ABSTRACT
We can look to history for some of the right questions, and we can look to the Amendments for the principles that can help guide us. But each generation in American life must take the Constitution and make it live in the circumstances of that generation. The composition of the Constitution took place against the background of tension among Federalists and anti-Federalists regarding social and political authority, but the newspapers had no access to the resolution of tensions among the delegates until the texts of agreement were made public. For the men of Philadelphia, determining "common sense" in the format of constitutional articles required more rigorous argument and persuasion than determining a list of grievances against the British Crown. James Madison, speaking of the Republican pamphleteers and newspapers, reflected on points overlooked that might have been "many of the true grounds of opposition" to the Federalist Constitution.
