The Role Of Wise Men In The United States

During the Convention there were many controversies between these men, some were focused on not wanting to upset their constituents back in their home states, and the smaller states were constantly trying to protect themselves from the influence of the larger states, while the southern states feared that a national government would upset the slave trade. However, many of the delegates shared a bigger fear throughout the convention, which was putting too much power into a central government and the fear that the senate and House of Representatives would have too much power. George Mason, an initial advocate of a strong central government withdrew his support and refused to sign the finished Constitution, claiming that the new government would “produce a monarchy, or a corrupt, tyrannical aristocracy” so for the sake of trying to find a balance, the idea of giving the chief executive the power of veto over legislation was proposed. Along with this power a check was needed, so the idea that a three quarters vote from congress

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.

The idea was that the government would represent the people. The Constitution established a two house Congress consisting of a Senate and a House of Representatives. The Senate would include two members from each state and the House of Representatives would have members appointed according to the population of the state. Senators would be chosen by state legislatures while the Representatives would be elected by the people. This was the first step toward the expansion of democracy. The Constitution did not set any rules for qualifications to vote; they left that up to the states. The Constitution strengthened national authority. It gave the president the job of enforcing the law and commanding the military. It gave Congress the right to levy taxes, borrow money, regulate commerce, declare war, and foreign policy. The Constitution declared the national legislature as the "supreme Law of the Land." It did however leave the majority of day to day affairs up to the states such as education and law enforcement. It created a checks and balances system between the states and the national government. This was the idea to prevent any branch of the national government from dominating the other two.

When the Framers of the Constitution met in Philadelphia, they came together with one common purpose in mind. They needed to form a fair and solid system of government that would stand the test of time; one that was both fair for the people and would not involve a monarchy. Each of these men had their own ideas on what would constitute this system, however, so many compromises had to be made. Together, the men gathered in Philadelphia created a federal system of government and drafted a constitution outlining this government. They took care in developing three branches of federal government with a system of checks and balances so that no one branch would gain too much power, thus avoiding any

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 the early 1800s, the United States of America was still an infant country trying to figure out the best way to run its government. The Founding Fathers did not want to form a monarchy like in Great Britain, so they wanted to form some form of representative government. There were two main theories of how representative government should be run: democracy and republicanism. Democracy is the direct government by the people, where the citizens of the country vote directly for the government officials, who should be common people, no matter how esteemed the office. Republicanism is a more controlled form of democracy, where the citizens vote for representatives who then vote for the more esteemed positions in the government, such as the President

When the system of government was finally decided on, our founding fathers understood the importance of the balance of power within the three branches of the government. They called this system checks and balances. This system was set up to ensure that the government would remain loyal to the people and loyal to their states (Hamilton). In The Federalist Papers, No. 68, Alexander Hamilton discusses the importance of having the president elected by the Electoral College. He said that in order to ensure that we do not end up with the same problems that America had with the monarch of England, it was important that the balance of power was spread throughout the government and that no one portion have too much power.

But why did the states have to vote at all? Why couldn’t they just go with a Democracy-no states vote. Only the people vote, and whoever got more people to vote for them wins-well, because our Founders wanted a fair system, and in their minds they thought that a Democracy was unfair to smaller states. An example is: if two eagles and a mouse were deciding what to eat, the mouse would always be outvoted and get eaten.

When the founding fathers realized the articles were going to bring the US to chaos, they called a convention in Philadelphia to draft the U.S. Constitution as we know it. This Constitution brought popular sovereignty and republicanism, the ability to collect national taxes and proportional voting. Without these crucial aspects, our world today would be a much different place today, but not for the better. That is why if I had been a U.S. citizen at the time of both the Constitutional Convention and the state ratification debates, I would have supported the Constitutional

Representation in Congress was determined under the Articles of Confederation. The Articles of Confederations allowed Congress to create wars, make laws, and print money. The problem was that other states had more population than others. Loyalists weren’t paid back and many trade issues weren’t obeyed by the people. Another problem was

One of the first debates over the institution of the National Executive was whether the Executive should “consist of a single person” as motioned by James Wilson, of Pennsylvania, and seconded by Charles Pinckney, of South Carolina. The idea of a single Executive met with strong opposition due to conjuring images of their former oppression under British rule. Due to the fact that all delegates were old enough to remember, many of them to have fought against, the rule by Britain, it was easy for them to compare what they were trying to create to what they already knew and in some cases detested. To defend against the Executive morphing into a monarchy there was a suggestion of a three person Executive branch that was put forward by Randolph who felt the people would not properly support a signal Executive. The idea of a three person branch would give a representative from the Northern, Middle, and Southern States. Pierce Butler of South Carolina, having seen firsthand in Holland the issues caused by “plurality,” strongly objected. As happened many times during the convention the motion was postponed. James Madison made the suggestion that the powers of the president devised before there be a decision of single or plural Executive stating, “definition of their extent would assist the judgment in determining how far they might safely entrusted to a single officer.”

When the founding fathers sat down at the table to discuss the process of the national election of the highest office of the land they had a lot of things on their minds. For starters the country as they knew it was composed of 13 states, each with a cut-throat either be in

Establishing an effective system of government has proven to be an obstacle for centuries. Fortunately, the Founding Father recognized the common flaws of governments, as did many common men in the colonies. Consequently, the ratification of the constitution was vital for a healthy governmental system, though it did bring about much debate and persuasion. There were two main positions which people took during the ratification, those being the Anti-Federalist and the Federalist. The Anti-Federalist were a diverse assembly involving prominent men such as George Mason and Patrick Henry, and also the most unlikely of individuals, those being Farmers and shopkeepers. The chief complaint about the Constitution was that it confiscated the power from the sates, thereby robbing the people of their power. Oppositely, the Federalist believed in removing some control from the states and imparting that power to the national government, thus making America partially national. Throughout this debate, many letters were shared between the two sides, and eventually, it led to the federalist winning over the colonies.

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

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