[sangrila]

"No, the Founders didn't want a more powerful central government - they had just gotten rid of one"



100% wrong. The Articles of Confederation had a very weak central government in which states could print money and impose tariffs on other states' goods. The Constitution was made to strengthen the then weak central governmnet. This is an undisputable fact that cannot be argued.

[NJ_gent]

"100% wrong. The Articles of Confederation had a very weak central government in which states could print money and impose tariffs on other states' goods. The Constitution was made to strengthen the then weak central governmnet. This is an undisputable fact that cannot be argued."

That's absurd. The government created under the Articles of Confederation was so insanely weak that it had essentially no authority whatsoever. It existed at the whim of the states and could be punished and controlled by any single state wishing to do so. As such, it was a recipe for disaster, in that you had beurocrats and politicians sitting in it spending all their waking hours doing nothing but appeasing those who would seek to control that government for their own ends. The AoC was a kneejerk reaction to having just left a centralized totalitarian authority. The Constitution was a workable and functional version of the AoC which gave the Federal government limited but independent life while going nowhere near (in theory) the authoritarianist central government of the Crown. To believe that the Founders wanted to trade one authoritatian regime for another is just plain crazy. The same people who created the AoC created the government under the Constitution; they just went about it a bit more realistically the second time around.

[Colt .45]

I believe you are starting to resemble the proverbial Christmas turkey on this argument. Full of crap. Like I said before, go back and study the debates prior to the framing of the constitution. And how conveniently you forget that the states were all recognized, and I quote from article one of the Paris Peace treaty of 1783 - "His Brittanic Majesty acknowledges the said United States, viz., New Hampshire, Massachusetts Bay, Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia, to be free sovereign and independent states, that he treats with them as such, and for himself, his heirs, and successors, relinquishes all claims to the government, propriety, and territorial rights of the same and every part thereof."

Now the States didn't give up their sovereignty when they ratified the Constitution, they only ceeded certain enumerated limited powers to the Central Government. Had they wished for a strong central government they would've given up all their sovereignty. But wanting the power to remain in the hands of the people, they decided on limiting the scope and purview of the Federal Government. Go back and read the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions, and then come tell me if the Founders wanted a strong central government.

Federal - shared power
Ratify - Agree to.

So your premise that the States were willing to accept a strong Central Government is flawed, and you really need to do more study on the subject.