The United States of America was established on July 4th, 1776 liberating itself from British rule. Alongside it grew in many aspects but also needed to improve others. Living off the British before, the U.S. now had to start making “independent” decisions as an “independent” nation. The United States of America suffered from political, economic, and diplomatic crises throughout the 1780s shaping provisions of the United States Constitution. The American Revolution was shadowed by an unembellished economic depression in 1784 and 1785, forcing many states to execute charges on goods from other states to raise up the governments revenue. State governments in the 1780’s did not embrace public rule and wanted separation of powers. The …show more content…
Once the Constitution was ratified, the control of funding and repayment of the debt passed to the federal government. During the Philadelphia convention multiple compromises were made, the Great Compromise being one of them. The Great Compromise benefited both the small states and the larger states, by setting up a two-house legislature. Before that the smaller states had proposed the New Jersey plan which was made up of a one house legislature with an equal amount of representation. Larger states of course thought it was unfair so they proposed the Virginia plan. The Virginia plan was made up of a two-house legislature, lower house being elected by the people and the upper house elected by the lower house. The Great compromise unified both ideas and established the two-house legislature, the lower house still elected by the people but the upper house now elected by the state legislatures to give states equal representation. Slaves were of much discussion and had to be decided on whether they should be counted as population or as property. They believed slaves should get some sort of representation because the impact how much people come into a colony. Larger, southern states wanted them to be counted at
Gasca Garcia 3 population for representation, while smaller states wanted them to be counted at property for taxation. The compromise made was the
“While the authors of the United States Constitution are frequently portrayed as noble and idealistic statesmen who drafted a document based upon their conception of good government, reality is that the constitution reflects the politics of the drafting and ratification process. Unfortunately, the result is a document that is designed to produce an ineffective government, rather than a government that can respond to issues in a timely fashion.” In support of this conclusion, the issues of slavery, The 1906 San Francisco Earthquake, and the civil rights struggle keenly demonstrate the ways in which our constitution hinders the expediency and effectiveness of America’s government. The constitution’s provisions towards voting eligibility and
The problem of each state’s number of seats in the House of Representatives became a major issue when the Constitution was being drafted in 1787. The population of slaves would be counted as three-fifths in total when apportioning Representatives, as well as Presidential electors and taxes. The Three-Fifths Compromise was proposed by James Wilson and Roger Sherman, who were both delegates for the Constitutional Convention of 1787. Initially, taxes were levied not in accordance to the population numbers, but the actual value of the land. This would provide the slaveholders to have many more seats in the House of Representatives and much more representation within the Electoral College. It was James Madison that would suggest the Three-Fifths Compromise to be made .
Back then England ruled the U.S which was the reason why people wanted to move away because the king was a bad ruler which taxed them and was a tyrant. He was a tyrant because he wanted all the power for himself and didn't want anyone to be involved. A tyranny is a person or group which has too much power in their hands. The articles of confederation was the first written constitution of the U.S written 1787.The reason why they needed a new constitution was because it was going to fix the problems of the articles of Confederation by creating a stronger government.
To begin with, The Great Compromise of 1787. Overall it was an agreement between the large and small states during the 1787 constitutional convention. Large states wanted the Virginia plan while small states wanted the New Jersey plan. The Virginia Plan called for a bicameral legislature, which meant that the number of representatives in each house would depend on the population of the state. However, the New Jersey Plan called for a unicameral legislature, meaning each state would receive one vote. There was only one thing each agreed with, both called for a strong national government with 3 branches. Small states
Some of the large states wanted to have greater representation due to their population while the small states wanted all the
[The great compromise is an agreement between the big states and the large states stating that in the house of representatives it is based on population big states liked this but in the senate each state has 2 and small states liked this.] [Doc D is an excerpt from the constitution. ] It is about the Great Compromise. According to Doc D “ Representatives… shall be apportioned.... According to population.
