In 1786, America was being governed under the Articles of Confederation. This weak government was adopted in 1777 by the Second Continental Congress. The Articles, which took effect in 1781 after all thirteen states had ratified them, rapidly proved inadequate. The Articles granted no power to tax or regulate commerce among the states. The national government consisted of a single house. Each state was granted one vote. Nine states formed a majority; a majority vote from the state representatives allowed the federal government to create laws. A unanimous vote was required to amend the Articles. There was no court system to settle disputes between individuals; the Articles only set up a court system to settle disputes between the states. No single person possessed executive powers; rather, there was an executive committee. The government had no power to enforce treaties.
The Articles of Confederation had been deliberately set up to be a weak government. After dealing with the British monarchy (a monarchy is a nation ruled by a king), the colonists were wary of giving up too much power and enabling their new government to oppress them. Unfortunately, their hesitance to create a strong government left them with a government incapable of enforcing laws or regulating behavior. George Washington called the government under the Articles of Confederation “a half-starved limping government, that appears to be always moving upon crutches and tottering at every step.”1
In the year 1786, fifty-five delegates from twelve of the thirteen states met in Philadelphia to modify the Articles of Confederation. Instead, they produced the document known as the Constitution. These men are often called the Founding Fathers, or the Founders, because they established the basis for the American government.
We know John Dickinson wrote the first draft of the Articles of Confederation, and we know that he led the committee designated by the Second Continental Congress to finalize the Articles, but we do not know exactly who was on that committee. With the exception of Dickinson, who participated in the Constitutional Convention, the writers of the Articles and the writers of the Constitution may not have been all the same men. However, it is certain that the goal of the writers of the Constitution was different than that of the writers of the Articles of Confederation. The Articles of Confederation were written to provide the thirteen colonies with a form of government that would not threaten (in the form of a monarchy) their individual independence. The Constitution, however, was designed to create a strong central government while maintaining the greatest amount of personal freedom possible.
To get a better idea of what the Founding Fathers were hoping to accomplish, read the following quotes from a philosopher, two of the Founding Fathers, and a British contemporary of these men. Commentary is interspersed with these quotes to help you better understand their meanings. As you read, the footnotes will direct you to the definitions of the more difficult words in the passage.
The end of law is not to abolish3 or restrain, but to preserve and enlarge freedom. For in all the states of created beings, capable of laws, where there is no law there is no freedom. For liberty is to be free from restraint and violence from others, which cannot be where there is no law; and is not, as we are told, “a liberty for every man to do what he lists.”4 For who could be free, when every other man’s humour5 might domineer6 over him? But a liberty to dispose7 and order freely as he lists his person, actions, possession, and his whole property within the allowance8 of those laws under which he is, and therein not to be subject to the arbitrary9 will of another, but freely follow his own.10
According to Locke, laws should preserve freedom. Freedom is not a condition where you can do as you wish. Rather, freedom is the ability to do what you want as long as your actions do not take away another’s ability to enjoy his or her rights.
The way to have good and safe government, is not to trust it all to one, but to divide it among the many, distributing to every one exactly the functions he is competent to11 . . . What has destroyed liberty and the rights of man in every government which has ever existed under the sun? The generalizing and concentrating all cares and powers into one body. . . . And I do believe that if the Almighty has not decreed that man shall never be free, (and it is a blasphemy12 to believe it,) that the secret will be found to be in the making himself the depository13 of the powers respecting himself, so far as he is competent to them, and delegating only what is beyond his competence.14
Jefferson believed good and safe government comes when we divide responsibilities, not when we place all the governing powers in the hands of one or a few. He made an important point when he said that we should only give the government those responsibilities which we can’t handle. Jefferson’s ideas leave the private citizen with great freedom and power and therefore great responsibility.
For it is not, perhaps, so much by the assumption of unlawful powers, as by the unwise or unwarrantable16 use of those which are most legal, that governments oppose their true end and object: for there is such a thing as tyranny, as well as usurpation.17 . . . So that, after all, it is a moral and virtuous discretion,18 and not any abstract theory of right, which keeps governments faithful to their ends.19
If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige20 it to control itself.21
As Madison said, it is difficult to create a system of government that has enough power to make the citizens obey the laws it creates yet is prevented from using its power to abuse the citizens.
1. The Papers of George Washington, 1784.
2. John Locke was a seventeenth-century philosopher; his works were studied by the writers of the Constitution.
3. destroy
4. desires; wishes
5. desire
6. rule overbearingly or tyrannically
7. spend; get rid of
8. boundaries; permitted course of action
9. undecided; dependent upon desire
10. Locke, John. Two Treatises of Civil Government, II. p. 57.
11. capable of understanding
12. insulting or showing lack of reverence for God
13. receptacle
14. Jefferson, Thomas. Writings 14:421–23.
15. Edmund Burke was a British contemporary of the Founding Fathers. He argued for reconciliation with America but was largely ignored.
16. unjustifiable
17. seizing or exercising authority without right
18. choice or judgment
19. Burke, Edmund. Works, 7:42
20. force by moral or legal means
21. Madison, James. The Federalist, no. 51.