Many documents influenced the U.S. Constitution. Name one.

Why this is the answer

The framers of 1787 drew on earlier writings, and USCIS accepts any one of eight. The two most direct influences are also the easiest to explain. The Articles of Confederation came first, and the national government they created was not strong enough. From May to September 1787, fifty-five delegates from twelve of the thirteen states, every state except Rhode Island, met in Philadelphia to amend the Articles. Instead of patching them, they wrote a new governing document with a stronger national government. They worked for four months in secret so they could debate freely, and on September 17, 1787, thirty-nine of them signed the Constitution. Then came the fight over approval. Many people disliked the new Constitution because it had no list of rights. To support its passage, James Madison, Alexander Hamilton and John Jay wrote 85 essays, printed in newspapers between October 1787 and May 1788 and signed with the shared name Publius. Those are the Federalist Papers. The official list also accepts the Anti-Federalist Papers. The supporters eventually agreed to add a list of rights, which arrived in 1791 as the first ten amendments. The Declaration of Independence is on the list too, which makes it a safe choice if your memory goes blank, since it is the founding document everyone knows. The remaining four are the Virginia Declaration of Rights, the Fundamental Orders of Connecticut, the Mayflower Compact and the Iroquois Great Law of Peace. Each of their names carries a place or a people, which helps them stick: Virginia, Connecticut, the Mayflower and the Iroquois, one of the American Indian tribes that the USCIS study guide names. You need only one. The Articles of Confederation or the Federalist Papers are the most straightforward answers. One mistake to avoid is naming the Bill of Rights: it was added to the Constitution in 1791, four years after the delegates signed the original text, so it could not have influenced it. The same logic rules out anything from much later in American history.