When reviewing the creation of the Constitution, one would find that its creation was not a foregone conclusion. Prior to the Constitution, the Founding Fathers developed the Articles of Confederation as a general outline of organizing the government and its powers. As time went on, political leaders faced issues that involved amending the Articles of Confederation. After editing the document to protect the Americans’ rights, the leaders needed the support of the states, which all had different ideas. To start off, “states convened special conventions comprised of popularly elected representatives to vote on ratification” (Lecture 5). “A fierce public battle ensued, producing hundreds of pamphlets and newspaper articles and spirited campaigns
In the early parts of America as we know it, there was a document labeled the Articles of Confederations. This was the first written document that was made to set rules and guidelines for how the colonies shall act and be representative. The Articles of Confederation had quite a few flaws however first of which was the lack of power that was allowed for a central government. It is important to realise that America had just won an emotionally and physically draining war in which they fought to abolish the tyrannical rule. They were cautious to make sure they didn’t make a central government too overbearing, and thus ultimately lead to a weak one. Then on May 14, 1787 in Philadelphia, delegates from every original state but Rhode Island gathered in a Constitutional Convention to do their best to improve a flawed Articles of Confederation. In the end, there were three main proposals that were heavily discussed.
The Constitutional Convention held in 1787 was a major step in America’s foundation. The compromises reached at this important meeting would end up shaping the country into what it is today. The Constitutional Convention was created in order the correct the Articles of Confederation which were deeply flawed. The meeting included the important founding fathers ranging from George Washington to Benjamin Franklin. After careful thought, the Articles of Confederation were soon scrapped and the delegates at the meeting began to create an entirely new government system. However, some states had their own private agendas. Different regions wanted different things and it reflected their ideals through their plans. This made coming to a compromise
With a failing, and week Articles of Confederation loosely uniting the state, delegates from each states set out to revise the Articles of Confederation. Instead, they made an extremely polarizing Constitution, which was debated on and revised in the years to come. In these debates were parties, with two entirely different political ideologies and philosophies. The Federalists believed that they should ratify the Constitution now, and they would amend the Constitution later. On the other hand, the Anti-Federalists believed that the Constitution shouldn’t be ratified, because it didn't guarantee the citizen’s rights and gave too much power to the government.
The Articles of Confederation became the first guiding principles of the original thirteen states. However, the weaknesses embedded in the articles became obvious, outweighing its positive impact and they were ratified in 1781. George Washington sated that the articles were "little more than a shadow without the substance."1 They limited the central government’s ability to work smoothly and adversely affected the economy. Lack of power left the government in dismay and they sought a fix to their problems without becoming a tyrannical monarchy. The founding fathers believed that replacing the articles with The Constitution was the best way to give the central government enough power to carry out its tasks. In 1787 delegates from all 13 states met in Pennsylvania to begin amending the articles. This process revealed many of the similarities and differences that were contained within The Articles of Confederation and The Constitution.
The ratification of the US Constitution in 1787 sparked a ferocious and spiteful debate between two large groups of people, those who supported the ratification and those who did not. Both sides were very passionate about their ideas yet they were so divergent, as one believed that the ratification could create a more powerful, unified country, while others worried about the government gaining perhaps too much control. The supporters and opponents equally had various strong reasons in their beliefs regarding the ratification of the US Constitution, the most common for the supporters being that the current government was heading badly, and a ratification would fix all the mistakes made originally and set the course for a successful government. On the other hand, the biggest concern for the opponents was that the ratification would give the government too much power, and there would be no controlling force to keep the government in its place.
