Ratification of the Constitution

      It was extremely difficult to ratify the Constitution because of various reasons. The concerns of those that opposed the new form of government effected it. Also, those concerns were dealt with in a way, that it eventually got accepted.

      In paragraph 2, it states that articulate men used newspapers, pamphlets, and public meetings to debate the ratification of the Constitution. With them spreading their viewpoint, it made others aware of their feelings towards it. These people, known as Antifederalists, opposed the Constitution for many different reasons. In paragraph 3, the article says that some of them argued that the delegates in the Philadelphia had exceeded their congressional authority by replacing the Articles of Confederation with an illegal new document. Another common opposition was that the Constitution gave too much power to the central government at the expense of the states and that a representative government could not manage a republic this large.

      Then those concerns were dealt with in a way that it was eventually accepted. Booyah. Most criticism was successfully countered. In article 5, it says that federalists argued that a catalogued list might be incomplete and that the national government was so constrained by the Constitution that it posed no threat to the rights of citizens. One other major way the concerns were dealt with was with the Bill of Rights. During the ratification debate in Virginia, James Madison said that the Bill of Rights was needed, and all the federalists stated to the public that the first step of the new government would be to adopt the Bill of Rights.