Constitutional Convention Research Paper

The Articles of Confederation Following the Revolutionary War, the new American Government was set up under the Articles of Confederation. The Articles of Confederation did not give the federal government enough authority to be effective. So in 1787 delegates from all the states attended a meeting known as the Constitutional Convention. Among those attending were James Madison, representing Virginia, William Paterson, representing New Jersey, and Roger Sherman, representing Connecticut.

In May 1787, fifty-five educated and propertied delegates from every state except Rhode Island attended the Philadelphia Convention. Important leaders were absent, so young nationalist were able to set the program for this event. Declaring that the convention would “decide for ever the fate of Republican Government,” James Madison insisted on increased national authority. Alexander Hamilton of New York likewise demanded a strong central government to

The Founding Fathers: A Reform Caucus in Action, written by John P. Roche, addressed the difficulty that the Founding Fathers had in constructing the U.S. Constitution because of the high level of stress they received and the limited amount of time that they had to carry out the formation of this document while keeping the best interest of the country as a priority. John P. Roche starts of by commenting on why the creation of the Constitution was so effective and how the Articles of Confederation benefitted the ratification of the new U.S. Government. As it turns out, the delegates elected to attend Pennsylvania were mainly people who had served in Congress and had experience in the weakness of the Articles in granting too little power to the national government. In addition, the delegates were appointed by the state legislatures, not by the people, as justified by the Articles of Confederation.

The Constitutional Convention of 1787 was held to address problems in governing the United States which had been operating under the Articles of Confederation since it’s independence from Britain. Fifty-five delegates from the states attended the convention to address these issues. The delegates consisted of federalists who wanted a strong central government to maintain order and were mainly wealthier merchants and plantation owners and anti-federalists who were farmers, tradesmen and local politicians who feared losing their power and believed more power should be given to the states. The Constitutional Convention dealt with the issue of the debate between federalists and anti-federalists. The debates, arguments and compromises

With the creation of the Articles remained the lack of a strong central authority to resolve disputes between the states. To organize the states for the collective good, including the organization of a militia, was crucial to the development of the Constitutional Convention (Hamilton et al., 2008). The aftermath of Shay’s Rebellion reinforced the fears of national leaders about the dangers of ineffective state governments and of popular democracy out of control. In the climate of economic turmoil and repressions, the Philadelphian convention was conned to prescribe solutions to the Articles of Confederation. Although the initial thought was instructing delegates to propose revisions for the Articles of Confederation, instead, they wrote an entirely new constitution instead (Hamilton et al., 2008)

The book, The Summer of 1787, by David O. Stewart, is a detailed work of historical, fact-based non-fiction with a biographical touch. The book has three hundred and forty-nine pages and was copyrighted in 2007 after being published by Simon & Schuster Paperbacks, which is a division of Simon & Schuster, Inc. David O. Stewart is qualified to write on the subject of the Constitutional Convention and all of the events surrounding it because of the extensive research that he has done, which is evidenced by his references to historical accounts in the text and his “Notes” section, which details many of the sources he used in his research. Also, David O. Stewart’s background qualifies him to write about this subject: He has practiced law in Washington D.C. for over 20 years and served as law clerk to several judges. The Summer of 1787 includes several features that add to the overall scope and quality of the book. First, it has illustrations of the delegates that are being described in the book along with other various illustrations added in. Second, it talks about, in more detail, one of the most important parts of government, the elector system. Next, it actually includes the Constitution that was written by these delegates in 1787 and amended so many times since.

The Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia was a secret meeting that took place between May and September of 1787. The reason of this meeting was to revise the Articles of Confederation. As well the problem from the Revolutionary War debt. The president of this convention was George Washington. Fifty four individuals attended which most of them were wealthy young persons who wanted to protect the economic of the state. The Constitution that arrived from the convention accepted a government with more limited powers, where each brand would check and balance the authority between the Judicial Executive and Legislative

In 1787, the Constitutional Convention was held in Philadelphia in hopes of revising the Articles of Confederation before the new, established country would become unsustainable. The Articles of Confederation had failed the country as the central government was not strong enough to uphold the country and protect the people’s rights. They were then abandoned and the Founding Fathers began to draft a new government system, what we now know as the US Constitution. At the time the dilemma was, should the Constitution be ratified? The Constitution should be ratified considering that it averts abuse of power, is effective in regulation, and is in the interest of the people.

