CONSTITUTIONAL DEVELOPMENT

TIMELINE
BRITISH AMERICAN COLONIES DEVELOP IN THE 1600S AND EARLY 1700S
The English colonized the New Worlds east coast and developed British America.
THE BRITISH AMERICAN COLONIES BY THE MID-1700S
There were 2 million people in the 13 colonies. They mainly came from or were
descendants of individuals who came from Great Britain -- 80% from England, Scotland and
Ireland. Around 20% came from other parts of the world mainly Africa. Some colonists
were 5th generation British Americans by then.
MID-1700S -- TENSION GROWS IN THE BRITISH AMERICAN COLONIES
England was a constitutional monarchy. The King inherited his position. The Parliament
had two chambers. The House of Lords was composed of nobles appointed by the King.
Most of these positions were inherited by each deceased lords eldest son. A few were
appointed for their lifetime as a reward for their accomplishments. The House of
Commons was made up of elected officials chosen by a small group of upper-class English
commoners. The King had much more power than modern British monarchs have -- but the
Parliament had the upper hand in the relationship by this time.
The colonists were not taxed by the British government until the middle of the 1700s.
The government had wanted to encourage immigration to the area, tax collecting so far
away was difficult, at first the colonists could barely survive, etc. The colonists only paid
taxes to their colony, which helped pay for most domestic (roads, etc.) activities. The
British government handled a little domestic policy but was completely responsible for
military and trade policy.
British activities, like the French and Indian War (7-Years War), which was to protect the
colonists, involved major expenditures. Yet, the colonists paid no taxes to the Crown.
Over 150 years, British American society had stratified. Finally, there was a wealthy
upper-class as well as a large middle-class. The government thought it was time for the
colonies to pay some taxes.
In the mid-1700s, the British government imposed taxes (Sugar Tax, Stamp Tax, etc.).
Many colonists insisted that the English Constitution (1689 Bill of Rights) did not allow
taxation without representation. Some argued that upper-class men should be allowed to

run for and get elected to the House of Commons -- like other Englishmen. Others said
they wanted the taxes eliminated and a return to the arrangement they previously had.
More and more, economic grievances turned into political grievances.
1774 -- THE FIRST CONTINENTAL CONGRESS MEETS
Each colonial legislature sent a couple of men to a meeting in Philadelphia, The First
Continental Congress met from September 5, 1774 to October 26, 1774. They wanted to
show a united front and hoped these delegates could solve some of the problems between
the colonies and the British government.
The First Continental Congress decided the colonies would boycott British trade to get the
governments attention. They sent a letter to the Parliament and King outlining their
complaints. They decided each colony should have a civilian militia because they were
concerned about the increasing number of British troops that were deployed to the area.
After a less than 2 months, they returned to their colonies. The British government
thought this might lead to dangerous behavior and sent more troops.
1775 -- THE BATTLE OF LEXINGTON AND CONCORD IN MASSACHUSETTS
Increasing suspicion and tension led some Massachusetts colonial militia members and the
British military (still the colonists military) to accidentally start shooting at each other on
April 19, 1775.
1775 TO 1782 -- THE SECOND CONTINENTAL IS ORGANIZED
They British American colonies were in trouble. Because colonists and British troops had
started to shoot at each other, the colonial legislatures again chose a few men to send to a
meeting in Philadelphia. The Second Continental Congress convened on May 10, 1775. They
were tasked with working on behalf of the colonies to negotiate an end to fighting. They
thought it might take a few months. (They stayed for 6 years -- finally disbanding March
1, 1781).
1776 -- THINGS GO FROM BAD TO WORSE
After meeting from May 1775 until the summer of 1776, the men at the Second
Continental Congress were still unable to negotiate a cease-fire agreement with the King
and Parliament.
The colonists were overwhelmingly of British origin. They were British citizens. They felt
British. They were proud of being part of the empire. They were not foreign subjects
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that had been conquered and occupied by England. They and their ancestors had traveled
mainly from England to be part of the English colonies in the New World -- helping to
expand the Empire. They thought England had the most enlightened political system in the
world.
But, as they saw it, their rights as Englishmen had been violated. As the fighting went on,
their loyalties started to change. Maybe they were not exactly British anymore. They
were beginning to think they were different. Animosities built up as colonies died and
their property was destroyed. They were feeling more tied to the colonies and each other
than to Mother England and Englishmen in other parts of the world. American nationalism
started to grow.
Delegates at the Second Continental Congress became pessimistic. They could not get a
cease-fire agreement. Even if they did, it was unlikely that the conditions would be
beneficial to the colonies. They would still probably be taxed. They would not get
members in the House of Commons. They probably would not be allowed to return to their
pre-uprising autonomy in domestic matters.
Some delegates started to argue that as long as they were fighting, they should fight for
independence. After meeting for a year, they declared independence from Great Britain in
July of 1776.
1776 -- DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE
After the Declaration of Independence was released, each of the 13 colonies became a
state, wrote a constitution and set up a new government. Although the government was
somewhat different in each state -- they were all representative democracies.
1776-1782 -- THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION
Americas newly formed Continental Army and the state militias -- under the command of
General George Washington -- fought the British military. The Second Continental
Congress stayed in session (although they had to move out of Philadelphia sometimes)
during the war and managed the American Revolution.
1776-1777 -- WRITING ARTICLES OF CONFEDERATION
The Second Continental Congress (the revolutionary congress) wrote the first constitution
for the United States government -- The Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union.
The men who wrote this were very influenced by English, French, Scottish and Irish
classical liberal philosophers of The Enlightenment. These ideas had a major impact in
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Great Britain but that was even more the case in the colonies. They structured the U.S.
government as a representative democracy.
The U.S. was also set up as a confederation. In a confederation, a group of sovereign
states create a government to work for them. This is to make things more convenient for
the state governments and their people. Today, an example would be the European Union.
In a confederation, the federal government is not sovereign. The state governments are
the boss. Each of the 13 states in the United States had its own constitution and
government. Each state government was sovereign (had the power to rule its people and
territory with no outside government having the power to legitimately control that state
government).
The United States government was not sovereign. It got whatever power it had to govern
from the 13 state governments. It worked for the state governments, coordinating some
things for them. According to the Articles of Confederation, there were only a few areas
in which the federal government could act. In those areas, when the federal government
proposed a law, if 9 out of 13 state governments did not approve it, it would not pass.
1781 -- THE STATES RATIFY THE ARTICLES OF CONFEDERATION
The 13 states accepted the Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union. The United
States was born.
1781-1789 -- THE UNITED STATES AFTER THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION
After the revolution ended, social disorder started to develop.
The United States was established as a confederation because -- before the revolution,
each colony had a relationship with the British government, but it did not have a
relationship with the other colonies. The colonists and the 13 colonial governments had
never seem themselves as one unit, so the Articles gave the U.S. government very little
power. Each state government would have primary responsibility for its own people and
territory. People in each state were somewhat different. People in North Carolina wanted
to live a different way of l life than people in New York.
On the other hand, in a world with Super Powers that remained interested in taking over
parts of the New World, being a little state alone seemed dangerous. They could see that
working together on some things would be an advantage for all of them. A confederating
seemed to be a perfect compromise.

