Debates Of The Constitutional Convention

The Articles of Confederation, adopted in 1781 represented the former colonist’s first attempt to establish a new government after the Revolutionary War. These Articles provided a weak political document that was meant to keep the states united temporarily. The states had all the power, so any changes made to the Article of Confederation would take every state to approve it or amend it. In February 1787, Congress decided that a convention should be convened to revise the Article of Confederation (Constitutional Rights Foundation, 2009). Congress felt the Article of Confederation was not enough to effectively deal with the young nations issues. Congress knew it was time for the country to move forward, and to do that, there would be

The last half of the 18th century was very important for the United States. During this era, the nation was founded following the Declaration of Independence and drafting and ratification of the Constitution a decade later. The 1787 constitutional convention and ratification debate was very important in the making of the US Constitution. The dynamics, antagonism, considerations, process and the eventual consensus regarding the Constitution can be explained by discrete theories in political discourses. However, there are theories that fit best within this historical context and help better explain the process of the constitutional convention and ratification. This paper will talk about pluralist theory as a theoretical perspective that best explains the workings of the 1787 constitutional convention and ratification debate, as opposed to power elite theory. This will be achieved by looking at the premises of pluralist theoretical perspective, and the workings of the 1787 constitutional convention and ratification and then show how pluralist theory best captures the workings.

My instruction helped my students develop skills regarding critical evaluation of different accounts of the historical debates dealt with during the constitutional convention. I did this by providing my students with strong instruction which included two sources on the matter, one primary source and one secondary source. The reason I did one primary and one secondary source is because now my students have knowledge on the subject from someone who experienced these events first hand and they can see how similar or different that information is from an historian’s perspective. One of the main ways I helped my students build and support their arguments was by first modeling for them how I wanted them to take notes on the bucketing worksheet. On the smartboard, I placed a model of their bucketing worksheet that I filled

How did the United States Constitution come about? This short paper on the Federalist Papers will explain how the Constitutional Convention in 1787 used them to assist in the writing and subsequent ratification of the Constitution. The Federalist Papers were actually 85 letters written to newspapers in the later 1780’s to urge in the ratification of the Constitution. Ratification was needed by 9 of the 13 States.

Shay's Rebellion struck fear in to the collective souls of the conservative ruling elite, because it demonstrated that the will of the people was a bit more powerful than they were comfortable with (Faragher, Buhle, Czitrom, and Armitage, 2009, p. 182). They viewed such actions of dissent as a sign that there was too much democracy in the New World and argued in favor of a strong national government able to protect property and the rights of citizens. The idea of a strong federal government therefore gained considerable support after Shay's Rebellion and a Constitutional Convention was convened in 1787 that would attempt to address these shortcomings through a few amendments. However, what the Confederation Congress and the rest of the nation were unaware that the actual agenda of the Convention was to create a powerful centralized government by hammering out a new Constitution (Faragher, Buhle, Czitrom, and Armitage, 2009, p. 184).

The Constitutional Convention was held in May 25 1787 in Philadelphia to discuss revising the Article of Confederation. Delegates from the various states met in Philadelphia and George Washington president was elected to preside over Convention. However, the result of convention wasn’t likely what the purpose of convention to revise the Article of Confederation because what it ended up doing could not answer successfully the question of slavery and was creating a new constitution, which was the United States Constitution. There were three plans submitted for government structure which were Virginia, New Jersey, and Connecticut Compromise.

The Constitution wasn’t fair and was poorly made so they had to create a new one. The Congress started off by adding improvements but it needed too many improvements they had to start over. If they hadn't started over the Constitution Would not have been as good, and there would still be poorly written parts. The new constitution was called the Constitutional Convention. People complained that their Liberty was being taken away and they wanted it back the Congress thought about the complaints and decide to consider revising the Constitution. The revising turned into the Constitutional Convention.

On September 28, 1787, after three days of bitter debate, the Confederation Congress sent the Constitution to the states with neither an endorsement nor a condemnation. This action, a compromise engineered by Federalist members, disposed of the argument that the convention had exceeded its mandate; in the tacit opinion of Congress, the Constitution was validly before the people. The state legislatures' decisions to hold ratifying conventions confirmed the Constitution's legitimacy.

