Analysis Of The New Federal Constitution A Radical Experiment

Gordon Wood calls the new Federal Constitution a "radical experiment", and believes the framers of that Constitution to be political radicals, why does he believe so? In his speech, The Making of the U.S. Constitution, Gordon Wood discusses the history of how the U.S. Constitution came to be. He explains what factors contributed to its making and what the general consensus was about it during the time. He explains that the reason the constitution was created was because the government needed more power. Why did the government need more power? In short, to unify the 13 states and make life, in general, easier for its citizens, officers, artisans, and even to help with commercial interests (Wood, 2012). Gordon Wood explains that the reason that the new Federal Constitution was considered a “radical experiment” was because it was giving the government power. Very few people wanted to have a government with power, seeing as they had just escaped from under Britain’s rule (Wood, 2012). Additionally, when the Articles of Confederation were first written, the first goal was to limit the powers of the central government” (Ginsberg et. al., 2013 pg. 42). However, these framers sought a government that seemed to defy this ideal of a limited government, they wanted a strong government and they wanted

He discusses how Madison noticed the problem of each of the 134 states having its own agenda. Madison even thought that people were interested in their local politics. They don’t think of the whole state or even the whole country (Wood, 2012). He wanted to change this and create a stronger government that would override certain state powers like money printing and the ability to pass tariffs. He suggested that democracy was not a solution, but a problem (Wood, 2012). Basically, on a state level, he wanted to elevate decision making to limit democracy which was actually causing more harm than