After fighting for so long and hard to secure independence from the British rule, the young United States of America needed to come together to form a strong nation. Having literally sacrificed blood, sweat, and tears to free themselves from the tyrannical oppression of an over-powered central government, the people wanted to ensure that they would not be trading one for another. There needed to exist a means to effect a measure of equality and security for the newly founded country. The Constitution aimed to do just that. Prior to the writing of the Constitution, the only such staples of government existed through the individual states’ constitutions and the Continental Congress’ Articles of Confederation. While each state addressed its own …show more content…
One such heated debate involved the topic of representation in the new government. Under the Articles of Confederation there was a simple “one-state, one-vote” policy (The Articles of Confederation, n.d.). In framing the new Constitution, many of the larger states wanted this to be changed to a proportional concept. The delegates from these states argued that due to their larger areas they contributed in greater amount to the nation than did the smaller states, and should therefore have a greater representation and influence. The Constitutional Convention already agreed that the number of delegates in the House of Representatives, being elected by popular vote, should be in proportion to the number of people they represent. On the other hand, there was much controversy as to how the upper house, the Senate, should be numbered. Many different delegates brought forth plans and ideas, which were debated and time and again rejected. On July 5, 1787 Conneticut delegates Roger Sherman and Oliver Ellsworth presented the “Connecticut Compromise” which took parts from previously offered plans. The plan, which would later be commonly referred to as the “Great Compromise”, conceded to the House of Representatives being structured as noted above, and the Senate being comprised of two delegates per state, regardless of size (1787: A Great Compromise, n.d.). As it was already the idea of the Framers that the Senate be the higher house, with more tenured delegates not so easily influenced by their constituents, and therefore acting more in the interest of the nation, it was argued that all states have equal say in the Senate. This plan underwent quite a lot of debate still before finally being accepted by the smallest possible margin on July 16,
The state representatives often failed to see the big picture, and think with the nation’s best interests first and foremost. Fortunately compromise was found and Roger Sherman brought together the Connecticut Compromise, which focused on settling the large and small state dispute. Only after three fifths and trade compromises could be agreed upon over the major arguments was the constitution made a viable option, and then
The constitution was a large process and is the “Supreme Law of the Land.” There was a separation of powers when the constitution was being created which resulted in the Legislative, Judicial, and Executive branches of government. During this time there was a meeting called the constitutional convention, where twelve of the thirteen colonies showed up. Two plans were debated during this process of creating the constitution, the New Jersey plan and the Virginia plan. Also happening as the constitution was being created and affect the outcome was the Connecticut compromise, where the two house legislature was made, the senate and house of representatives.
The purpose of the Constitution was to establish a central government authorized to deal directly with individuals rather than states and to incorporate a system of checks and balances that would preserve the fundamental concepts contained in the Magna Carta, that is, to limit the power of the government. The first three articles of the Constitution establish the legislative, executive, and judicial branches of government and the country’s system of checks and balances. The balance of power was established vertically through the separation of power between the federal government and the states and laterally through the three branches. In the supremacy clause, the constitution declared itself the supreme law of the land. The U.S. Constitution
A number of different frameworks were considered but the debate quickly centered around two different plans; New Jersey (aka “Little State”) and Virginia (aka ‘big state”). The major difference between the two plans was in how the “votes” of the 13 states (actually 12 since Rhode Island didn’t attend…) would be counted (based upon population or simple equality of states). In the end Connecticut provide a compromise (aka “Great Compromise”) that took the best of both plans and created a federal republic based on a separation of powers, checks and balances, protection of private property, and the interests of
The Articles of Confederation (A.o.C.) was the official government for the United States after independence from Britain. This government was weak, and ineffective. It could not fix the nation's problems which prompted a call for change. The men that changed this government are known are the founding fathers. The founding fathers attended a convention that would be known as our constitutional convention.