However, the new state governments were competitive with each other -- sometimes even
suspicious of each other. Also, individual states printed their own money, so currency did
not match, and some state currency had little value. This made trade between states and
with foreign countries confusing. It also created inflation.
Individual states made treaties with foreign countries. In these deals, they hurt
businesses in their sister states because that helped their states businesses. Treaties
made by the U.S. were violated and ignored by some states. Foreign governments could
not figure out who they should negotiate with in trade agreements. They were unsure
whether they could trust an agreement with either state governments or the central
government.
A person charged with a crime in one state, would just escape to a different state. The
economy was in poor condition. In some states, the courts were taking property for failure
to pay state taxes or for failure to repay debts to lenders. Some poor and middle-class
Americans took part in demonstrations and even rioted over this. In other states,
business owners and wealthy individuals were mad because state laws were passed to
postpone or forgive debtors who could not pay back the money they owed.
1787 -- SOME AMERICANS ARE WORRIED
Wealthy individuals especially worried about the future. They had a lot to lose -property, money, businesses, power, prestige and status. Many of them had loaned money
to the government during the revolution and had loaned money to individuals during the
hard times during and after the war. They started to think that money might not be paid
back. Alexander Hamilton (NY attorney) and James Madison (VA plantation owner) were
part of a small group that met in in Maryland at the Annapolis Conference to talk about
what they feared was an upcoming crisis. Among other things, they thought the currency
and trade agreements in the U.S. needed to be uniform and match. They sent a report to
the Continental (U.S.) Congress (which was literally the entire U.S. Government as it had
been established by the Articles). They asked them to contact the state governments and
convene a convention to talk about these issues.
Becoming worried about social disorder, the Continental/U.S. Congress finally contacted
each state government announcing an upcoming convention. They asked each state to send
a few delegates to the meeting. If the convention delegates could agree to suggest a
couple of possible amendments to the Articles of Confederation, the Continental/U.S.
Congress would consider them and send them to the 13 state governments for their final
decision.

