Dateline: 1787. You are a young Virginian and recent graduate of the College of William and Mary, in Williamsburg, Virginia where you just completed your double degree in law and government. With the able assistance of your father who pulled some strings on your behalf in the Virginia House of Burgesses, you’ve landed a job as James Madison’s clerk and administrative assistant. As Mr. Madison prepares essays in support of the new federal constitution essays that will find their way into The Federalist Papers– he has asked you to write a briefing paper for him on the need for a new instrument of national government a federal constitution. He has asked that you address specifically, “the nature of the problem” currently facing the American governments and that you explain how a “republican remedy” might cure the nation’s distress.

Be sure that your “brief’ has a clear thesis, a reasonable argument, and sufficient and appropriate evidence to support its conclusions.