The Founding Fathers went through a lot to create our new nation. The first government that they had created was under the Articles of Confederation. Under the Articles, most of all the power would go to the states; deciding the taxes, and choosing their currency. The central government had nearly no power. After the war, the new country was in a lot of debt, and the central government had no way to collect money and pay off the debt, to both the countries that helped them in the war, and to the soldiers that assisted in it. The central government also had no army to defend the country, and no power to enforce laws. Not only that, but soon the states found out they couldn't do trade well because of each state's different currency, and that rebellions were soon rising up. One of these rebellions included Shay's Rebellion of 1786, which took place in Massachusetts. It was led by Daniel Shays, and other farmers which were never paid back for contributing in the war, hence losing all their property. The Founding Fathers soon took notice of all the problems with the Articles of Confederation, so they finally got together once again on May 25th, 1787 at the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to amend or replace the Articles of Confederation. The Convention lasted until September 17, 1787, and the Founding Fathers had concluded that they would replace the Articles of Confederation with the Constitution.
After writing the Constitution, the Founding Fathers still needed to seek approval from the people about replacing the Articles of Confederation. The Constitution would go into play only if 9/13 of the states agreed on it, since they learned the 13/13 ratio was nearly impossible to achieve from the Articles of Confederation. But many people doubted the Constitution, saying that the central government had too much power, and the people wouldn't be able to protect their rights. This divided the country into Federalists, who supported the Constitution, and Anti-Federalists, who were against it. James Madison himself promised a Bill of Rights to secure the people's rights, to the Anti-Federalists if the Constitution was ratified. Both political parties wrote their own papers attempting to convince the people on their cause. Surely the Constitution was ratified on June 21, 1788, New Hampshire being the ninth state to ratify.