Whom did Anti-Federalists most fear would abuse power in the new government?
What was the Three-Fifths Compromise?
What is the best way a strong central government could have avoided Shays’s Rebellion?
The debate surrounding slavery at the Constitutional Convention continued to grow after the Three-Fifths Compromise.
Why did Anti-Federalists insist that a bill of rights be included in the Constitution?
Which debate came close to ending the Constitutional Convention before any progress was made?
Read the excerpt from a letter that Henry Knox, a general in the American Revolution, wrote to George Washington about Shays’s Rebellion.This dreadful situation has alarmed every man of principle and property in New England—They start as from a dream, and ask what has been the Cause of our delusion? What is to afford us security against the violence of lawless men? Our government must be braced, changed, or altered to secure our lives and property. We imagined that the mildness of our government and the virtue of the people were so correspondent, that we were not as other nations requiring brutal force to support the laws—But we find that we are men, actual men, possessing all the turbulent passions belonging to that animal and that we must have a government proper and adequate to him.–Henry Knox, letter to George Washington, October 23, 1786
Read the passage from Federalist, no. 1, by Alexander Hamilton.Among the most formidable [tremendous] of the obstacles which the new Constitution will have to encounter may readily be distinguished the obvious interest of a certain class of men in every State to resist all changes which may hazard a diminution [reduction] of the power, emolument [salary], and consequence of the offices they hold under the State establishments.–Federalist, no. 1, Alexander Hamilton
Why did delegates of smaller states support the New Jersey Plan at the Constitutional Convention?
How did the Federalists convince New York and Virginia to support the new constitution?
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