The Constitution and Individual Rights
In the 1780s, many people agreed that the Articles of Confederation were not a strong enough plan of government for a newly born nation. Even though The Articles of Confederation won the Revolutionary War, there were many problems with the plan of government. The Articles of Confederation was made to prevent a strong national government and it only gave each state one vote in the Confederation Congress. It could not raise money and it only had one branch, the Legislature. In 1786, delegates from each state went to Philadelphia to draft a new Constitution for the United States.
Fifty-five delegates came to Philadelphia convinced that the defects of the Articles of Confederation were so serious it would be better not to use them as a starting point. James Madison created a plan a government known as the Virginia plan. Under this plan, the national government would have the power to make and enforce its own laws, and to collect its own taxes. Two governments, the state and the national government would govern every citizen. The plan also included a Congress and three branches: the legislative, executive, and the judicial.
Even though the Virginia plan barely passed, there were many disagreements to building the new constitution. Some issues were about the Bill of Rights, representation, and the presidency. After arguing and debating about these issues for some quite time, it's no surprise that the Constitution of 1789 is known as a "Bundle of Compromises."
Article I of the Constitution deals with the legislative branch. The main debate in this area was about representation. The basis for the Virginia plan was proportional representation. The principle of proportional representation ...
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...y Federalists argued that a Bill of Rights weren't necessary. The Federalists stated that certain right were already included in the Constitution, such as ex post facto, no bills of attainder, and the writ of habeas corpus. After ten months of debating, an agreement to pass a Bill of Rights at the first Congress would be one of the first issues of business.
The Bill of Rights grants every individual in country certain right that cannot be denied, such as due process, right to religion, and the right to bear arms.
With the three branches and separation of powers, the checks and balances of our government are enforced while serving majority need of this country. The executive branch runs the national interest, the Senate runs the states' interest, the House of Representatives run the local interest, and the judiciary runs the fundamental interests of our nation.
The Bill of Rights is the first ten amendments in the constitution. Both the Senate and the House of Representatives use the Bill of Rights as a benchmark for all laws. It has to do with freedom of religion, speech, assembly, and press. It also secures the right to carry a gun, protection against housing soldiers in civilian homes, and more. The Bill of Rights protects various aspects of a free life. Americans live under the protection of the Bill of Rights on a daily basis. Without it, everyone in the U.S. would live restricted lives; no one would be able to petition the government, have a speedy trials, or even be informed of charges. There would also be unreasonable
...However the large states were not satisfied with their plan either, so a third plan was made, The Great Compromise. In other words the Connecticut Compromise (The Great Compromise) happened, it mixed the ideas of the two and was passed by a one-vote margin. The plan consists of proportional representation in The House of Representatives and equal representation in The Senate, as well as adding separation of powers to the mix. It was highly important and crucial to the success of the new constitution.
Several delegates submitted plans for consideration that would strengthen the national government two such plans were the Virginia and the New Jersey Plan. Despite much of Virginia’s plan being accepted, if a compromise had not been reached the New Jerseys plan would have been more workable because it offered: equal representation of the states, provided operational means to congress, and was not a radical departure from the Articles of the Confederation. To begin with the unequal representation of the states in the Virginia Plan was of great concern and controversy while the New Jersey Plan retained equal representation of the states. Virginia proposed a bicameral legislature that included elections by the people and appointments by those elected.
The Americans after obtaining independence from England needed to establish a form of government. Before the war had ended, the Second Congress of the Confederation called for the drafting of a new government in order to govern this new country, which the Articles of Confederation established. The Articles of Confederation built a government solely based off republican ideals, such as civic virtue, the idea that the states and the people will make sacrifices to the common good in order to benefit everybody. Relying on civic virtue did not pull through as successful for the young country. The Articles of Confederation shone through as successful in organizing and establishing states in the Old Northwest, spreading republican ideals; however, the success of the Articles of Confederation was trumped by its failures. The Articles of Confederation failed to provide a new and young United States with an effective government in its inability to collect tax revenue to pay debts, controlling the mobocratic uprising of upset factions, and dealing with foreign policies; additionally, the failure of the Articles of Confederation revealed the inefficiency and failure of republicanism.
