Why did the framers include the principles they did in writing the Constitution?
This sort of depends on which principles you mean, but the major principles of the Constitution were included so as to A) avoid having a central government that was too weak and B) prevent any part of government from having too much power. The Framers wanted a government that was “just right” — not too strong, not too weak. Under the Articles of Confederation, the federal government was too weak. The Framers believed to some degree in nationalism and so they wanted to give the national government more power. At the same time, they believed in limited government. They wanted to prevent the government from being able to do too much, too easily. Because of this, they put in separation of powers and checks and balances, along with some specific prohibitions against things like bills of attainder.
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