The Pros And Cons Of The Constitutional Convention

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The Constitutional Convention met in Philadelphia, on May 25, 1787. Most of the delegates were from the upper classes of American society. The most famous delegate, George Washington, was “unanimously elected president” of the Convention (Cassel, 1994. P. 119). Originally, the delegates intended to revise the Articles, however their debates resulted in a whole new constitution. The main goal was to create an effective federal government, while safeguarding individual liberties. The debates were heated and there were several divisions, however three key compromises made the Constitution possible. The first issue was about giving fair representation to both large and small states. James Madison’s, Virginia Plan proposed to create a Congress with …show more content…

This plan called for “a revision of the Articles” and not a replacement, giving each state equal representation, but the federal government could not veto the actions of the state (Cassel, 1994. P. 127). This fierce debate ended when Roger Sherman suggested the Great Compromise, also called the Connecticut Plan, to satisfy both large and small states. This plan called for a legislature with two houses A House of Representatives which would appease larger states by giving more representatives for states that had larger populations. The second house, the Senate would give equal representatives to all state by giving each state exactly two Senators. According to Whittington (2017), the constitution was ultimately approved after it was agreed that “all bills dealing with revenue would originate in the House of Representatives; but the Senate may propose or concur with Amendments as on other Bills.” Sherman’s plan is what allowed creation of the Constitution to move forward and break a standoff that would have been detrimental to the development of the new

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