The Role Of The Constitution In 1787

This paper is about how The United States moved from it’s inept first attempt at self government progressing, to the Constitution, which took care of many issues prevalent in the Articles of Confederation. The revolutionary concepts exemplified in the constitution propelled The United States onto the world stage. To gain a deeper understanding of this topic, two essays and a book will be consulted concerning what people thought about the Constitution when it was first implemented and how it is perceived today. In addition, a brief history of early American government and how the Constitution came to be will be discussed. Furthermore the resulting Constitution and how it improved upon the Articles of Confederation will be discussed.

While the “The Constitution of 1787 gave enormous protection to slavery. Through the three-fifths clause, the slave states received extra representation for their slaves in Congress. . .The allocation of presidential electors is based on the size of a state's delegation in the House of Representatives. Thus the three-fifths clause gave the slave states extra muscle in the election of presidents based on the number of slaves the state had.” (Finkelman) However, this did not make up for the superior numbers of people that lived in the north. The reason that the North had much larger numbers of people is because the north had a free labor system that allowed more people that could live and work in the north. The slave labor system had a limited

The Constitutional Convention of 1787 and the subsequent ratification of the Constitution is more significant then the signing of the Declaration of Independence and subsequent war of independence.

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 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.

July 4th, 1776 the United States of America declares its independence from England. A new nation begins to take shape. America, as new country, begins to see its challenges. In 1787, the adoption of the constitution and a new central government took form with similarities to the British system they had just overthrown. America, since the adoption of the constitution and up until the civil war faced social, political, and economic challenges. In the social context, it dealt with slavery, religious, and expansion movements. The political area saw parties come and go. America made political allies and enemies, internally and externally. The economic situation saw debt and prosperity. It played a detrimental part in the country’s future in the

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

1. Explain how the Constitution of 1787 (the constitution we have today) was designed to improve America’s governance, achieve stability, and limit the will of the majority.

On September 15, 1787, the delegates at the Philadelphia convention agreed on a document that would cause great change in America, the Constitution. Some Americans agreed with this idea of having a reformed Articles of Confederation. Others feared that this new document would stifle the growth of the new nation even more than the Articles of Confederation. Certain citizens even feared the effect the Constitution would have on their rights.The decision of whether to ratify this Constitution became a point of between the people of America and caused debates among the Americans. Nevertheless, protecting the rights of the people was the most important concern of America, which affected the choices of the nation.

The Constitution has been operative since 1789 after the ratification of nine states (American Vision and Values, Page 52). Today many question the relevancy of a document 222 years old to our society. The Founders created a governmental framework, defining three branches and giving powers to the government and others to the states. It also guarantees the rights of the people. It took two and one-half years for the 13 colonies to ratify the Constitution. This ratification period was one of great debate and produced a series of essays complied into The Federalist. Authored by John Hamilton, James Madison and John Jay during the ratification debate in New York, they tried to get public support for the Constitution. Thus began the first

The Constitution was established for America’s national government with fundamental laws and certain basic rights for the American citizens. It was signed Sept. 17, 1787, by delegates to the Constitutional Convention in Philly, presided over by George Washington. The national government was very weak and states operated like independent countries, one couldn’t imagine how this could happen under Americas first govern document like the Articles of Confederation. In 1787, at the convention, delegates devised a plan for a stronger federal government using three branches, executive, legislative and judicial-along with a system of checks and balances to ensure no single branch would have too much power.

The founding of the American government is often portrayed as being a fairly effortless transition after the bitter fight that was the Revolutionary war. This, however, is extremely inaccurate as it took years of discussion and revision to create a system that benefited the American people. The Constitution was crucial to this and ended up separating the country into the Federalist and Antifederalist parties. In order to convince both the public and their counterparts of their side each party wrote a series of documents explaining their opinions. They became known as the Federalist and Antifederalist papers and were important fundamental components to the Constitution’s ratification. The Federalist and

To solve the emerging challenges, the American States legislatures brought up delegates to the Philadelphia Convention to sign a new form of government into power. The delegates include politicians, ordinary citizens and lawyers. The American States hoped that the convention would the constitution would be efficient to end the disaster – characterised by economic and security issues. Therefore, the condition and the measures put in place led to the development of the phrase “Inventing the American Constitution” aimed at discovery the motives behind the building of the United States Constitution, and the faults that existed within the Articles of Confederation.

Between the years 1776 and 1783, Americans argued about the division of power between state and federal governments, most supporting the idea of a republic government. The Articles of Confederation was America’s first constitution that created a central, republican government with limited powers, assisting Americans through war and peace (Berkin 160-61). In the summer of 1787, President George Washington met with eleven of the thirteen states in a Constitutional convention in Philadelphia. Only nine states of the thirteen had to approve in order to pass the Constitution, and in September of 1787, Congress ratified the Constitution. Unfortunately, controversy over the Constitution occurred: Federalists supported a strong central government while Antifederalists believed that this type of government damaged Americans’ rights (171). While the approval of the Constitution was intended to permit more American citizens to partake in significant political decisions, its ratification sparked great philosophical debate over the best form of government.

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.