When the Articles of Confederation showed themselves to be less that what was required to govern the new United States of America, the Constitutional Convention was called to re-write the Articles of Confederation to address their shortcomings. The Constitutional Convention discarded the Articles of Confederation and proposed the US Constitution as the supreme law of the land to govern the new nation. The Constitutional Convention delegates took this action even though their mandate was to revise the Articles of Confederation, not to produce a new framework for governing the country.
Just like Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison wrote essays in favor of ratification of the proposed US Constitution, others wrote essays opposed to the ratification of the US Constitution. The authors of the Anti-Federalist Papers made many important points about the power of the proposed national government.
The debate that occurred regarding the ratification of the US Constitution, the role of the national government, and the power it held is still important to us today.
Patriot Parchment 