Following the creation of the United States of America, a constitution of laws was desperately needed to create firm unity in the young nation. The original constitution that the Congress brought forth was the Articles of Confederation. The Articles of Confederation left most of the power with the state governments, which many people approved of. However, many problems were created by this law of the land. A convention was called in Philadelphia in 1787 to revise the Articles where they eventually scrapped it and wrote a new, but similar in ideals, document which is now known as the U.S. Constitution. The Constitution was, in fact, very different from the Articles of Confederation. So much so that they do not even appear to be similar in any
In 1781, the thirteen independent states of America had been bound together by the Articles of Confederation. Under this document, the Continental Congress had successfully waged war, made alliances, secured loans, negotiated peace with Great Britain, and passed the Northwest Ordinance. This document served as the foundation for the United States Constitution, which was ratified in 1787. This ratification process took place over 200 years ago. Since that time, most modern-day Americans have assumed that this great document had always been honored and respected by everyone. On the contrary, the Constitution set off months of fierce and often bitter debate after it was written and submitted to the states for ratification. Creating a new
In May 1787, the Founding Fathers, who were made up of 55 delegates from one of the 13 states besides Rhode Island, met in Philadelphia for what would come to be called the Constitutional Convention [BRE]. When they met they intended to fix the consitution that was already in place, which was called the Articles of Confederation. This document had many weaknesses which ultimatly led to its downfall: it only had a legislative branch, so it could not hold trials or enforce laws, it could not raise taxes (it was able to raise money, however to do this the legislative branch had to ask the states for funds), it could not draft an army, so the federal government would have to use state militia, it could not control interstate or foreign commmerce,
Congress very soon realized that The Articles of Confederation created a sovereign nation government thus led them to the Constitutional Convention, where they drafted the current United States Constitution. Per the Articles of Confederation, any changes in constitutional law must be presented to the state legislatures and any successful alterations require unanimous approval. Though the proposed constitution would increase the power of the central government and decrease the states powers. Thus, it was likely the state legislature would probably oppose the constitution. Aware of this, the framers of the constitution developed a ratification process that would go directly to the people. This method would make the constitution law, if just nine of the thirteen states approved it. It would start when Congress handed over the constitution over to the state legislatures.
In the initial years of the United States a meeting of delegates appointed by the several states met for the sole purpose of revising the Articles of Confederation. The result of this meeting was the creation of the U.S. Constitution that would soon become the ultimate directive for both Federal and State Governments. Since its birth it has been revised, amended, and ratified in order to solidify the allocation of power between the separate branches of government. Although this may be the case, distribution of the powers has been disputed ever since the formation of the Constitution. These political, legal, and quasi-legal constitutional disputes triggered civil unrest and led to explicit acts of opposition involving nullification and
One of the most important documents written in American history, the Articles of Confederation, was crucial to the foundation of American principles. However, there were many inherent flaws in its making, which were addressed by a few different leaders. The Articles of Confederation paved the way towards a successful country, but some of the problems would have sent the country backwards. One of these problems was that for an amendment to be made to the Articles, every state would have to agree, and Rhode Island never sent delegates to conventions to discuss these amendments. This meant that there could never be flexibility in the amendments even when necessary. This dilemma forced many elites of America to come together and completely rewrite
The words spoken by man have the power to shape and ratify everything in its path. These following questions will do just that. Is not the strengthening of our federal government essential to the maintaining of a stable bureaucracy? Must we forego the strong fundamental structure that will ensure that every man will benefit immensely from a nation governed by those of the utmost intelligence and experience? We as a nation must procure a stance that will enforce and implement the necessary laws by any means possible. This can only be obtained only if all parties are on one accord with an understanding that the rights of the people and their protection are our governments’ only concern. The strong structure of a government can only
In the beginning, government was created: the beginning of America, that is. Since this beginning, and also considerably long before it, government has been deemed as absolutely necessary to avoid anarchy and destruction. The Founders of the Constitution faced a challenge that had never been dealt with before: they needed a way to create a democracy but also nurture the notion that not every citizen was equipped to decide on issues facing the country. Direct democracy never even crossed the minds of each individual Founder because they immediately recognized its foolishness. They struggled, then, with making sure every citizen’s rights were protected while still having an effective government. From this, the idea of representative democracy was born. Coming up with ideas for the Constitution was difficult, but seeing that the document would be accepted by a majority of the states proved to be even harder. James Madison and others wrote the Federalist Papers to try to convince the states to institute the new Constitution. One paper in particular, the fifty-first, proved to be useful in showing how the rights of the people would be protected in this new representative government. Through the fifty-first Federalist Paper, it can be deduced that James Madison thought of the people as their own branch of government with their own set of governmental characteristics.
In 1787 a constitution was created to follow for the new nation. The Government, “A controlled system made up by the constitution”. The government has branches that are divided into a group of three. These branches are called the Legislative, Executive, and Judicial branch. Branches have different powers and duties. They all have the ability to keep an eye on each other and monitor operations and powers of the other branches. They also have a system making sure one branch doesn’t become more powerful than the other this is called Check and Balances.
In 1787 the four founding fathers of the United States wrote the constitution . The constitution was written to let the people of the U.S know how the states would be governed and also to stop the government from having too much power. The constitution is divided into three branches : the Legislative branch, Executive branch and the Judicial branch. All the branches are based on the idea of separation of power in which each branch has a specific power and responsibility and don’t rely on the other two branches to operate. All three also use the system of check and balance in which each branch is monitored by the other two to keep it from becoming too powerful.