Historical Significance

The drafting, adopting, and ratification of the Constitution does fit the aspect of the historical significance of establishing if an event was important to people at the time. The content in the Constitution and Bill of Rights explicitly tells us what things were important in a government for the founders at the time. The creation of a new government system was deemed as necessary after independence was gained, some people strongly supported this proposed system and others did not. Before during, and after the drafting, adopting, and ratification these conflicting thoughts were present. At some point, this created two groups of people; the federalists and anti-federalists. This disagreement can be interpreted as the Constitution was an important development at this time because people had strong conflicting feelings about it. As historians, we can interpret this information on our own and use it to construct an idea of whether or not the Constitution is historically significant and in what ways it is not significant.

The Constitution was not only important to the people at the time of its creation, but it is also an important factor in how the U.S. functions today. This is the other aspect of historical significance; events that have resulted in great change over long periods of time for a large number of people. The Constitution and amendments are still the basis for our entire government and individual rights.

The drafting, adopting, and ratification of the Constitution is not important to everyone at all times in history. As historians, we use our perspective and interests to decide what we think is significant in history. Those who might not find this event historically significant are people who do not study American history or those who do not live in the United States. The constitution contributes to political history in America and it can be used in context for how things function in the political aspect in the country today.