Tyranny

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

Lastly, it is impossible for any certain branch to gain too much power because of something called “checks and balances”. With checks and balances, each branch has the power to cancel another out and keep its power balanced. “In framing a government, which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place, oblige it to control itself.” Here, James Madison is stating that first, the issue is to convince the people that they need laws for the country to run properly and smoothly, and second is to explain to the people that the educated elite will not receive too much power. This will be achieved by giving each branch the power to overrule one another. For example, the legislative branch can impeach the president and Supreme Court, the president vetoes laws and nominates the Supreme Court, and the Supreme Court declares laws and acts unconstitutional. This way, not one single branch will be the main source of government.

As our nation’s history has shown we have made mistakes in our past and been forced to learn from those mistakes. We have taken certain ideas and beaten them to death at times. The members of the constitutional convention of 1787 did the same thing as they were trying to decide what should be written in the constitution and how the government should be structured. Many plans were presented and rejected as the members argued until finally a great compromise was made and the structure our government for finally started to take shape.

Madison’s idea of a division between central and state governments is compound. A “compound” is two or more pieces. The two pieces that fabricate Madison’s compound government is the “central” federal government and state government. Another word for this compound government is federalism. This compound government provides “double security” to the people because the governments (state and federal) check and balance each other so that one doesn’t get too powerful. Power given to the states have smaller influences i.e. that the state only impact the states, is patterned in the power the Constitution reserved for the state governments. Federalism guards against tyranny by dividing power between groups so that no one group has more control and power. James Madison, in the Federalist Paper #47, says “The accumulation of all powers, Legislative, Executive, and Judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self-appointed, or elective, may be justly pronounced the very definition of tyranny....(L)iberty requires that the three great departments of power should be separate and distinct.” The main idea of Madison’s quote is that accumulative powers should be separate yet distinct. Madison hints towards a possible tyranny in a democracy because the “accumulation of all powers....whether of one ...and

With the creation of the Articles remained the lack of a strong central authority to resolve disputes between the states. To organize the states for the collective good, including the organization of a militia, was crucial to the development of the Constitutional Convention (Hamilton et al., 2008). The aftermath of Shay’s Rebellion reinforced the fears of national leaders about the dangers of ineffective state governments and of popular democracy out of control. In the climate of economic turmoil and repressions, the Philadelphian convention was conned to prescribe solutions to the Articles of Confederation. Although the initial thought was instructing delegates to propose revisions for the Articles of Confederation, instead, they wrote an entirely new constitution instead (Hamilton et al., 2008)

Following the United States’ independence from Great Britain, the Articles of Confederation were formed in order to hold the country together politically. The Articles proved inefficient, as Congress couldn’t collect taxes or regulate interstate commerce, the government couldn’t raise an army, there was no national currency and most importantly, there was no central government. But the spark that triggered Americans’ realization that they needed to call a constitutional convention happened after an event in Massachusetts in 1786, called Shays’ Rebellion.

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,

The Constitutional Convention of 1787 and the subsequent ratification of the constitution proved to be a more significant event in American political history than the Declaration of Independence. Many of the american leaders believed we needed to a new, stronger government. They had to persuade the states that stronger government was the right direction to ensure the country’s success.They did that with the constitutional convention but, To sway the states in the right direction documents such as the Federalist papers led the states to ratify the new U.S. Constitution. Which then led to the U.S. Constitution that we still live by to the day.

Colonists tried their best to get away from King George III, a tyrant, by organizing different kinds of protests. In 1787, fifty-five delegates met in Philadelphia to fix the current government system. The problem was that the existing government, the Articles of Confederation, was too weak. The Articles of Confederation did not provide a chief executive, a court system, or any way to force a state to pay taxes. A new constitution was needed to pull the nation together.

With the concept of majority tyranny in mind, the founder’s, including Madison, divided the power of the government into three different branches. The need

One way the constitution guards against tyranny is federalism. In Document A it states the central government has enough power to help the country's major needs. The power given to the states is broad enough for their needs; the state's needs are more specific than the central governments. “The different governments will each control each other, at the same time that each will be controlled by itself.” What James Madison is saying is the states and central

In the year of 1787, delegates met in Philadelphia to write the constitution. Tyranny, a type of government with an absolute ruler, was a fear. Central and State governments are Madison’s compound of government. The two governments are federalism and federalism guards against federalism by giving each government equal powers (Document A). James Madison wanted to make the three (legislative, executive, and judicial) branches to have equal power.

In the book “A Brilliant Solution: Inventing the American Constitution” by Carol Berkin she explains the constitution from start to finish from how it all began, to the debates inside the convention and finally the end product. Berkin takes the reader and puts him directly in the middle of the convention of 1786; throughout the book you can feel the excitement, the frustration, the tensions between delegates and the overall commitment to making a new government work for all.

By the late eighteenth century, America found itself independent from England; which was a welcomed change, but also brought with it, its own set of challenges. The newly formed National Government was acting under the Articles of Confederation, which established a “firm league of friendship” between the states, but did not give adequate power to run the country. To ensure the young nation could continue independently, Congress called for a Federal Convention to convene in Philadelphia to address the deficiencies in the Articles of Confederation. While the Congress only authorized the convention to revise and amend the Articles the delegates quickly set out to develop a whole new Constitution for the country. Unlike the Articles of

Madison is trying to point out that the power of the government needs to be spread out and that there needs to be checks and balances. There needs to be checks and balances in order to prevent one branch of government from gaining too much power and making decisions on its own. John Dalberg-Acton said “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely." as quoted in Letters of Thomas Jefferson Concerning Philology and the Classics, Volume 137