Constitution Timeline free essay sample

Constitution Timeline! There are five particular documents that led to the development and the signing of the United States Constitution. They are the Magna Carta, the Mayflower Compact, the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation and the Federalists Papers. This paper will be discussing these documents and be stating if and how they impacted the United States constitution. Then it will be stating when the Unites States Constitution was finalized and passed and signed. Then there will be a summary of these in the conclusion of this paper. The Magna Carta is a document that was developed in the year 1215. This document gave people the right to have a habeas corpus. The Magna Carta was used in the development of the United States Bill of rights in 1689, which were later included in the United States Constitution in 1791. So the Magna Carta did have an impact on the United States Constitution. This impact was that it was used as an inspiration for the Bill of rights that were included in the United States Constitution. The Magna Carta is called the â€Å"great charter† part of the bill of rights (Turner, R. 2003). The Mayflower Compact is a document that was written in 1620 onboard the Mayflower ship. One of the first ships that landed on the United States soil. The Mayflower Compact was signed be all of the adult males onboard the Mayflower in 1620 when they first landed on the American soil. This document was based on a social contract made by the first American settlers in the year 1620. The Mayflower Compact o nly remained in effect from 1620 until 1630. The Mayflower compact did not really impact the United States Constitution. This is because it only lasted for ten years (N. A. , 2010). The Declaration of Independence was the first document that stated that the United States was an individual country that had its independence from England. It was developed in 1775-1776 and was signed on July 4, 1776. This document was a way to explain to the world why the United States of America started the revolutionary war against England. The Declaration of Independence was the first document signed that stated that the Unites States was then freed from England and was an individual country (N. A. , 2010). The Declaration of Independence was a way that the people of the United States had natural rights (Patterson, T. E. , 2009). The Declaration of Independence was the main document that had the most impact on the United States Constitution. If the United States did not have a document that stated the United States as a free country then they would not be able to even have their own Constitution. So that is why the Declaration of independence had been such an important document for the United States to have (Patterson, T. E. , 2009). The Articles of Confederation was the basis of the first government of the United States of America. The Articles of Confederation was the written out in 1777 by the first Congress of the United States. The Articles of Confederation made it impossible for congress to tax the citizens of the United States. So there was no way to build a Navy or hire an Army to protect the citizens of the United States. The Articles of Confederation could be amended only by unanimous approval of the representatives of the states that are in the United States (Paterson, T. E. , 2009). The Articles of Confederation did in part lead to the United States Constitution. It was discovered in 1986 that they did need to change the Articles of Confederation and to develop a Constitution for the United States after there was a rebellion made by farmers against the foreclosures of the farmland. So with this said that is how the articles of confederation did impact the United States Constitution (Patterson, T. E. , 2009). The Federalist Papers were a series of political essays that were written in 1787 and 1788 under the pseudonym pubilus. Alexander Hamilton initiated the Federalist Papers in 1787 as a way to get the Federalist Constitution passed. Hamilton wrote 51 out of 85 Federalist papers. The other 34 essays were written by John Jay and James Madison. For sure 14 of them were written by Madison and 5 were written be Jay. The other 15 were not clear on who wrote them. All but 8 of the Federalist papers were first printed in New York newspapers. It is the belief of Cooke (1971) that the Federalist papers had very little impact in the United States Constitution. So then the work towards the actual United States Constitution was started in the spring of 1787 with debates made between the Virginia plan and the New Jersey plan. Some of the debates discussed were Slavery, Ratification, Farmers Goals, Protecting Liberty, the Bill of Rights, the Powers of the three forms of government, more power for the people and less for the government. The United States Constitution as finally passed and signed in the summer of 1787 in the east room of the old Pennsylvania state house (Patterson, T. E. , 2009). There were five documents that led to the development of the United States Constitution. These documents were the Magna Carta, the Mayflower Compact, the Declaration of Independence, the articles of the Confederation and the Federalist papers. This paper has discussed all of these documents in detail. Then it discussed the parts of the Constitution and ended with where and when the United States Constitution was passed and was in effect. These were all import things that happened to make the United States Constitution make the United States of America the strong country it is today. References Patterson, T. E. (2009). The American democracy (9th Ed. ) PP. 30-52. Retrieved on December 10, 2010. Turner, R. (2003). The Meaning of Magna Carta since 1215. History Today, 53(9), 29. Retrieved from Academic Search Premier Database. (2009). The Articles of Confederation. Articles of Confederation, 1. Retrieved from Academic Search Premier Database. (2010). Declaration of Independence. Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th Edition, 1-2. Retrieved from Academic Search Premier Database. (2010). Federalist, The. Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th Edition, 1. Retrieved from Academic Search Premier Database. (2010). Mayflower Compact. Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th Edition, 1. Retrieved from Academic Search Premier Database.