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 first individual to propose a plan was James Madison of Virginia with the Virginia Plan. Several state representatives would propose their plans before the convention, including William Patterson with the New Jersey …show more content…
The state of Massachusetts had several grievances with the document. This was because it failed to mention basic human rights which included issues with press, religion, and freedom of speech. This was the precursor to addition of the Bill of Rights. The document was ratified with a compromise that Massachusetts agreed upon and cautiously ratified by the state. Following the ratification of the constitution by Massachusetts, the remaining states; Maryland, South Carolina, New Hampshire, Virginia, and New York ratified the document. Eleven states had agreed that the Constitution would come into law on March 4th, 1789. In 1789 North Carolina would be the 12th state to ratify the constitution. Rhode Island was the last one to accept the U.S. Constitution and refused to ratify the document. Rhode Island agreed to ratify the Constitution only after the U.S. Government had threatened them, they were the last state to join the United States formally. The Bill of Rights was added to the Constitution, with 12 amendments, 10 of them being accepted by the states in
Before the U.S. Constitution there was the Articles of Confederation. The document could declare war, negotiate treaties, and control foreign affairs. It couldn’t enforce laws, tax, and raise its own army. What the Articles Of Confederation lacked was a strong central government. Alexander Hamilton called for a constitutional convention in 1786, and it took place in Philadelphia on May 14, 1787.
4. Virginia Plan- The Virginia Plan proposed a bicameral(two-house) Congress. The number of representatives allowed for each state would be determined by the population of the state. The first of the two houses would be called the House of Representatives.
Unit 3 Test After the Revolution and the failure that was the Articles of Confederation, the nation needed order. Thus the nation’s leaders came together during the summer of 1787 at the Philadelphia Convention to draft the Constitution of the United States. The constitution was ratified in 1788. The Federalist Party had to gain nine of the thirteen states’ approval of the constitution to ratify it despite the goals of the Declaration of Independance. After the tyranny of the British rule, the new citizens of the United States wanted a severely limited government.
A little over a decade after having declared their independence from Great Britain and working together to agree on a rudimentary constitution, the thirteen American colonies found themselves divided on a new issue. Governed by the Articles of Confederation, it soon became evident to all the sovereign states that this doctrine was inadequate, thus the provinces of the east coast convened in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. This was the stage for the Constitutional Convention of 1787, where James Madison, William Paterson, and Roger Sherman all argued three of the most crucial proposals that served as aggregates to the United States Constitution. These proposals were known as The Virginia Plan, The New Jersey Plan, and the resulting Connecticut Compromise. Although the convention was originally intended to amend parts of the Articles of
During the revolutionary war congress felt that it needed a document to unite the states and set forth the principles and laws of the nation. Benjamin Franklin wrote the first draft of the articles to congress although it was never formally considered. It wasn’t until the 4th version of a draft was presented by John Dickinson, which congress began to feel closer to what they were looking for. After being revised three times, the document was approved to be submitted to the states in November 1777. All but one state, Maryland, agreed to the articles.
The Constitutional Convention, a meeting of state delegates from May of 1787 to September 1787, resulted in the creation of a new constitution and therefore a new government for the United States of America. While representation was debated over at the Constitutional Convention, issues that created much more controversy were the distribution of power between branches, and between state and federal governments. Under the Articles of Confederation, representation in the national government was satisfactory, however the creation of a national government that welded a significant amount of power changed how each state wanted to be represented in the national government. Delegates, mainly from the larger New England states, at the Constitutional Convention were concerned over the matter of how small states were represented when compared with large states. As many plans suggested, representation based on population favored the larger states, and also the states with a higher percentage of
In effect, the Continental Congress was actually asking the colonies to summon themselves into being as new states. The sovereignty of these new states would rest on the authority of the people. Although the states of Connecticut and Rhode Island merely retouched their colonial charters, constitution writers elsewhere worked tirelessly to capture on black-inked parchment the republican spirit of the age. Massachusetts contributed one valuable idea, when it called a special convention to draft its constitution and then submitted the final draft directly to the people for ratification. Once adopted in 1780, the Massachusetts constitution could be changed only by another specially called constitutional convention.
