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 …show more content…
The government under the Articles of Confederation lacked a means of enforcing laws and exerting power over the states. As a result, delegates at the convention agreed upon creating a government comprised of three separate branches - legislative, executive, and judicial. Each branch had a functionality that was later specified in the document, and distributed central powers evenly to lessen debate. States were concerned that government would strive away from serving the people over time, and this led them to create more even distribution. The issue of unequal distribution among branches was solved with the creation of a system of checks and balances. Distribution of power was further improved with the creation of amendment 10, the amendment of reserved
One of the crucial points when making the constitution was limiting the power of of the government. The solution was formed by creating three branches of government, therefore there was a separation of powers. One branch established was the legislative branch which included Congress with the two houses of representation and population. Their made job was to create laws and the executive branch, included the president and the vice president, would the enforce laws. Lastly the judicial branch which is made up of court, interprets the laws.
One last thing the constitution has that stopped tyranny rule was making sure the smaller states got a fair vote in congress compared to the bigger states. They had a meeting called the constitutional convention where they proposed two distinct plans. The first was the Virginia plan where they favored large states, and wanted it to be based off of population. The second one was the New jersey plan which favored small states, and gave each state an equal amount of votes. They eventually came up with the great compromise, where they proposed that congress would be composed of the senate, and the house of representatives.
a. The Constitutional Convention took place in the year of 1787. It was a place where delegates from the various colonies discussed various issues that were going on during this time. This convention was very important to our nation because it served as the foundation of what came to be known as the constitution. The constitution was a process in which a lot of people were involved with. According to the Oxford guide to United States History, the congress called for a convention in Philadelphia because they wanted to make changes to the articles that were originally proposed.
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.
At the time that the Constitutional Convention took place, the North was industrialized and produced many finished goods. The South, however, still had an agricultural economy. Therefore, the South imported many finished goods from Britain. The North wanted the government to be able to impose import tariffs or taxes on finished products. They wanted this to help protect against foreign competition and encourage the South to buy goods made in the North.
After experiencing that the Articles of Confederation granted too little power to the federal government, the Founders decided to replace it with the Constitution. The U.S. Constitution was created to protect citizen’s rights and provide more power to central government. However, the Founders did not want the government to hold too much power, they created three branches: legislative, executive, and judicial branch so that one branch could limit the power of the others. This is also called checks and balances. Each branch carries different tasks but still works together towards the same common goals to ensure that the U.S. is developed and thrived.
To keep their traditional lifestyle they moved further west. The task of creating a new government was not easily accomplished. Disputes among the delegates nearly ended the Convention on several occasions. For example, delegates from the large and more populous states disagreed with those from the small states about representation in the national legislature. The larger states favored the Virginia Plan, under which population would determine the number of representatives a state could send to the legislature.
The government created three branches of government, and they are the legislative, the judicial, and the executive branches. The delegates built the checks and balance system to keep the three branches in line. This checks and balances was built to make sure no one group became too powerful. An example is the president can veto any law, but congress can override the veto from the president. Congress only needs a
Each idea was used to avoid one zone of government form controlling the other zones. Through Division of power national government, and state governments can limit the rights of one another while working together to put forth an effective Constitution. In comparison to a confederation in which states have all the powers. The writers of the United Stated Constitution were tremendously apprehensive of the concentration power in a single person, or a simplified group of people. To limit the assertion of concentrated power the constitution was developed in order to separate the powers of government into three branches the legislative, executive and judicial.
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.
The Constitutional Convention of 1787 also solved major two internal conflicts within the nation. One was between Federal Government and State Government while the other was among the branches within the federal government. Because the Framers feared the national authority would grow too powerful, they designed it to be divided into three branches, which check and balance the power of each other. The establishment of the Supreme Court was a protection of the minority while two other branches utilized power from the majority population. Therefore, this could reduce the growth in power of the federal government, keeping the state government safe.
Did the Constitution establish a just government? A just government is one that shares its power with its citizens and allows them to have equal representation. The goal of the framers of the U.S Constitution was to establish a just government that differed from the oppressive British monarchy; but was also more efficient than the Articles of Confederation. To achieve their goal, they developed a constitution that allowed direct citizen participation through voting for house legislators (Article 1 Section 2) and equally represented all citizens in the senate (Article 1 Section 3).
Madeline Murga Professor Manny Ontiveros Political Science 180 13 April 2017 The Constitutional Convention In May 14, 1787 The Philadelphia Convention took place in the State House which is now the Independence Hall today. Several meetings took place during the summer to discuss ways they could improve the Articles of Confederation. One of the main arguments they had was they wanted to build a new government that would meet their expectations.
Constitution 1The Constitution of the United States(1787)The development that prompted to the written work of the 1787constitution became out of disappointment with thefunctioning of the Articles of Confederation. Asearly as 1781, there were proposition to amendthe Articles. The key issue was that theCongress had no free saddling power, andwas reliant on the states for commitments itrequested from them. More than once from 1781 to1786 proposition were made for restricted taxingpower, typically a little altered obligation on importedgoods, yet every one foundered on the necessityof getting consistent sanction of all thestates. By 1786, Congress was largelyparalysized.
The Articles of Confederation was the first form of government of United States. The Articles of Confederation was so weak because the Federal government didn’t have the right to tax the citizen, so they would not have enough capital to pay the loan that was borrowed during Revolutionary War. Nevertheless, every amendment required all 13 states to approve, so it was so difficult to set up an amendment. Therefore, changes were almost impossible to happen. It led to the Constitutional Convention because the politician thought the Articles of Confederation was too weak, so they did need improvement.