No matter how much the members might talk about democracy in theory or about ancient confederacies, when it came to action they did not go outside of their own experience.

The Constitution was devised to correct well-known defects and it contained few provisions which had not been tested by practical political experience.

Before the Convention met, some of the leading men in the country had prepared lists of the defects which existed in the Articles of Confederation, and in the Constitution practically every one of these defects was corrected and by means which had already been tested in the States and under the Articles of Confederation..