he Constitutional Convention was composed of men of strong principal; men with firm opinions and the education to support those views. Their patriotism and analytical prowess fueled the Convention and its countless debates, resulting in months of writing and perfecting the document that serves as our nation’s foundation. The delegates’ intensity caused them to continue haggling over details up until just days before the Constitution was completed. Such was the case on September 14th, 1787, a mere three days before the Constitution was sent off for ratification. Several issues were raised for discussion that day, including that of impeachment, the publication of all the proceedings of the lower house of Congress, and the appointment of a national
Many of the state conventions ratified the Constitution, but called for amendments specifically protecting individual rights from abridgement by the federal government. The debate raged for months. By June of 1788, 9 states had ratified the Constitution, ensuring it would go into effect for those 9 states. However, key states including Virginia and New York had not ratified. James Madison, the principal author of the Constitution, knew that grave doubts would be cast on the Constitution if those states (the home states of several of its chief architects, including Madison himself) did not adopt it.
In Madison’s plan, it went over representation of both houses depending on population in each of the states. The plan resembled Britain’s parliament and omitted the discussion of taxation or regulation of trade which have been set aside in the favor of fighting for a new and stronger form of government. The Constitutional Convention was necessary because the Articles of Confederation was weak and states were operating independently. George Washington called for delegates to meet in Philadelphia on May 14, 1787.
The Constitution had a much stronger centralized government, which enforced democracy. The Constitution was created for the people, to secure the natural born rights, like the freedom of speech. In 1787, the Constitutions final text was finished and was said to have been about 4,200 words in length and on the final day of the Constitutional Convention in 1787 Benjamin Franklin said “I agree to this Constitution with all its faults, if they are such because I think a central government is necessary for us… I doubt too whether any other Convention we can obtain may be able to make a better Constitution.” Soon after the colonies including Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Georgia, and Connecticut ratified the constitution, but many states including Massachusetts opposed the constitution because it was said to have lacked reserved undelegated powers to the states and constitutional protection of basic political rights.
Virginia Plan was created by James Madison but presented to the Constitutional Convention by Edmund Randolph, Governor of Virginia in the year of 1787. The Virginia Plan was about a new form of government and called for the number of votes each state would receive would be based on the population instead of each state receiving just one vote. James Madison and other 56 delegates met in Philadelphia in May 1787, they wanted to make amendments in the Articles of Confederation. They were successful and managed to create a new constitution and as James Madison was representing Virginia, he had become the chief recorder of information. Virginia Plan served as that basis for debate in the development of the U.S. Constitution.
The Constitution, which was written in 1787, was not fully supported by the citizens of the United States (Buescher). Citizens of the United States felt that their natural rights regarding life and property were not being upheld or protected by the United States Constitution. From a response to these complaints came the Bill of Rights. The Bill of Rights, written by James Madison in 1789, holds the first 10 amendments, or alterations, to the United States Constitution. Madison, a member of the United States House of Representatives, proposed the Bill of Rights in response to requests from states and citizens who believed that the Constitution did not protect basic human individual liberties (Bobb).
Redmond Peiro Ms. Smith Maryland State Constitution Paper 9 February, 2016 In the months preceding the American Revolution, a convention was held in Annapolis between a number of Maryland’s most powerful men in which to discuss the development of a new government. In addition to this, they sent representatives to the Continental Congress to finalize pre-war preparations. On July 3, 1776 the convention agreed that a new group was to be created to draw up their first state constitution as the old ad hoc government structure was considered inadequate. “That all government of right originates from the people, is founded in compact only, and instituted solely for the good of the whole.”
Virginia was the first state to ratify on December 16, 1777, and later other states ratified in 1778. However, the Articles needed unanimous approval from all states in the country. There were some states that refused to ratify the Articles such as Maryland, Delaware and New Jersey because they were afraid that big states would have too much power. Somehow, New Jersey and Delaware eventually accepted to ratify the conditions of the Articles, with New Jersey on November 20, 1778 and Delaware on February 1, 1779. So Maryland became the last remaining state that didn’t want the Articles completed.