One of the first debates after the war was held at the Constitutional Convention. The Constitutional Convention was held in Philadelphia, May of 1787. The meetings discussed about the government under the Articles of Confederation. The convention started with Governor Edmund Randolph, also drafted by James Madison, suggested the Virginia Plan. The Virginia Plan was made to suggest a new form of government. The Virginia Plan discussed fifteen ideas. The bicameral legislature, which meant two houses of representatives would support both house by each states’ population. The branches would have all the power that Congress had. The branches would not do trading or tax, but rather collect tax and make and enforce laws. The big states were the ones
The Virginia Plan was written by James Madison which was a proposed plan presented by Edmund Randolph. It was more known as the Randolph Plan, which was the plans sponsor. This plan was supported by many of the large states such as Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Massachusetts. This plan was required to have a very strong congress of two houses based on proportional representation. One of the houses would be elected by the people and the other would be elected by the first one.
The first plan is Virginia Plan, which was drafted on May 29, 1787, by James Madison and his fellow Edmund Randolph in the form of 15 resolutions. It was proposed to the Constitutional Convention by James Madison, who was a political theorist, American statesman, and the well-known fourth President of the United States. He was also the father of checks and balances, which helps to prevent the abuse of power between the branches. The Virginia Plan suggested that we should have a bicameral legislature in which contains two chambers. Besides, each state would have representatives based on the population – according to the Plan. This proposal is clearly an advantage for the large states because of their high population. More than that, they are going to have more representatives which means more power.
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.
During the 1787 Constitutional Convention, two plans were drafted and proposed that ultimately affected the final draft of the Constitution. The first plan was the Virginia Plan, which offered two chambers, or a bicameral legislature, and representation would be based solely on the population of each state. The counterproposal to this plan was the New Jersey Plan, proposing a unicameral legislature in which each state would have a single vote, regardless of the state size. Ultimately the Virginia Plan was used, however several ideas from the New Jersey Plan were added as introduced by the Connecticut Compromise.
The delegates to the Constitutional Convention chose to write an entirely new constitution rather than fix the Articles because they needed a stronger central government and the current one was created with weak intentions. The Articles of Confederation was originally created to have a weak central government because the United States did not want to be like Britain. After fighting a harsh war with them, Americans did not want an overpowering government like their past ruler. Additionally, the government the Articles made was only unicameral legislature, so there was no separation of powers. No judicial nor an executive branch was there for checks and balances and to balance power. In addition, congress could not levy taxes and maintain a national
This meeting is referred to as the Constitutional Convention. George Washington was chosen to preside over the meeting. After much debate, The Virginia Plan was drafted. Virginia delegates wanted a bicameral legislative branch. They argued that a strong national government would collect taxes and enforce laws.
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.
Under the Articles, Congress had no way to avert war or to provide for national security against foreign intrusion. The government could not resolve the fight between states, manage interstate exchange, collect taxes, or uphold laws. These shortcomings of the confederation distressed political leaders. Accordingly, they requested an assemblage in order to revise the Articles and restore the fledgling country. The Virginia Plan, composed by James Madison and proposed by Edmund Randolph presented a government separated into three branches of
Articles of Confederation and the Constitution The Articles of Confederation and the Constitution had many differences. At the end of the American Revolution, the Free states needed some sort of control that would generate to a unified country. A number of issues arose which included how power would be divided between local and national Governments, how laws were made and by whom. The Articles of Confederation was the first attempt at solving these issues which later own was seen as a failure for the most part, but not completely. After the failure of the Articles, the state tried to revise the articles but instead, constructed the constitution.
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.
The 1787 Constitutional Convention was paramount in unifying the states after the Revolutionary War. However, in order to do so, the convention had to compromise on many issues instead of addressing them with all due haste. This caused the convention to leave many issues unresolved. Most notably were the issues of slavery, race, secession, and states’ rights. Through the Civil War and the Reconstruction, these issues were resolved, and in the process the powers of the federal government were greatly expanded.
During the constitutional convention, two plans were proposed to solve the problem of state representation in the government. The first of the two plans was the Virginia Plan, proposed by James Madison and the second being the New Jersey Plan, proposed by William Patterson. Both plans consisted of three branches of government, executive, legislative, and judiciary. however, the New Jersey Plan allowed for multiple executives. Additionally, the Virginia Plan had a bicameral legislature, both houses based on state's’ population or its wealth. The New Jersey Plan, on the other hand, has a unicameral legislature, with its single house giving a single vote to each state
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,
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.
During the late 1700’s, it occurred to Americans that the Articles of Confederation needed to be revised. The weaknesses in the Articles of Confederation, which included the lack of power to conduct domestic responsibilities such as taxation and regulation of commerce, caused the United States to become bankrupt. Eventually, the new country was faced with the daunting task to greatly alter the Articles of Confederation. In February 1787, America finally persuaded the Continental Congress to convene at the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania from May 15, 1776 to September 17, 1787, which would eventually lead to the various debates concerning the problems that faced the weak central government under the Articles of Confederation. During the events that occurred at the Constitutional Convention, various plans were introduced. These plans included James Madison and Edmund Randolph’s Virginia Plan, which introduced a radical government structure to allocate the legislative branches by population and the separation of powers, and William Patterson’s New Jersey Plan, a response to the Virginia Plan, which conceived the idea of equal representation for all states. After heated debates, the introduction of Roger Sherman’s Connecticut Compromise helped to merge both the ideas of Virginia Plan and New Jersey Plan into the definitive compromise. In this compromise, the legislature would be bicameral with each state guaranteed two equal senators in the Senate and