War For Independence Dbq Essay

The War for Independence is an iconic historical thought for many Americans, a source of pride, as is the Constitution, the document that our government was formed and based on. While this is a source of great pride in the modern American world, during the era of its creation and what led to it there was much turmoil, controversy, and opposition that paved the path to the Constitution of the United States. To begin with the troubling situation that led to the thought of a Constitution, there was the nation functioning under the Articles of Confederation and the problems that arose there, producing troubling situations for this developing state. As these problems progressed it was clear that a solution was necessary, however this possible …show more content…
Federalists were in support of the Constitution, favoring a stronger national government rather than the mix of state governments working “together”. Their counterparts, the Anti-Federalists, were in opposition of the Constitution for various reasons. While both parties contained a different set of beliefs, they fought hard for their ideas, and this is a major role in Alexander Hamilton’s document, the Federalist Papers. As the name implies, these series of eighty-five essays were meant to outline and explain how the Constitution would ideally work in practice.iii Yet, this is not the first essay he wrote for the Federalist Papers, early in the document he mentioned his first essay, Federalist 1 published in 1787 in the New York Independent Journal. In fact, the main organizer behind such a project was Hamilton who wrote a total of fifty-two essays and the other two contributors were John Jay and James Madison. The document at hand, Federalist 85 is the last installment of this series that works to “tie up” the argument for the Constitution’s ratification, as Hamilton stated, “A nation without a national government is, in my view, an awful spectacle. The establishment of a Constitution, in time of profound peace, by the voluntary consent of a whole …show more content…
William C. Harvard nicely states the significance of the Federalist Papers in his book, “…frequently cited as America’s single entry among the lists of outstanding works in political philosophy; without doubt it remains the most important interpretation of what the men who drafted the Constitution intended the document to be.”v While the Constitution was not ratified in the United States until a year after this document’s publication, the Federalist Papers definitely played a very active and large role in this event. This series of essays had addressed various concerns about the Constitution and the possible consequences it may have on developing America. For example, in this final essay Hamilton takes it upon himself to discuss the following “’the analogy of the proposed government to your own State constitution,’ and ‘the additional security which its adoption will afford to republican government, to liberty, and to