At the Constitutional Convention of 1787, the original purpose of the convention was to revise the Articles of Confederation. However, despite this original goal, many of the delegates sought the creation of a new government. Leading this movement were James Madison and Alexander Hamilton. Both men sought change but had significantly different causes for action. Madison believed the best solution was for the executive power to be checked by the legislature as a means to best represent the people. Hamilton instead believed that the federal government should be based upon the British constitution and monarchy. At the convention 's conclusion, the delegates had created the U.S. Constitution which included several major political compromises

Driven by Shay's Rebellion, many delegates realized that the Articles of Confederation were not strong enough to keep the population under control. This resulted in the Philadelphia Convention, also known as the Constitutional Convention, and its attendees to propose various plans and ideas with the original intention of strengthening the government. During discussions, the motive changed to developing a whole new government and discarding of the Articles of Confederation. The two plans that emerged from the convention were the "Virginia Plan," which was the more popular plan, and the "New Jersey Plan." The Virginia Plan was drafted before the meeting and came first, inspiring the New Jersey Plan. These two plans, with their similarities and differences, lead to significant milestones in what has shaped today's government.

America was going to be governed. Although the Convention had been officially called to revise the existing Articles of Confederation, delegates like James Madison, William Patterson and Alexander Hamilton had much bigger plans. They wanted to create a entirely new government rather than just fix the existing one. The delegates from Virginia took Madison’s thoughts, notes, and work and formed the Virginia Plan. On May 29th, 1787, the Virginia Plan was presented to the Constitutional Convention. After the Virginia plan was introduced William Paterson asked to be adjourned to contemplate the plan. On June 15th, 1787, Patterson reported

The Constitutional Convention of 1787 contained many points but some of the main points consist of the Virginia plan, the New Jersey plan, and the great compromise. The Virginia plan was initiated by James Madison had a strong central government with legislature seats based on a state’s population. The New Jersey Plan was conducted by William Paterson also has a strong central government that endorsed equal representatives throughout the states. The great compromise was imitated to settle the disagreements between the north and south. The great compromise stated a two-house legislature the seats for one of the houses was based on population of the state and the other houses seats were distributed upon states. The great compromise set up a strong

The Constitutional Convention met in the Pennsylvania State House in order to discuss and revise the Articles of Confederation. The notes of the Constitutional Convention were written by James Madison, a supporter of further reform, most significantly a supporter of the Virginia Plan. The notes he wrote were provided to the delegates in order to keep an organized log of what was debated during the meetings. In this transcript, the delegates of Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Virginia agreed that the ideas of the Constitution were far too democratic, and would later ruin the established democracy. “[The people] should have as little to do as may be about the Government .. they are daily misled into the most baneful measures and opinions by the

On the question of state representation, the delegates were not able to come to a decision on which plan to use (the Virginia or the New Jersey plan). The Virginia plan had three branches of government and two houses in the legislature, representing the states in Congress. The number of representatives for each state were based on population. Bigger states would have a larger say in the federal government. The New Jersey plan also had three branches of government, but only one house in Congress and each state would have equal representation, independent of population.

raged with anger as the government didn't change its ways to make the U.S. better. Eventually few political leaders from the congress set up the constitution convention to plan a new government, which later became the “Articles of the Confederation”. This new constitution made three branches that equal out their power so no branch has too much power than the others. The three branches are Executive, Legislative, and Judicial. George Washington was elected as leader of the constitution convention. The form of government was mostly written by James Madison from Virginia, also known as the father of the constitution. Madison made the Virginia Plan that was based on a strong central government. The Legislative branch was the congress in charge of making new laws. The Executive branch would have the president and carry out laws made by the Legislative branch. The Judicial branch would manage courts and help interpret laws to the people. The Virginia plan also had congress with two separate houses, an upper and lower house. The representation of the houses would be determined by the state’s population. The main opposer to the plan was the New Jersey plan. Which was created by William Paterson. The NJ plan was based on one house and for each state to have one vote. Both people from the convention were tied to both plans. Roger Sherman came up with a compromised based on both plans. This was known as the “Great Compromise”. The Great Compromise was