publisher printed the essays together in two volumes entitled The Federalist, A Collection of Essays, written in favor of the New Constitution, By a Citizen of New York. By this time the identity of Publius, never a kept up(p) secret, was pretty well known.The Federalist, also called The Federalist Papers, has served two very different purposes in American history. The 85 essays succeeded by helping to persuade doubtful New Yorkers to ratify the Constituti on. Today, The Federalist Papers helps us to more clearly understand what the writers of the Constitution had in mind when they drafted that amazing document 200 years ago.