The Articles of Confederation was an agreement made between the colonies and was also the first framework of government for the United States. This was used from 1781 to 1788 but was later replaced by the Constitution (518). Many people like James Madison and Alexander Hamilton believed Americans were wasting the independence they were given and that the country would only achieve greatness with enhanced national authority. Groups like nationalists, bondholders, urban artisans looking for tariff protection, merchants that wanted access to British markets, and people who wanted to maintain property rights all supported the need for a stronger national government. An event that further strengthened this belief was the Shays Rebellion. In 1786 delegates from six different states gathered together in Annapolis, Maryland to discuss better ways of regulating interstate and international commerce. After this meeting, another was proposed to talk about the Articles of Confederation and how it could be improved. In May 1787, the delegates of the states apart from Rhode Island came to the conclusion that the best course of action would be to scrap the Articles of Confederation altogether and draft a new constitution (517).
While the Constitution was being written there were many contrasting opinions over the proper balance of power between the federal and state governments and among the interests of large and small states. The most significant compromises for these differences were that there would be a two-house Congress with a Senate that had two members from every state, and a House of Representatives that would be assigned according to the population. The senators would be elected by the state legislatures and would serve six-year terms, and the representatives would be appointed every two years directly by the people. These compromises were especially significant because they did not allow bigger states to completely dominate the government and they allowed the colonists to feel like they had a say in the government since they were able to elect representatives (522).
Some of the critical arguments opposing the Constitution were produced by Antifederalists. Antifederalists saw the Constitution as something that would solely limit the rights of the states and liberty of the people (543). They stated that the Constitution would shift the balance between liberty and power. It would heavily favor the side of power because of how centered it was around a strong national government, they really did not like this seeing as they believed their liberty came from the limited nature of their current government. Another argument was that the Constitution might enact a law for abolition and was too protective of slaves (536). As a way of resolving some of the issues that the Antifederalists had, the Bill of Rights was created to help include several of the entitlements that the opposers felt the Constitution lacked. It includes the first ten amendments of the Constitution and was a reassurance that the individual rights of a person would not be infringed upon by the federal government (543). It offered a direct definition of unalienable rights and affected the meaning of liberty for Americans (539).