3.6Ratification and the first divide

The proposed Constitution had to be ratified by the states, and the debate split Americans into two camps. Federalists, including Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay—authors of The Federalist Papers—argued that a strong union was essential to survival. Anti-Federalists feared a distant government would crush liberty and demanded protections for individual rights.

This argument produced the Constitution's first great compromise after ratification: the promise of a Bill of Rights, added in 1791 as the first ten amendments. It also foreshadowed the party divisions to come. The very question of how much power the national government should hold would organize American politics for the next two centuries.