Unifying The Constitution

This document lessened some of those issues and attempted to accommodate the requests of all states. However, Elitist framers manipulated the idea of a constitution in order to protect their economic interests and the interests of their fellow white land and slave owning men' by restricting the voices of women, slaves, indentured servants and others.

At the Constitutional Convention, delegates strongly believed in the rule of the majority, but at the same time delegates wanted to protect minorities from any unjustness done by the majority. In order to do this they separated and balanced out the powers of the national government in different branches. Other basic constitutional aims that rose up at the Constitutional Convention were separation of church and state, rights for individuals and states, ruled by the people {Americans], and supremacy of the national government.

Along with the Constitution we have the Articles of Confederation. Under these Articles congress was a single house where each state had 2 to 7 members but only one vote. They selected executive judges and military officers as well as having power to make war and peace and conduct foreign affairs. The ability to have money Congress could borrow and print money, but they could not collect taxes or enforce laws, precisely it had to rely on the states to provide and enforce. Articles of Confederation was written to be a “framework for the government of the United States, it established a firm league of friendship among the states rather than a government of the people.” (book)

Charles Beard has argued that the Framers of the Constitution were no more than privileged men eager to protect the interests of their class. The participants of the Constitutional Convention were wealthy, property-yielding men that would gain the most from the laws they were invoking (such as property rights, public securities, trade and shipping, and free enterprise)There is evidence that would support Beard's claim of hierarchy in the writing

The Articles of Confederation were a great start to shaping and unifying our country, but it was just that, a “start”. It needed to take the country as a whole into consideration in order for it to hold this unity in place. The Articles of Confederation led to the Constitution of the United States. Although similar in some aspects, very different in others. The articles had many weaknesses that were changed in the Constitution. There were many compromises made between the states in order to effectively draft the Constitution. Roger Sherman’s Plan kept the Constitutional Convention together which was later known as the Great Compromise. The

There were significant differences between the governance system under the articles of confederation and the new constitution. The weaknesses of the later caused bad experiences and the clamor for a new constitution. For instance, under the articles of confederation, congress had no power over interstate or foreign commerce (Constitution Society, n.d). States made their decisions that were not always in the best interest of the whole nation. In addition, all federal laws were enforced by the states because congress did not have the capacity to implement them. The outcome is that some laws were ignored or misinterpreted (Ablavsky, 2014). This paper compares and contrasts the form of governance under the Articles of Confederation

America attained independence, but still had many obstacles that they had to surpass. The thirteen states had thirteen different leaders rather than being one nation. The states were worried about their own problems. When shaping the Confederation, representatives from the states didn’t agree to change their leadership-organized states into a central government. In 1776, the Constitutional Congress constructed a group of people that allowed the states to draft the Articles of Confederation. After much dispute from congress and the addition of amendments, the draft was finally approved to the states for ratification. The Articles of Confederation took many years to be in effect because all thirteen states had to approve it. The Articles went into effect in 1781, but the governmental structure was ineffective

Between the Articles of Confederation and the creation of the Constitution, democracy shifted from a weak central government in favor of sovereignty lying within the states to a stronger national power. The main focus of the Articles had been to ensure a limited national government in which the states, and thus the people, had the majority of the power and could not be forced to do anything. This system of a confederate government ultimately failed as it rarely was able to deal with the rising problems facing this new nation; the result of this failure leading to the creation of the Constitution. Though many were ready to create a new government in which the national had more control than the states, even if that meant losing some power of

The creation of the U.S. Constitution consisted of a series of conflicts and compromises. The competing interests of the central players that created the U.S Constitution had to focus on achievable goals rather than their own political interests. The political process can be conflictual but the process matters. It is essential to implementing decisions in our government, which provides order and our general welfare. Some conflicts that can be seen in the creation of the Constitution are political theories and economic interests. Those compromises made were decisions in balancing majority rule versus minority rights, allocating power between large and small states, as well as national power versus state and local power.

The Articles of Confederation created a unicameral Confederation Congress, with each state having only one vote. On most political matters this legislative body required the approval of 9 out of 13 states to ratify any proposed Congressional intention. In Article 13, the Articles declared that in order to ratify an amendment to the Articles the consent of all 13 states were required . This left the national government, running through the Confederation Congress, powerless and unable to proceed with the most trivial matters of politics. The Confederation Government, under the Articles, lacked an executive and judicial branch. This caused Congress to be severely handicapped when it came to the enforcement of her requests. This lack of an executive, coupled with the Congress’s negated power of taxation, caused a crippling financial difficulties. The Congress, having only enough power to request essential national funds

The delegates of 1787, gathered at a convention in Philadelphia to try and revise the existing government, but almost immediately threw out the Articles of Confederation when an entirely new document emerged. It became the known system called federalism, in which a strong national government with a clear separation of powers between executive, legislative, and judicial branches functioned alongside state governments with clearly designated responsibilities. Along with arguments about how best to ensure the rights of individual states were to be protected and how “the people” would be represented in congress were also resolved by establishing a senate with equal representation for each state, and a House of Representatives for the number of delegates was determined by population counts (Shi 2015 pg. 218). However, many of the delegates during the period of the ratification of the U.S. Constitution had widely different ideas about how each of the independent countries should be organized and run, including George Mason and Ben Franklin.

The new nation was governed by the Articles of Confederation that had been adopted during the Revolution. In March 1781, the Second Continental Congress approved the Articles of Confederation after more than a year of debate. The Articles of Confederation that shaped the first national government of the United

The Constitutional Convention was a meeting presided over by George Washington along with fifty five delegates. The endeavor of addressing and revising the problems of the Articles of Confederation was essential. One of the major problems the nation was experiencing was that the national government was nearly powerless, and the country was in dire need of stability. The Founding Fathers played a significant role in this tedious process of establishing a successful government system. Their goal was to attain power of the people, making the Constitution democratic. The argument of this was allowing the government to have full power. To resolve this, the Constitutional Convention was created as a democratic document, yet a document that is

The constitutional conventions importance is indisputable, it is one of the biggest turning points in history and it is also an event that continues to affect politics to this day. It can’t be ignored, the constitutional convention has such a big historical significance and such a direct impact on America. People have tried to examine the workings behind the constitutional convention and the ratification debate. Many people debate whether the constitutional convention was based on an Idea of “pluralism- a situation in which people of different social classes, religions, races, etc., are together in a society but continue to have their different traditions and interests” or “elitism- leadership or rule by an elite being.”

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