As a "motivator" (a line or two to interest your reader) for your essay, why not begin with a quote from Patrick Henry or Thomas Paine or Thomas Jefferson, quotes that allude to the lack of freedom of speech, or another part of what would become the U.S. Constitution. This reference will underscore the importance of the Constitution as well as introduce the need for such a document.
Here is one example from Patrick Henry's speech to the Virginia Convention on March 23, 1775:
It is only in this way [of freedom] that we can hope to arrive at truth, and fulfill the great responsibility which we hold to God and our country
You may wish to read Henry's entire speech as well as Paine's pamphlet, "Crisis, No. 1" which contains his famous line, "These are the times that try men's souls." In this work Paine exhorts the citizens to see that hoping that the British will be kind is an empty hope: "The blood of his children will curse his cowardice who shrinks back at a time when a little might have saved the whole..." Paine urges action; the British virtually have them as prisoners in their own homes, he claims. Freedom must be obtained.
Or, read Thomas Jefferson's "A Declaration by the Representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress Assembled" in which Jefferson states,
When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation....
Book Source: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston Elements of Literature. Vol.1 (2000); 101,108,116.
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