That is why there were many compromises during this time. The most famous of the compromises was the Great compromise. The Great Compromise took both the Virginia and New Jersey Plans and met in the middle. This was the start of the constitution and our new government plan. The argument was between large states and small states. The large states wanted to base representatives by population while the small states wanted all representation to be equal between states. Eventually James Madison with Benjamin Franklin’s help would come up with the Virginia Plan. The Virginia Plan stated that we were to have a bicameral government that consisted of the House of Representatives, that was based on population (what the large sates wanted), and the Senate, where all states had the same number of representatives. (What the small wanted.) with this bicameral government and the House of Representatives there comes another problem, how do we count slaves? Because the amount of representatives a state was given was based on their population any state with slaves obviously wanted slaves to count towards their population and any state that didn’t have slaves didn’t want them to count towards the population. The two sides in this argument were the North and the South. The South were the ones that wanted to have slaves count towards the population and the
When forming the United States constitution the founding fathers of America disagreed on many issues and had to make compromises. One such compromise which called for some representation based on population in the lower house the House of Representatives and equal representation in the upper house the senate. (Text book pg. 163). This was a compromise because it combined how less populated states wanted equal representation with how states with large populations, especially states in the southern slave’s states, wanted representation based on population (Text book pg. 162). In order to get members of the Anti-Federalist party to ratify the constitution it was necessary to pass the 10th Amendment that compose the Bill of Rights in
`Great Compromise is first and the key compromise in united states constitution, which was facing a major issue like state represented by congress for two plans. There were two plans get together name also Connecticut compromise as well as those plans made legislative branch that bicameral two-house representative which each state representative of proportion in the state’s population and size. For example, large population has more representative small has less represented. One plan was the Virginia plan which represented by population and another one was the New Jersey plan which was made equal
It established a strong central government but protected state autonomy and rights. The new plan of government divided power equally between the central government and the states. The Constitution created 3 branch's executive, judicial and legislative. Powers were shared between the states and central government. The national government had the power to tax and regulate trade. After a lengthy debate, three major compromises were decided that shaped the foundation of the U.S. Constitution. The first of the compromises was The Connecticut Compromise or better known as the Great Compromise. The Virginia Plan wanted representation based on the population of each state and the New Jersey Plan wanted equal representation for every state. It then decided that there would be two chambers in Congress: the Senate and the House of Representatives. The Senate would be based on equal representation and the House would be based on population.The Second of the Compromises was the Three-Fifths Compromise. This compromise was between southern and northern states in which each slave counted as three-fifths of a person in order to determine representation and taxation for the federal government. Lastly, the Slave Trade Compromise was what the north and south worked out which forbade Congress from banning the slave trade for 20 years. For the North, this meant the slave trade hypothetically
Compare the strengths and weaknesses of the Articles of confederation to those of the Constitution. Which document did a better job at protecting liberties? Running a government? Explain your answer with specific examples.
The big issue of the contention at the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia in 1787 has how the states would be in the new Congress, represented. During this time, under the Articles Of Confederation, each state was, in Congress, given a single vote, which gave each state equal power. Since some states, however, like Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Massachusetts had much larger populations than the other states, this system was not preferred by many. Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Massachusetts, with their much larger populations, were clearly in favor of this form of representation. And joining them in the fight were the Carolinas and Georgia, whose populations were not at the time very big yet, but their land areas were very sizable and also
No later than July, the delegates eagerly Roger Sherman’s Connecticut Compromise, which were established in September. The Connecticut Compromise established the representatives to be depended on by population. But the senates are to be of equal number between each state. However, there was still a problem that no one seemed to touch on. The states started wondering how to count slaves in their society, both in representation and taxes. That is when another situation occurred between the North and South. The North only saw slaves as property, not seeing why they should ever be counted in representation. On the other hand, the South wanted slaves to be equal to them and wanted the slaves to be counted with their population. The House then decided to make the three/fifths Compromise, stating the three fifths of the African Americans will count in representation of each state. The next issue they had was how were they to select presidents. The government could see that the rivalry between the larger and smaller states was still burning. They decided to the first Electoral Colleges in America. There was finally satisfaction between larger and smaller states by allowing each states’ number of Electors to be based on each number of senates and
The US Constitution states “We The People of the United states in order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, ensure domestic Tranquility, provide for more common defense, promote the General Welfare, and secure the blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.” The main purpose of the U.S Constitution is to establish the basic rights of all American Citizens. This follows that every United States Citizens have equal rights. Belonging to a minority group because of culture, religion or race does not assert that one is unconstitutional. In times of war, evacuation of minority groups only in NOT constitutional; however, evacuation of ALL United
issues of all kind. The country I was born in did not guarantee freedom of