Paper, Order, or Assignment Requirements

Search the Internet for scholarly articles on the debate surrounding the composition and ratification of the Constitution. These can be primary or secondary sources but should come from academic sources. Recommended sites include: state constitutions drafted after the American Revolution; correspondence from significant colonial figures (e.g., John Dickinson, James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and others); the Virginia and/or New Jersey Plan; the Federalist Papers, and so on. These entries will provide a valuable resource for your first historical essay.

Write a 4-6 sentence description of a URL on the specified topic.
Your Webliography assignments should include an introduction to the site and a description, and/or evaluation, of it. Be specific. The key is that someone should be able to read your entry and know whether this site is what they might be relevant to their research. See the examples below for good descriptions.

Pennsylvania State Constitution of 1776. (2008)

http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/pa08.asp

The Pennsylvania Constitution of 1776 (ratified September 28, 1776) has been described as the most democratic in America and was drafted by Robert Whitehill, Timothy Matlack, Dr. Thomas Young, George Bryan, James Cannon, and Benjamin Franklin. The Constitution provides for a unicameral legislature, a Supreme Executive Council, a President elected by an Assembly and Council together, and a Council of Censors. The constitution was later copied by revolutionaries of Vermont as a basis for their constitution. This site is useful as it gives us an insight into the debate over constitutional government that would culminate in 1787.