The Pros And Cons Of The Pinckney Plan

Recognizing that so radical a change required popular approval, he proposed placing the new Constitution before the citizens in ratifying conventions created especially for that purpose. Madison's outstanding preparation, sharp mind, and flexibility in changing situations made him the undisputed leader of the Convention; he rose to address his colleagues at Philidelphia more than 150 times. He was a member of numerous committees, most importantly the Committees on Postponed Matters and Style, and he wrote the definitive notes of the Convention's deliberations. One delegate wrote of him, "Every person seems to acknowledge his greatness. He blends together the profound politician with the scholar.

The framers of the Constitution had a set image they wanted to put forth in America, and to get the document ratified they were forced to make compromises. Two of the most important compromises are the 3/5 clause and “Great Compromise”. During, the Constitutional Convention there was a deadlock about representation. Arguments from both sides seem valid, big states argue representation should be based on population while, small states argue it should be equal representation. In need for a solution, a few men proposed a bicameral legislature. Which, allows for both population based representation, and equal presentation by having a House of Representatives and a Senate. The Senate has equal representation that allows 2 senators from each state,

76) With this in mind the framers carefully and purposefully crafted a Constitution that divided federal powers between the legislative, executive, and judicial branches. This division of power gave each branch the ability and authority to control the others through a specific system of checks and balances. One check on Congress was the design of a bicameral system where Congress was divided into the House of Representatives and the Senate. Members of the House of Representatives would be elected by majority popular vote making them the direct representative of their constituencies. Members of the Senate would be elected by state legislatures making them direct representatives of the states, and proponents of the state’s rights and sovereignty. Joseph Story (1833) suggests that one main reason for the mode of appointing the Senate was to introduce a powerful check upon rash legislation, and prevent the national governments encroachment on the powers of the states (p.183). However, in passing the 17th Amendment the mode of electing the Senate as a means of partitioning federal and state power collapsed leaving the states unprotected from abuses of the central government.

Without the Great Compromise, the question of union among the states under a strong central government was hesitant. On the other hand, equal representation of states in the upper house flies in the face of the republican ideal of sovereignty in the people. It elevates states, which are nothing more than imaginary political lines drawn on a map, into supposedly-powerful entities and denies the principal of one man, one vote. Also, Senators from states with smaller populations need less time and money to reach out to their constituents than do Senators from highly populous states. Thus, Senators from smaller states can spend more time on the business of the nation, with a natural bias toward their own state’s interests, than can Senators from larger states. Despite these shortcomings, the system has worked, to greater or lesser degrees, for over two centuries. To change this system now would only bring political confusion and raise the same large state/small state concerns that plagued the convention delegates in 1787. The tension between proportional representation in the House and equal representation in the Senate is a check and balance between the unequal states which comprise the union. John Adams understood the power of checks and balances when he said “power must never be trusted without a

The founding Fathers also tried to make the representation equal in the two houses of legislature. However, the makeup of the senate doesn’t agree with this because large states and small states had the same amount of representation rather than the house that has representatives equal to the ratio of the people. While John P. Roche gave his argument that the founding Fathers were best suited for their position, he never gave concrete evidence to support his statement. On the contrary, Howard Zinn gives his opinion that the founding Fathers were not democratic reformers; rather, they were making decisions that protected their power.

In Alfred Young’s essay The Pressure of the People on the Framers of the Constitution reported the actions that took place during the Philadelphia Convention. It was said that the Constitution was designed to last until the end of time. It was proposed that the national government should limit voting to the men of the community that held property in the form of land, a considerable farm or something with equal value. How could this work for the states that already granted suffrage to the people didn’t have these qualifications. What would the state do now, take away their right to vote? The end result was that each state decided that whoever voted in assembly would also vote for the house. Thomas Paine a radical democrat and influential part of the Revolutionary era advocated a democratic government where a single legislative would be at the top, and the executive branch would be elected from small localities by an extensive electorate where they would serve short terms. The original separation of the elitists was caused by fear of a mob and rebellion. Coercion and accommodation were to tactics used to control the threat of democratic majorities in the state. Anti-Federalists were looking to make numerous changes in the frame of the government. This would limit national power over the states, and curb the powers of the presidency while also protecting individual freedoms. Finally we come to the overwhelming opposition

In his book, “The Liberty Amendments” Mark Levin argues well on how the slow creep of federal power in the United States has slowly disenfranchised the local government under the guise of propagating and deifying a ‘national government approved’ form of democracy. The people received a message of nationalism, and personal power while at the same time receiving a watered down version of what the founding fathers had originally intended.

