The Constitutional Convention

Both the Federalists and Anti-Federalists considered their view correct for the young United States. Both came together to hammer out the compromises needed in order to ratify the Constitution. The...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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 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...

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...

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 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...

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...

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...

The compromise between Federalists and Anti-Federalists involved what remains an intractable issue: the power of the federal government relative to those of the individual states. The product of...

The Great Compromise solved the problem of representation in Congress during the Constitutional Convention. There were two competing plans to decide representation in Congress. The first, the...

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 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...

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...

"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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

In 1787, the Constitutional Convention met in Philadelphia to amend the ineffectual Articles of Confederation. The Articles' ineffective governance of the new nation was underlined by the Shays...

Alexander Hamilton was very concerned about what might occur if the Constitution wasn’t adopted. He had seen firsthand the difficulties this country faced with the weak plan of government created...

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 concept of the modern day senate is what is reflected in the Constitution that owes itself to the New Jersey Plan. Governor Paterson's conception of each state having a fixed number of...

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...

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...

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 Anti-federalists feared a strong central government and the power that it would wield. Thomas Jefferson and James Madison were prominent anti-federalists. The anti-federalists were...

There had been very influential voices among those agitating for secession from Great Britain and for the formation of a new nation who looked warily at the Constitution that was put forward at the...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

There were several issues debated at the constitutional convention. One issue was about representation in Congress. The large states wanted to have unequal representation in Congress. They believed...

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,...

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...

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....

I think the argument can be made that the Constitution is better than the Articles of Confederation. The Constitution has survived for over 220 years while the Articles failed after just 8 years....

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...