Madison and Hamilton helped organize the Constitinal Convention. To successfully amend
the Articles of Confederation, The Articles required the Continental/U.S. Congress to
vote (13 out of 13 delegations) to approve it, then 13 out of 13 individual state
governments would have to vote to approve it. This did not seem very likely.
1787 -- THE CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION
Madison and Hamilton encouraged each state government to send a few men (rich,
educated, powerful, elite, upper-class, knowledgeable about classical liberal Enlightenment
philosophy, etc.) to the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia. Most of these 55 men
(including Hamilton and Madison) wanted a stronger U.S. government. After they started
to meet, they decided it was not possible to amend The Articles to produce this. The
Constitutional Convention secretly wrote a whole new constitution.
This new U.S. Constitution established a democratic political system but it is set up in a
very different way than it was under the Articles of Confederation. The new Constitution
is again based on the ideas that emerged during The European Enlightenment. However,
the delegates at the Constitutional Convention were a little more conservative than the
men at the Second Continental Congress who wrote the Articles of Confederation. They
also feared the United States was unraveling and might not last - and they felt this was a
product of the system created by the existing arrangement. The U.S. Constitution is
somewhat more conservative than the Articles of Confederation.
In addition, this time, the United States would be a federation, not a confederation. A
federation has two or more e levels of government that share power over and
responsibility for the same people and the same territory. Each state had its own
government, which was to keep social order for its people and territory. Each state
government was sovereign. No outside government could legitimately tell it what to do.
Each state got its power to government from the people of its state, not from the federal
level of government. At the same time, the federal government was to keep social order
for the people and territory in the U.S. The central government would now be sovereign.
No outside government could legitimately tell it what to do. It obtained its power to
govern from the people of the United States, not from the state governments.
1787 -- THE CONTINENTAL/U.S. CONGRESS SENDS THE CONSTITUTION TO
THE STATES
The new Constitution was presented to the Continental/U.S. Congress. The accepted it
and sent it to the state governments for their consideration.

1787-1788 -- STATE CONSTITUTIONAL RATIFYING CONVENTIONS

The 13 state governments set up state constitutional ratifying conventions. When 9 of the
13 states ratifying conventions (as required in Article VII of the U.S. Constitution)
ratified the Constitution, the Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union would end.
1788 -- THE U.S. CONSTITUTION IS RATIFIED
By 1788, required number of states had ratified the U.S. Constitution. It went into effect
in 1789 although it only had 11 states at that time. The new Constitution gave the
federal government the power to act in more areas than the Articles of Confederation
had. It also made the federal level of government sovereign. It no longer got its power to
act from or worked for the state governments. This was scary for some people and some
state governments.
The Constitutional Convention had foreseen this and tried to write the new Constitution so
the federal government could not get too much power. The set up a federation -- so the
state governments did not work for or belong to the federal government. They would still
be sovereign. They would be sharing the power to govern with the federal government.
This would make it more difficult for the federal government to destroy individual
freedom and power or the democracy.
The Constitutions authors listed the powers of the federal government in the U.S. They
thought this would limit and control what they the central government could do.
They also separated the three functions of the federal government into three different
branches. The Legislative Branch would make federal laws, the Executive Branch would
carry them out and the Judicial Branch would interpret them. Each branch had a primary
governmental responsibility, then they each had a little power over the other two
branches. The framers thought this system of checks and balances would make it difficult
for one person or group in the federal government to take away the peoples or the states
power and freedom. It also made it difficult for the federal government to destroy the
democracy they were creating. Still, some people and state governments feared the U.S.
Constitution and the power and sovereignty the federal government would have.
Ratification was difficult. One thing that some people and state governments worried
about was that the U.S. Constitution did not list more things civil liberties protections.
There were very few protections of individual liberty in the Constitution. For over 100
years, the had a Bill of Rights. Most American state governments had a Bill of Rights in
their constitutions. Why didnt the new U.S. Constitution do more to protect individual
freedom from federal governments intrusion?
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One thing that led a few of the state constitutional ratifying conventions to accept the
Constitution was that James Madison made a gentlemens agreement with them, telling
them that if they did, he would try to get it amended later to add more protections. As it
turned out, after ratification and adoption of the Constitution, Madison was elected to the
new United States House of Representatives as a member from Virginia.
1789 -- THE FIRST 10 AMENDMENTS TO THE CONSTITUTION
James Madison, as a U.S. House member, wrote 17 constitutional amendments and
introduced them in the House. 12 were approved by both the U.S. House and U.S. Senate.
Article V in the U.S. Constitution explains this process.
1791 -- THE CONSTITUTIONS BILL OF RIGHTS
The first 10 amendments were ratified by the states and became a part of the U.S.
Constitution. Article V in the U.S. Constitution explains this step.
They limit the power the federal government has to curtail the freedom of individuals in
the U.S. They were added to limit the power of the federal government over the people.
The new U.S. Constitution had given the federal government more power. The Bill of
Rights was to bar it from taking too much power.