State Ratification Assignment Instructions

Short Paper: State Ratification Assignment Instructions

Overview

This assignment will allow you to research and better understand the ratification conventions for the U.S. Constitution that occurred at the state level. The assignment’s purpose is to enhance the historian’s grasp of the early American founding era by investigating and interpreting primary and secondary source evidence. 

Instructions

Using primary source documents located in the Documentary History of the Ratification of the Constitution resource (see the Documentary History of the Ratification of the Constitution: Ratification by the States link in the Short Paper: State Ratification Resources Section.), you will write a Turabian style 2-page short research paper about the Federalists and Anti-Federalists debates at the state ratifying conventions. The paper must use a minimum of 3 primary sources from the Documentary History of the Ratification of the Constitution resource. Additional secondary sources are encouraged and must be appropriately cited, if used. 

The paper must be a full 2 pages but must not exceed 2 ¼ pages with footnotes applied. So be concise in your writing and verify proper citations, including the use of footnotes Ibid. and shortened versions.

Overall, you must:

1. Select 1 of the 13 state ratifying conventions
2. Provide a well-written narrative analyzing the following three things about that state’s convention:
   1. The initial position of the Federalists in the chosen state convention.
   2. The fears of the Antifederalists in the chosen state convention.
   3. The Federalist promises made to relieve those fears.
3. Also, include very brief biographical material of the people involved.

Your paper’s body must include an identifiable introduction with a well-crafted thesis statement and summative conclusion. The title page and bibliography do not count toward the 2-2 ¼ page requirement. No headings should be used (except on the Bibliography page). Also, the paper must be written in the third person. You should utilize the no headings template from the LU Online Writing Center – Writing Style Guide website.

NOTE: The citation guide provided at the bottom of each webpage on the Documentary History of the Ratification of the Constitution website is not accurate for the Turabian style! See page 2 for the proper citation method and example.

Each document should be cited as a separate source in a footnote using the following format:

¹ <Author’s Name>, “<Document Name>,” <Date of Document>, in Documentary History of the Ratification of the Constitution, Volume <Roman Numeral>: <State (and No. if exists)>, ed. John P. Kaminski, et al. (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2009), <Page Number>.

¹ Elbridge Gerry, “Speech in the Constitutional Convention,” 15 September 1787, in Documentary History of the Ratification of the Constitution, Volume IV: Massachusetts, No. 1, ed. John P. Kaminski, et al. (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2009), 14.

Here is the page this example is taken from: 

The only item that may be missing is the author.  If that is the case, you just leave it off the beginning of the citation and start with the <Document Name> in quote.

Note: Your assignment will be checked for originality via the Turnitin plagiarism tool.

Short Paper: State Ratification Resources

• Documentary History of the Ratification of the Constitution: Ratification by the StatesLinks to an external site.