American History

The Declaration of Independence was drafted by John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Robert Livingstone and Roger Sherman and was adopted by the Second Continental Congress.  The Declaration listed grievances against King George III of Great Britain and affirmed rights including the right of revolution.  The second line of the Declaration is a line that has set a standard that generation after generation of Americans would uphold and refer to throughout the US history  

All founding fathers agreed that independence from the British was essential and that a new nation state should be republican in rule, however disagreements occurred concerning the ratification of the Constitution of a new nation state whish was written on 17th September 1787.

John Adams, Alexander Hamilton and George Washington headed the federalists and disagreed with the republicans led by James Madison and Thomas Jefferson over the allocation of state and federal powers over domestic policy as well as foreign policy.   HYPERLINK httpwww.includipedia.comwikiAlexander_Hamilton o Alexander Hamilton Alexander Hamilton called the British government the best in the world, and said he doubted whether anything short of it would do in America.  The constitutions ratification was also opposed by Patrick Henry and George Mason arguing that the proposed structure of government was too like that of the parliamentary governance in Britain.  Therefore if the American Revolution had been about independence a complete new structure of governance was also required as far as they were concerned.

Benjamin Franklin was the only person to sign all four documents of the founding fathers, the  HYPERLINK httpwww.law.indiana.eduuslawdocsdeclaration.html Declaration of Independence (1776), the Treaty of Alliance, Amity, and Commerce with France (1778), the Treaty of Peace between England, France, and the United States (1782), and the  HYPERLINK httpwww.law.cornell.educonstitutionconstitution.overview.html Constitution (1787).  He also assisted in the drafting of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. No other individual was more involved in the birth of the United States of America.

The central location of power and its wide power over domestic economic policy for Founding Fathers like Jefferson was too much like a replica of monarchy and parliamentary rule and saw it as a diversion from what the revolution had been about.  At the Constitution convention The House of The Senate was also contested.  It was written that the smaller states would have equal standing with the larger states, this apportionment scheme saw Hamilton and Madison in opposition to this and Madison called for the convention to renounce a principle which was confessedly unjust.

Many of the Founding Fathers opposed slavery as it went against the true meaning of the revolution of independence and freedom however abolition was thought by some to be unnecessary feeling that it would eventually dissolve whilst others saw it as an anomaly on the constitution and contradictory with the values of the American Revolution.  Franklin signed a memorial before his death asking congress to abolish.  Twelve of the Founding Fathers managed andor owned slave plantations or had slaves working their farms they were Bassett, Blair, Butler, Carroll, Jenifer, Jefferson, Mason, Charles Pinkney, and Charles Cotesworth.
Many of the Founders felt that the new government should be insulated from the will of the people hence the Electoral College and Senators elected by state legislatures.  It was designed to be a government for the people by the people.  A nation state with the people as the sovereign body you could say.  The constitution is the supreme law and defined the three branches of government, The Executive, Judicial and Legislature.  The Constitution was finally ratified on 21st June 1788 (Ellis, 2007).