9 & 10 January

Today's starter was: Was the Federal Government under the Articles of Confederation weak or strong?  Why did they make it that way?

After discussing the starter we reviewed the important points from our last class session:

• Constitutions limit the powers of governments and list the rights of the citizens
• The first government of the United States was the Articles of Confederation
• This government was intentionally weak - the states had most of the power
• The states feared the return of a king or a government that would take away their rights

Today we looked at the weaknesses of the Articles of Confederation, as well as its strengths.

We began watching A More Perfect Union: America Becomes a Nation.  This movie was made by Brigham Young University and it does a good job of outlining the events leading to the Constitutional Convention, as well as showing the creation of the Constitution.