What led to the Constitution?

After the Colonies declared independence from England, the new country needed a document to describe the structure of the new government. The first of these governing documents was The Articles of Confederation, which was ratified in 1781. Because The Articles proved to be unsuccessful at governing the US as needed, the Constitutional Convention met in 1787 to discuss revising The Articles. Eventually, a completely new document, The Constitution, is written and ratified in 1788.