The next hat that was throw into the ring was that of Mr. Charles Pinckney who had his own ideas on the right path for the government. His ideas were based on Madison’s Virginia Plan but with some

In February 1787, Congress decided that this convention should be focused on revising the Article of Confederation. Debates were about the Virginia plan, how to over slavery, new executive branch, representation in Congress, giving power to President. Most delegates came to the Constitutional Convention clearly knew what was wrong about the Article of Confederation but not know how to fix it. The most outstanding delegate was James Madison. When he arrived at the convention, he brought a detailed proposal for new form of government. It is called “The Virginia Plan”, with some of new significant changes, it became the basic foundation for the Constitution’s final product. That is why so many people call him “The Father of Constitution.” What

“Born in 1751, Madison was brought up in Orange County, Virginia, and attended Princeton (then called the College of New Jersey). A student of history and government, well-read in law, he participated in the framing of the Virginia Constitution in 1776, served in the Continental Congress, and was a leader in the Virginia Assembly.” Before he was serving as Jefferson’s secretary he assembled the first drafts of the Bill of Rights and the U.S Constitution, this making him known as the “Father of the Constitution”. “In 1792, Madison and Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) founded the Democratic-Republican Party, which has been called America’s first opposition political party.” James Madison beat his opponent Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, who was

The previous passage proves that the constitution’s ideal representative that holds some sort of power and status in government need to be educated and wealthy. To sum it up, those who are already in congress are those who decide who’ll be apart of government, and make decisions that will affect our country. This will further create a division amongst classes and tension between the upper and middle class will diverge from one another.

One of the main debates the framers had, among the many, was how much power the government would have. James Madison, the author of federalist paper number 51 and who stood against the anti-federalist, said that it was necessary to have a check and balance system implemented on the government in order to avoid the risk of giving too much power to one entity. He said that the people will “check” their government ultimately having the power (Chapter 2, Section 8 OTD). This statement is true, but it had other limitations on the people because Madison developed an insulated system which gave the masses power to pick their house of representatives, but its system then narrowed to give power to those who were educated to make choices based on State Legislators and the Electoral College. After this process, those chosen got to decide who got picked as senators and President. The votes underwent a system that was filtered, so in the end the social elitists were the only ones to have the choice of who was to be elected giving them the true position of power not the people. The masses had the potential to be rational and reasonable people, as John Locke indicated, but they are too uneducated in the field of politics (Chapter 1, Section 2 OTD). It’s evident that the elite understood what was needed in a macro scale, whereas a common individual was more concerned with daily issues that they were faced like doing chores. Not to say that the common person’s interests

Federalism was an inevitable and paramount mechanism to creation the of the Union. Therefore, it is acceptable that its governing principles would define and refine a majority of the nation’s history. Shaping the government, laws, and politics of the current and future generations during the creation of the Constitution, federalism permanently altered the life of every American. Federalism and the Constitution were derived from a similar ideal: endurance of free society had to be preserved by a sense of unity that acted as a safeguard against prevalent dangers, advanced the common good while still maintaining responsiveness to the diversity of the nation (Wechsler, 1954). The Constitution established a central government that possessed the capacity to interpret its

Even with a representative government, its separation of powers, and a system of checks and balances, Madison also favored the implementation of a written Constitution, detailing the limits of the federal government’s power. The written Constitution of the United States created a paradigm shift in the way the world viewed Constitutions. It created a tangible means whereby citizens could hold the government accountable. While the Constitution of the United States accomplished many goals in regards to establishing the role of the federal government, it left much open to

Any nationwide endeavor across the world over is always faced with a myriad of challenges when one factor in, the interest of different individuals or groups. During the early years of the USA, there were many problems that politicians at the time faced when trying to create and strengthen the country’s Constitution. In the early 1780’s the young country was in a deep depression, and this played a key role in influencing the exercise as it ultimately led to a heated debate about the powers of the National and State governments. Most of the conservative politicians at the time preferred a stronger federal government while state radicals believed that states should have more power since it was in a better position to determine what was best for their citizens (Jilson, 2009). More sticking points divided the founding fathers which threatened the stability and establishment of the USA, such as slavery and federalism.