Did the constitution advance or set-back the principles of the Revolution? Explain.?

Question

Did the constitution advance or set-back the principles of the Revolution? Explain.?

Answer 1

Advanced. The Revolution was about forming a new nation which was governed by the people, not a confederation of thirteen seperate nations which might have little in common with each other. What the Articles of Confederation did was to create a weak centeral government and give full power to the individual states. The federal government was powerless to affect the states in any way.

Take currency for example. The goverment had no authority to print money or control it's worth within the country, that was up to the individual states. Each state produced it's own currency and how much it was worth against another state's currency. So if you traveled from state to state you had to exchange currency in order to be able to make a purchase. But the exchange rate wasn't always a favorable one as each state controled the exchange rate and could set it to better favor their own currency. In New Hampshire $10 from Massachusetts might only be worth $1 while $10 from NH might be worth $5 in Mass. Imagine having to pay $100 dollars for something that cost $10 in your own country because you crossed the border from one state/providence to another. Or worse, one state might not even recognize the currency of another as legitimate money and thus would therefore not even have any kind of exchange rate set up for it. Which would leave you unable to purchase anything because you couldn't get the money to do so. This could lead to cold political relations between the states.

Then there is the question of laws. Today each state has their own laws particular to that state. But there are also federal laws that are the same in every state. Yet under the Articles of Confederation the federal government had no ability to create laws that could take presedence over state laws or even have an affect on the states at all. What then happens if someone breaks the law in one state but is in another where they did not break the law and are then under that state's protection. Today federal laws would allow that person to be extradicted if it can be proven they indeed broke the law in another state.

Then there was the fact that smaller, regional wars were likely to break out among the states because of things like laws and currency. Each state had their way of doing things, as has already been stated through discussing both laws and currency. This could lead to border disputes if not out right conflict between the states as each was not willing to acknowledge the rights of the other as being equal to their own.

What was one of the key reasons for the Revolution. Representation. Taxation without representation, being governed without representation. The colonists wanted to be fairly represented within the British Empire. They wanted to have their say in how they were governed in the Empire, not just how they were governed locally. The Constitution provided a strong central government, but it also provided that that government was the government of the people. The people choose their leaders and they are then supposed to be able to be held responsible to the people who elected them. Rather than being a confederation of thirteen individual nations, the Constitution did exactly what the colonists had fought the Revolution for. It truely created a new nation that gave it's people their own representation.

Answer 2

BOTH!  It is a bunch of compromises, and is still being debated about meaning.

Answer 3

So, this is the assignment for the second session of Summer School.   I vote that the constitution advanced the principles of the Revolution.

Answer 4

I believe it set it back. The after the Amer. Rev. the Articles of Confederation was our "constitution". It basically gave the national government no power. It was up to the states. Then the Virginia Plan came along and mad the government too powerful! Which,  set-back the principles of the Revolution.