Yes, the Constitutional Convention of 1787 was essential to preserve the Union, as the Articles of Confederation did a meager job establishing a stable America. Only a handful of people from the entire nation were pleased with the issues addressed in the Articles of Confederation. This document didn’t unite the nation, but created more differences among the people. The Articles of Confederation failed to properly allocate power between Congress and the states, giving the states supreme control, rather than Congress. This unbalance in society left each individual state on their own, besides the alliances they could form within each other (creating even more rifts within the country). The Congress didn’t hold the power to tax or create a national military, navy, and army, which didn’t allow America to strengthen as a nation. By vesting these powers in the state, the Articles of Confederation technically created thirteen small countries. After the Revolution, the United States became even more susceptible to foreign invaders and if a minute state militia was responsible for warding off these trespassers, the state would be easily attacked. This is just once consequence that could have occurred, if the Constitution of 1787 wasn’t accepted. The Constitution bestowed essential powers to the nation, without which, America would crumble. Under this newly created document, three different branches of government were created: the judiciary, the legislative, and the executive. The legislative was composed of Congress, which now had the power to create a military, control interstate and international commerce, and create laws. The Judicial branch was the Supreme Court, which would review the decision of the President (in the executive branch... ... middle of paper ... ...ge was created, to voice the people’s opinion and maintain distance from mob rule. Having members in the country’s capital vote based on their state’s decision enables the country to not suffer the fate of being controlled by a radical crowd. Now, the question of slave representation became an issue for the delegates at the Constitutional Convention. The southern states wanted the slave population to have a say, while the northern states were dead against counting something that was bought as property, to be counted as a person. By counting slaves, the representation of the south in Congress would increase, allowing plantation owners to have the most say with the country’s decisions. Overtime, the north had to create the Three-Fifths Compromise with slaves (giving each slave three-fifths of a vote), since the South threatened to cut off the North’s food supply.
At the time, larger states like Virginia were creating an unfair amount of power for themselves that the small states didn’t have. In the new government, Congress was created to make laws, and was made up of the House of Representatives and the Senate. The House of Representatives would give states a number of Representatives they could have based on their population. This would give fair power deserved to the larger states. The Senate however would be two and only two Senators for each state, no matter how large or small, bringing some equality to Congress.
There wasn’t any judicial branch, but Congress had the authority to arbitrate disputes between states. Congress was responsible for conducting foreign affairs, declaring war or peace, maintaining an army and navy and a variety of other lesser functions. But the articles denied Congress the power to collect taxes, regulate interstate commerce and enforce laws. Because of this, the central government had to request donations from the states to finance its operations and raise armed forces. The states attempted to limit the power of the national government because they feared that it would become a monarchy.
In one house, the Senate, every state is represented equally regardless of population. In the lower house, the House of Representatives each state receives one representative for a set number of people. This satisfied all of the states and helped resolve one of the greatest conflicts while writing the Constitution. Another conflict that arose was with the counting of slaves in the census used to set the number of representatives per state. This was resolved under the Three-Fifths Compromise which stated that every slave would be counted as 3/5 of a person, although these slaves were given no voice or rights.
Therefore, in 1787, two delegates by the names of Roger Sherman and James Wilson introduced the Three Fifths compromise in the Philadelphia Convention. The Three Fifths compromise states that a slave be counted as three-fifths of a person. Therefore, the population of the southern states equaled the population of the northern states. Now that the populations were balanced, the south and the north sent the same amount of representatives to The House of Representatives. Pro-slavery southerners felt as if the north still had an advantage, but it was actually the south that had the advantage in the Senate and The House of Rep...
These compromises are found in four main places within the Constitution. The first is the three-fifths compromise, which detailed how slaves would influence the population of each state for the purpose of determining representation and taxation. Located in Article 1, Section 2 of the Constitution the compromise states that three-fifths of the slave population would be counted for enumeration purposes (Dolbeare, 71). This compromise was important for the Southern states, whose populations consisted of large numbers of slaves, because without it they would have a significant smaller number of representatives in the House. Article 1, Section 9 of the Constitution prohibit...