The delegates from the smaller states like Rhode Island or Connecticut wanted the representatives for every state to be equal. The Connecticut Compromise had settled this argument by letting the bigger states to have more representatives in the House of Representatives but allowed equal representatives in the Senate. They also discussed slavery, which they had decided to have the states deal with it themselves, without agreeing on this the southern states might not have joined the Union. With this they decided that the slaves would be counted as three-fifths of a person. In september of 1787 the final draft was completed and George Washington was the first person out of 39 to sign it.
The main reason for these compromises was due to all the different theories and opinions pertaining to forming the nation. Disputes between the southern states and the northern states were the most fierce because of their opposing views on slavery. Also, conflict arose over the difference in power between larger states, such as Virginia, New York, and North Carolina, and smaller states, such as Rhode Island, New Jersey, and Massachusetts. “The Great Compromise” was an agreement that both large and small states reached which introduced a bicameral legislature into the federal government. The House of Representatives and the Senate would both share power inside the legislative branch which in turn gave every state a set number of two senators and a varying number of representatives based on population.
The Constitutional compromise between the small and large states is also known as the Connecticut Compromise of 1787. When the Constitution was written it allocated the government to have two separate legislative branches, the House of Representatives and the Senate. However, the Constitution did not write exactly how these two branches of government would be elected. In fact, they put the election part of the two branches of government in the hands of the states. Unfortunately, this began a bigger issue than I believe our forefathers realized, because every state varied in how they elected their government officials.
After their triumph in the American Revolution, colonists came together as one to forge the United States of America and to reorganize the colonies after the war. The Articles of the Confederation were America’s first form of self-government. During the time period in which they were in use, there effectiveness were tested through events dealing with foreign relations, economic conditions and the settlement of western lands. Although the Articles experienced some success in dealing with western land, the general effectiveness of the Articles was poor and created potential problems for the young nation. Under the Articles of Confederation its powers included conducting foreign relations, settling disputes between states, controlling maritime
During the constitutional convention one of the first heated disagreements was between large states and the people who represented the small states. Delegates from Virginia wanted two houses to contain a biameral legislative. Based on the state's population is the number of representatives given to each state. According to page 45, “ In each state representatives in the lower house would be elected by popular vote.” Once representatives are elected by popular vote, than those representatives would be selected.
in place of to the founding of a legislature in which all states regardless of size could be represented equally. With each idea equally incompatible with the mission of the Founding Fathers, the conception of the Great Compromise was developed. Boyer described it as “whereby each state would have an equal vote in the upper house while representation in the lower house would be based on population (Boyer, et al.). On “July 17, 1787” (Boyer, et al.) this two-house compromise concept was agreed upon, and on “September 17, 1787” (Boyer, et al.)
The Articles of Confederation are a huge piece of the United States History as we know it. The Articles of Confederation were the very first constitution that we had in the United States and were spoken into existence and introduced in 1777 and the Articles became actually ratified in 1781. They are most well known for being the precursor to the Constitution, which was what replaced the Articles in 1789. The Articles were written rules that helped distribute power within the states and Congress. The main thing that the Articles of Confederation served as doing as being the “written document that established the functions of the national government of the United States after it declared independence from Great Britain.”
When the people of the United States became dissatisfied with the Articles of Confederation, the delegates came together to write a new document. This document, called the Constitution, formed our new government, and stated the rights and liberties of the people. This document was written over 200 years ago, when America was unstable and each state acted as an independent country, instead of one. The delegates of the Constitutional Convention wanted to create a federal government, to replace the weaker confederation, and give us more powers. Some of these powers are clearly defined in the Constitution, while others could be interpreted as several different meanings depending on the situation.
And how much capital would equal a representative? No matter, thankfully there were 2 more compromises. The Randolph compromise; the two large houses would be population based, and the small house would be equal. And the Morris compromise. In my opinion, and the opinion of the majority, the Morris compromise was far superior to the others.
In the end the constitution was created and within it were several compromises between the large states, a division of authority between the state and federal government, and a system of checks and balances to prevent corruption.