The Constitutional Convention of 1787 and the subsequent ratification of the constitution proved to be a more significant event in American political history than the Declaration of Independence. Many of the american leaders believed we needed to a new, stronger government. They had to persuade the states that stronger government was the right direction to ensure the country’s success.They did that with the constitutional convention but, To sway the states in the right direction documents such as the Federalist papers led the states to ratify the new U.S. Constitution. Which then led to the U.S. Constitution that we still live by to the day.

There was no significant desire among most delegates to abolish slavery during the 1787 Constitutional Convention. In addition, the focus of the convention was on forming a more perfect union, not dealing with the issue

The ratification of the Constitution was a crucial and momentous turning point in the history of American government. Although this renowned document created much more structure within the national government than it did under the Articles of Confederation, North Carolina was extremely against the ratification of the Constitution. With a strong majority of Anti-Federalist delegates during the debate throughout the ratification convention, North Carolina was called into session twice, in Hillsborough and Fayetteville, where the Anti-Federalists fought diligently for an explicit Bill of Rights to protect individual rights and maintain state economic stability, while the Federalists attempted to assuage the Anti-Federalists’ refusal to accept

The 1787 Philadelphia Constitutional Convention involved an extensive amount of compromise among the delegates in order to finalize the U.S. Constitution into the structure that it is known for today. On one end of the spectrum were states' righters, or Antifederalists, who were often delegates from smaller states such as Connecticut, and who sought to scale back the power of the federal government. On the other end of the spectrum were the Federalists, who wanted a strong national government to unite the nation. Additionally, there were other delegates who could not be put into such clear-cut categories. What followed at the convention was the process of compromise: a group of men with different ideas about how government should be structured,

This was essential towards the growing abolitionist movement and emancipation movement. Due to the weakness of the Articles of Confederation, a completely new and different Constitution was finally “agreed” upon by all thirteen states by 1790.Virginia called for a convention to modify the Articles of Confederation in 1786, and state representatives from every state, except Rhode Island, gathered in Philadelphia in 17887, numbering 55 in all. The representatives at this gathering all could be considered nationalists, and desired a strong, central government. None of the Representatives were from the lower/poorer classes. They aimed to strengthen America’s foreign affairs and weaknesses in negotiating with the European powers. They aimed to give the federal / national government genuine power and authority in dealing with issues, domestic or overseas. They wanted to preserve the union from runaway anarchy and “mobocracy”. They wanted to halt runaway and unrestrained democracy in the various states. This was accelerated by the fears caused by Shays’s Rebellion in Massachusetts.Deciding to completely scrap the ineffective Articles of Confederation, the members and representatives of the convention disobeyed orders from the Congress to revise. Choosing a compromise between “the large state plan“ of Virginia (bicarmel house in Congress of which representation would be based on population) and

When interviewed three delegates of the Constitutional Convention told their contribution to the convention and even what side they they gave their vote to. The three delegates, James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and Roger Sherman said the following. James Madison agreed with ratification of the old constitution and the development of the new one, he was the chief recorder making notes of the entire convention, along with contributing the ninth state to vote for the ratification which was the amount of votes needed to make the new constitution become the law of the land.

The Constitutional Convention of 1787 was begun, in part, due to Shays’ Rebellion in Massachusetts. This rebellion illustrated the difficulty of having a unified nation when the country consists of powerful state governments with a weak central government. In order to change this delegates from each of the thirteen states with the exception of Rhode Island met to convene on and debate the issues that were plaguing the divided nation. However, it was the divisions of the country that nearly caused the convention to go down as a failure. For example, Edmund Randolph and George Mason were so discontented with what the Constitution was turning out to be, that they demanded that there be a second convention that would allow states the opportunity