Out of frustration with the British monarchy during the colonial period the original legal framework The Articles of Confederation was born in an effort of mobilizing and organizing the United states original thirteen colonies. The Articles of Confederation forced the amendment process for federal laws to be unanimous, had no executive, encouraged a loose association of states and required a two-thirds majority for the passage of federal bills. Before inception of the Articles all American activities deemed insurgent to the Crown of England were viewed the same way we would view terrorist today. These were looked on as rebellious actions acting autonomous of a sovereign government. Thus, the revolutionary forces in the United States couldn’t
Before the adoption of the United States Constitution, the U.S. was governed by the Articles of Confederation. These articles stated that almost every function of the government was chartered by the legislature known as Congress. There was no distinction between legislative or executive powers. This was a major shortcoming in how the United States was governed as many leaders became dissatisfied with how the government was structured by the Articles of Confederation. They felt that the government was too weak to effectively deal with the upcoming challenges. In 1787, an agreement was made by delegates at the Constitutional Convention that a national judiciary needed to be established. This agreement became known as The Constitution of the United States, which explicitly granted certain powers to each of the three branches of the federal government, while reserving other powers exclusively to the states or to the people as individuals. It is, in its own words, “the supreme Law of the Land” (Shmoop Editorial Team).
The primary people that received authorship for the Constitution include, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, Thomas Paine, and John Adams. In addition, George Washington is credited for taking responsibility for overseeing the Constitutional Convention. By 1786, Americans realized that the Articles of Confederation needed to be revised and edited. The Constitutional Convention took place from May 14th to September 17, 1787 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.The fundamental reason of this convention was to revise the Articles of Confederation but the delegates had much bigger plans. A secondary reason behind the convention was to decide how America was going to be governed. When there was ideas proposed to upgrade the Articles of Confederation, “The
Furthermore, the creation of The Constitution caused much debate between the elite and democratic states because they thought that if the Government got all of the power, they would lose their rights. The conflict between the North and South played a major role in the development of this document. The North felt that representation in Congress should be based on the number of total people and South felt that it should be based on number of whites. However, The Three Fifths Compromise settled this when it was said a slave will count as 3/5 of a free person of representatives and taxation. Article one section two of the Constitution defines how the population will be counted, obviously there was a strong opposition to this by Southern states like Virginia because their economy was based on slave labor and they had a bigger population because of it.
The U.S Constitution was signed on September 17, 1787 and established the United States Government. It created three branches of government: Legislative, Executive, and Judicial. James Madison proclaimed, “The constitution proposed by the convention may be considered under two general points of view . . . The second, to the particular structure of the government and the distribution of this power among its several branches” (Madison 251). Some branches were intended to have more important responsibilities. However over time, the branches evolved and the power of the government became more equal. The government when the Constitution was created is vastly different than the modern
If the Articles of Confederation was strong enough for our country, our Founding Fathers would never have proposed the Constitution to the thirteen states. The Articles were a good start for our country, but the Constitution was going to be what kept our country together for the future. In the preamble of the Constitution, it is stated, “We the people, in order to form a more perfect union…”. Nothing is perfect. Not even the Founding Fathers. They created a weak document in the Articles of Confederation. They did, however, fix their mistake by not only writing the Constitution, but convincing the states to have it ratified. The Founding Fathers turned their biggest mistake into their best decision with these two documents.
The American government is truly a carefully crafted literary masterpiece that is a template that other governments strive to follow. That isn't to say it is without flaws but none are as significant as the colossal flop that was The Articles of Confederation. This prerequisite government to The United States of America was a total and complete failure. Its many flaws include: the limited ability to raise an army, the limited ability for revision and change, and lastly it had no power to tax.
The Articles of Confederation was the first U.S constitution that was written during wartime (Moehn, 2003). Its objective was to create cohesion and enhance unity among states in the United States, but fears regarding central authority hampered its progress would bring an English ruling system to the U.S. The articles were inadequate to meet the needs of governing a diverse nation as in the following ways. They granted more power and control to States instead of the central government. This federal government could also not enforce taxes or laws. The federal government could not even gather men and women for the national army, and this inadequacy was portrayed during the Shay's Rebellion as the national army was unable to organize a standing
Essay IV The Articles of Confederation was one of the first official documents of the United States. The purpose of the Articles of Confederation was to create a confederation of states whereby each state retained its sovereignty, freedom, and independence. Every state was as independent as possible, with the Federal government only responsible for the common defense, security of liberties, and the general welfare. There were many problems that soon became evident as the Articles took effect, the Articles contained more weaknesses than strengths which let the authority to get rid of them and create a new document.
what they decided to do was build a system where the powers of each branch would be used to check the powers of the other two branches. With that being said, each of the houses of the legislature could check each other. What that means is both houses of congress must vote to enact laws, the president can veto legislation, and the Supreme Court can rule laws unconstitutional. The constitution that was created had a strong central government and weaker state governments. Congress was given the power to levy taxes, regulate trade between the states, raise an army, control interstate commerce, and more. Also, a three branch government was made that let the judicial branch handle disputes in the federal court, then the president headed an executive