Adapted Excerpt 1: Federalist No. 15 by Alexander Hamilton
Everyone can agree on one thing: the current government is not working. Even those who oppose the new Constitution admit that the national government has serious problems. But here is where they contradict themselves. They admit the government is weak, yet they refuse to give it the power it needs to actually function. They want a stronger national government without taking any power away from the states. That is impossible. You cannot have it both ways.
The biggest problem with the current government under the Articles of Confederation is this: it can only make laws that apply to states, not to individual citizens. The national government can ask states for money and soldiers, but it cannot require anything from the people directly. In practice, this means that the laws passed by the national government are not really laws at all. They are just suggestions. States can follow them or ignore them whenever they choose. That is not a government. That is a polite request.
Adapted Excerpt 2: Brutus No. 1 by Brutus (Robert Yates)
The most important question facing the United States right now is this: should the thirteen states become one large republic under one national government, or should they remain separate states that work together for a limited number of shared purposes? This matters because the Constitution that has been proposed does not just move us closer to one national government. It essentially creates one, whether we intend it to or not.
The new Constitution gives the national government absolute power over legislation, courts, and the executive branch. It declares that the Constitution and all laws made under it are the supreme law of the land, and that no state law can contradict it. This means the states have no real authority left. The national government does not need the states to carry out its laws. It can act directly on every citizen without any involvement from state governments at all. Whatever power the states appear to keep, it will not last long.
The national legislature has the power to make laws affecting the lives, liberty, and property of every person in the country. Most importantly, it has unlimited power to collect taxes. There is no restriction on how much it can tax or how it chooses to do so. States, on the other hand, cannot collect their own taxes on imports or exports without the approval of Congress. This means states will eventually be unable to raise enough money to keep their own governments running. Without money, state governments will weaken and fade, and all of their power will be absorbed by the national government.