Constitutional Convention The beginnings of the Convention (pre-constitution) began when Governor Edmund Randolph of Virginia presented and defended a plan for a new structure of government (called the "Virginia Plan") that had been chiefly drafted by fellow Virginia delegate, James Madison. The Virginia Plan called for a strong national government with both branches of the legislative branch apportioned by population. The plan gave the national government the power to legislate "in all cases in which the separate States are incompetent" and even gave a proposed national Council of Revision a veto power over state legislatures. Delegates from smaller states, and states less sympathetic to broad federal powers, opposed many of the provisions in the Virginia Plan. Charles Pinckney of South Carolina asked whether proponents of the plan "meant to abolish the State Governments altogether." On …show more content…
New powers were granted to Congress to regulate the economy, currency, and the national defense, but provisions which would give the national government a veto power over new state laws was rejected. At the insistence of delegates from southern states, Congress was denied the power to limit the slave trade for a minimum of twenty years and slaves--although denied the vote and not recognized as citizens by those states--were allowed to be counted as 3/5 persons for the purpose of apportioning representatives and determining electoral votes. Most importantly, perhaps, delegates compromised on the thorny issue of apportioning members of Congress, an issue that had bitterly divided the larger and smaller states. Under a plan put forward by delegate Roger Sherman of Connecticut ("the Connecticut Compromise"), representation in the House of Representatives would be based on population while each state would be guaranteed an equal two senators in the new
The Virginia Plan was a plan drafted by James Madison and was presented by Edmund Randolf. It was presented to the Constitutional Convention on May 29, 1787. According to the plan, a strong central government had three branches: legislative, judicial, and executive. The plan also proposed two houses: the first one had members elected by the people for three-year terms; the second one had older leaders elected by the state legislatures for seven-year terms. The role of the plan was important for “setting the stage for the convention.”
Final Exam Part I: QA2 The Virginia Plan a New Constitution The Virginia Plan proposed a new Constitution designed as a republic and a strong national government. The most distinguished feature of the plan created structural changes as well as delegated sovereignty to the Federal government and the people. This transfer of power diminished the role of the States in the national government. The Virginia Plan structurally replaced the unicameral Congress by separating federal power among three branches of government, a bicameral legislature, an executive and a judiciary.
Daron Kozian Professor Hamman POLS 001 03/13/2017 Constitutional Convention The Virginia plan was written by James Madison on May 29, 1787. The Virginia plan proposed a strong central government. The government consisted of three branches: legislative, executive, and judicial. The Virginia plan favored the large states. The congress would make decisions according to state population votes.
Ernst 24). The plan included 15 proposals and traced the outline of what would become the United States Constitution. In addition to the bicameral legislature, the plan also requested that the government be separated into three branches, the executive, legislative, and judicial. Virginia’s plan also would have given…” congressional representation in both chambers of Congress according to each state’s population, which would have given larger states like Virginia greater political representation” (Frantzich, Stephen E.; Howard R. Ernst 24).
Many Americans grew upset with the Confederation government. So Alexander Hamilton a lawyer and General’s Aid to George Washington decided to change the Articles of the Confederation. He called on the National Convention to overhaul the document. He requested that Congress call upon all of the states to attend a gathering in Philadelphia. George Washington was the first to arrive in Philadelphia giving the large amounts of creditability for the meeting bringing 55 men from all of the states.
In May 25, 1787, a convention was called in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to express the purpose of revising the Articles of Confederation. However, the intention from many delegates was to draft a new constitution; create a new government rather than fix the existing one. Rhode Island was the only one of the 13 original states to refuse to send delegates to the Constitutional Convention. At the Convention, the first issues they had to address was the representation in Congress.
Governor Edmund Randolph of Virginia proposed the “Virginia Plan”, which[Proposed] for a new form of government and called for the number of votes each state received in Congress to be based on population rather than each state receiving one vote” (Kelly Munson). The Virginal Plan also favored a bicameral legislature, which was intended to favor the bigger states because representation in both houses would be based on population. To counter this plan, William Patterson proposed the “New Jersey Plan”. Patterson’s proposal favored “the idea of a unicameral legislature in which all states would have an equal number of votes” (U.S. History). In order to resolve the dispute between the bigger states, majority rule, and the smaller states, minority rights, a compromise was
The result of this victory enabled the following event to transpire: the Constitutional Convention. In 1787, four years after the American Revolution ended, George Washington and fellow influential people met in Philadelphia. The before them was imperative to the newly independent nation’s success. The newly formed Government needed to replace the Articles of Confederation, which had been hastily put together after the American Revolution. There needed to be a permanent and binding document that would unify the states as opposed to individual state power.
The Articles of Confederation structured the first government of the thirteen states. The thirteen states included: Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Georgia, Connecticut, New Hampshire, Virginia, New York, Maryland, Massachusetts, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Rhode Island. However, Rhode Island did not vote to revise the Articles right away. Therefore, the proposals of the Constitution continued to be declined by the other states due to not having a balance on votes. When Rhode Island finally sent a representative to the Constitution Convention, the Constitution was approved.
His New Jersey Plan was a counter proposal to the Virginia Plan. Less populated states strongly contradict giving power of national government control to states that are highly populated, which resulted to a legislative body from the Articles of Confederation to represent one-vote-per state. With a legislative representative there would be more authority. The single legislative chamber of the New Jersey Plan, was originated from the Article of Confederation. The issue of the size of the state and state’s fairness idle the
During and immediately after the Revolutionary War, the founding Fathers of America sought to establish a republic on a scale never seen before and to do so had to experiment with new laws and political ideas. Though it was obvious that the first law of the land, The Articles of Confederation, were too weak for the new nation, the development of the new constitution in the late 1780s sparked fierce political debates over the power of the new central government. Even during the debate over the new constitution, it was merely political factions fighting over ideas of government. It would not be until Washington’s first term in office that actual political parties emerged. It was the differences between Secretary of Treasury, Alexander Hamilton,
After the countless debates, the Great Compromise was what the convention would come into agreement with representation by population in the House of Representatives “The number of Representatives shall not exceed one for every thirty thousand, but each state shall have at least one Representative. ”(add footnote) The smaller states were pleased with equal representation in the Senate “The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senates from each state and each Senator shall have one vote.”(add
The constitution was a collaboration project where several different people and ideologies worked together to form a fair and just government in the colonies. Due to the large number of different ideas battling for dominance within the formation of this new government, compromise had to be made. This level of compromise allows the modern interpreter to find the existence, both in large and small ways, of the ongoing battle in regard to individual and civil rights in every part of the document. These contributors had very different ideas about the concept of ‘rights’ and more specifically, their ideal level of priority within a society. Locke, Rousseau, Paine, Dickinson, Madison and Blackstone all had varying ideas of what this balance should
One of the compromises made in the Constitutional Convention is the three-fifths compromise. In this compromise, the southerners wanted to add slaves to the population of the state they lived in. If slaves were included in their state’s population, that state would be able to add more representatives in the House of Representatives. Northerners did not agree with that statement because slaves did not have the right to vote. After the delegates compromised, they agreed that only three-fifths of the slave’s population would be counted into the state’s population.
The Virginia plan was 15 proposals. The Governor of Virginia Edmund Randolph was the one who had the ideas of the plan. The Virginia plan outlined the states for a new form of government. They wanted one national government that would enforce laws and collect taxes from the people. The larger states were in favor for this plan yet the smaller states were not as supportive.