At the convention, the founders were debating about how many representatives in the Congress should each state allowed to have. For example, James Madison, who came from Virginia, one of the larger states, suggested that representation should be proportional to the state’s population (Hart et al. 109-110). Coming from a state with larger population had influenced Madison’s proposal, for he reasoned that since Virginia has a large population of people, so more representatives are needed to represent more people. However, the states with a smaller population disagreed with this proposal and came up with a proposal that would counter Madison’s proposal. Paterson, who came from New Jersey, one of those states with smaller population, proposed a plan in which equal number of people should be elected from each state for representation in the Congress (Hart et al. 109-110). It was evident to see how coming from a smaller state had affected Paterson’s proposal, for he feared
The year of 1776 was a time of revolution, independence, and patriotism. American colonists had severed their umbilical cord to the Mother Country and declared themselves “Free and Independent States”.1 The chains of monarchy had been thrown off and a new government was formed. Shying away from a totalitarian government, the Second Continental Congress drafted a document called the Articles of Confederation which established a loose union of the states. It was an attempt at self-government that ended in failure. The Articles of Confederation had many defects which included a weak central government that lacked the power to tax, regulate trade, required equal representation and a unanimous vote to amend the Articles, and had only a legislative branch. As a result the United States lacked respect from foreign countries. These flaws were so severe that a new government had to be drafted and as a result the Constitution was born. This document remedied the weak points of the federal government and created one that was strong and fair, yet still governed by the people.
In response to the Virginia Plan, William Patterson created the New Jersey Plan (sometimes called the Patterson Plan) in order to give an even amount of vote throughout the colonies. It was also based on the Articles of Confederation, or “it was a proposal to ‘revise’ the Articles of Confederation”. This was the original constitution for the government that was supposed to follow after the Revolutionary War. The document generally stated that the Congress should be able to create taxes. The Congress should also be allowed to “regulate and interstate commerce”. The executive and judicial branch would be created under the New Jersey Plan. The executive branch was able to choose the members of the judicial branch, who then would serve for life. The New Jersey Plan also stated that there should be equal vote throughout the states, or each state should have the same amount of the vote as all the other states. The document also stated that ...
The Articles of Confederation was America’s first constitution. The Articles of Confederation failed to create a strong central government, however. With the demise of the states in sight, the need for a stronger and more structured central government became apparent. An invitation was sent to all thirteen states in February 1787 by the Confederation Congress to resolve the matter. The events that took place over the next several months would create the United States Constitution. Going down in history as a revolutionary form of government, the U.S. Constitution would give life to a country that is still running strong over 200 years later.
The Articles of Confederation were developed after the Revolutionary War, and were a good idea to help set standards for America. However, they had some major problems that needed to be solved in order for America to become a strong nation. After these problems were addressed the Constitution was developed.
...e protection of individual liberties as well as the expression of self interest were of the highest importance when creating the Constitution and a new system of government. The idea of separation of powers along with checks and balances, coupled with an encouraged environment of expression eventually led to the ratification of the Constitution with a Bill of Rights in 1791 and the birth of dual federalism.
Held in Philadelphia in 1789 between the months of May and September, the historical Constitutional Convention took place. The point of this event was to address the issues the young government was facing governing the new country. A new federal system was drawn up and known as the Virginia Plan. The Virginia Plan created two houses of federal government. One house would have representatives that were directly elected by the citizens and the second house would consist of representatives who were “chosen by the first house from nominations made by the state assemblies” (148).
When the Articles of Confederation were established, the main goal for the leaders who were composing them, was for the articles to unify the 13 colonies by having each state act as its own type of governed self. The purpose of the Articles of Confederation was to create strong states where each one had its own, "sovereignty, freedom, and independence," as explained in the article, "Why the Articles of Confederation failed." Leaders of the government, under the Articles of Confederation, feared the new plan because the new plan had only one, strong, central government instead of several strong states as a government. The Articles of Confederation leaders’ intention in creating the document was to have several smaller state governments with
In the summer of 1787, delegates from the 13 states convened in Philadelphia and drafted a remarkable blueprint for self-government, the Constitution of the United States. The first draft set up a system of checks and balances that included a strong executive branch, a representative legislature and a federal judiciary. The Constitution was remarkable, but deeply flawed. For one thing, it did not include a specific declaration, or bill, of individual rights. It specified what the government could do but did not say what it could not do. For another, it did not apply to everyone. The "consent of the governed" meant propertied white men only. The Bill of Rights did not come from a desire to protect the liberties won in the American Revolution, but rather from a fear of the powers of the new federal government.
The first proposals to this new plan were the Virginia Plan and the New Jersey Plan. The Virginia Plan called for a separation of powers among the government’s three branches: executive, legislative, and judicial. Some states proposed this idea and came up with the New Jersey Plan, which called for all of the states to have equal representation from Congress. In order to move forward from the deadlock of the two proposals, the Connecticut Compromise was enacted. This decided that legislature would be bicameral, which meant that there would be two houses: one would have equal representation and one would be based on state population. This unified the states under a federal system. To this day, there are three types of Fe...
The completion of the United States Constitution was no easy task. The Articles of Confederation that were written by each state were not reliable enough to work for the whole country so leaders from almost every state met secretly to work on them. They realized it would be easier to come up with a new document creating a government stronger than what had been proposed. In the Articles of Confederation, the states wanted a general government, but the leaders came up with a federal government. The federal government was the stronger option and contained three branches. It still gave the states the rights they were wanting and allowed the government to make decisions about important factors such as taxing and treaties. The Constitution was well