The Constitutional Convention

The delegates to the constitutional convention were, of course, all white men. About half had graduated from college. Most were investors or bankers of some sort whose financial interests lay with...

The Revolution had rights of the accused at the forefront of the framers' minds. After all, during the revolution they were all criminals. It was very important to them that the accused were...

Generally speaking, the Articles of Confederation placed far too much power with the state governments and not enough on the federal level. (This was an especially glaring problem, given just how...

First, let's define the three fifths compromise, then place it in context of the time period, and then we will discuss the issue/problem! Definition: The three fifths compromise was adopted on July...

The men who wrote the Constitution of the United States believed that the US needed a new plan of government because they believed that the old plan gave too much power to the states and not enough...

The origins of constitutional democracy in the United States was in many ways a direct outgrowth of the Enlightenment movement. By the 16th century, much of the older feudalistic model of European...

A federal system of government is one in which power is distributed between a central authority and smaller political units such as states. Advocates of federalism claim that this method of...

When meeting to form the legislative branch of Congress at the Constitutional Convention, representatives of the thirteen states faced a multitude of opinions and decisions. Many former Englishmen...

The Federalists, led by Alexander Hamilton, supported a strong national government. The Anti-Federalists, led by Patrick Henry, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison, desired a weak central...

The New Jersey Plan can be seen as an attempt to protect the interests of the smaller states, who feared that they would lose out under the proposed Constitution. In particular, they worried that...

There were immediate and long-term effects of the Bill of Rights. One of the immediate effects was that by agreeing to add the Bill of Rights to the proposed United States Constitution, it allowed...

Not only was Rhode Island the only colony/state to decline to send a representative to the Constitutional Convention of 1787, it was also the last of the newly-established states to sign and ratify...

Rhode Island refused to send any delegates to the Convention. It was the only state that did not, therefore, sign the Constitution. Twelve states did sign, despite the refusals of individual...

Considering that the US Constitution was drafted and adopted to correct the inadequacies of the Articles of Confederation, there are not too many similarities. However, the Constitution does retain...

The Federalist No. 10 believed to have been written by James Madison is his commentary regarding his opinions on what he called 'the mischiefs of faction'. In the essay, Madison concludes that...

The Federalists and the anti-Federalists were formed in the debates surrounding ratification of the United States Constitution. When contrasted against the earlier Articles of Confederation, the...

There is no way to know for sure, but the United States would definitely be weaker if the Anti-Federalists won. At the time of the debate over the Constitution, European powers still wanted control...

Contextually speaking, much of the political thought that shaped the United States came out Enlightenment era discourse in the Age of Absolutism (a period which itself was defined by the...

"We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure...

The main innovation was the amount of compromises that took place that allowed the Constitution to be created. The Great Compromise created a bicameral legislature with the representation in the...

The Constitution made a number of significant changes in the structure of the Federal government, all aimed at making the United States a single political entity rather than a "confederation" of...

There were many sources of conflict at the constitutional convention. One issue was regarding states' rights. Another had to do with representation, or how many votes each state should get and...

The two most important issues were the status of the Articles of Confederation and representation in the new government. First, should the Articles of Confederation be amended or replaced? Second,...

Living through the ordeal that imitated the American Revolution, the Framers understood that the notion of a divided government that would be able to limit a potentially harmful exercise of power...

The most likely answer to this question is that James Madison, who would go on to become the 4th president of the United States, was the driving force behind the Constitutional Convention in 1787....

One of the goals of the Constitution was to establish justice. There are some ways the Constitution allows for this to happen. The writers of the Constitution created the judicial branch. This...

There were many issues dealing with slavery that needed to be resolved when the Constitution was being drafted. Since an agreement was eventually reached to have two houses of Congress, with...

The ratification of the U.S. Constitution was anything but a slam dunk. Both during and after the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, two camps emerged that maintained distinct ideas as to...

There were many weaknesses in the national government under the Articles of Confederation. That is why the national elites felt that it was necessary to write a new constitution. Let us look at...

Unlike many republican theorists of his time who argued that self-interest was toxic to a republic, James Madison believed that if a republican government could be set up correctly, it could...

It was no accident that the first article of the Constitution of the United States, Article I, established the legislative branch of the government. The Constitution, indeed, the whole of the...

When the Constitutional Convention met, there were initially seventy men that were chosen to amend the Articles of Confederation, which led to the development of the Constitution. As the meetings...

Franklin was a federalist (small f) in the sense of supporting the new constitution. He was central to the writing and formulation of the original Articles of Confederation. The articles were based...

The United States Constitution as written limited majority rule in several ways. First, the concept of majority rule deals with which party controls Congress. Since the Constitution separated the...

The answer to this question has to go back to the Constitutional Convention. In the wake of Shays' Rebellion, a moment that brought the young country to the brink of anarchy, the Founding Fathers...

Like many revolutions, the American Revolution was inspired by philosophies, including Locke and Hobbes. The new government was also built based on these philosophies, or at least designed and...

The Articles of Confederation served as the first Constitution for the United States. In an effort to avoid having a strong central government (in reaction to the strong government the colonists...

I have one small quibble with the response above, which is otherwise just about right: The national capital was not located in Washington, D.C. when the debate over ratification was taking place....

At the Constitutional Convention of 1787, the Founding Fathers' deliberations were held in total secrecy. The reason for this is that those attending the Convention did not want any information...

In 1787, the Framers of the Constitution met in Philadelphia to address the failures of the Articles of Confederation and to build a framework for a stronger central government. However, the...

The Constitution gave extensive powers to the Federal government in Washington. Under the Articles of Confederation there was no central government to speak of. This is because most Americans were...

There was significant variance in opinion among the Framers on this question. Some of the attendees at the Philadelphia Convention, George Mason from Virginia in particular, argued that the...

In the Constitutional Convention, the two sides about the nature of government emerged. The Federalists were guided by the understanding that while freedom is important, it should not come at the...

When the Founding Fathers met to discuss a new plan of government, there was a significant difference of opinion regarding how representation in Congress would be determined. The large states...

Naturally, the preceding posts correctly identify the year the document was written and when it was put into effect. The Constitution became the supreme law of the land after intense debate and...

There were several factors that led to the Constitutional Convention in 1787. The main issue was that the government created by the Articles of Confederation had many weaknesses. The federal...