The Constitutional Convention

The famous "Constitutional Convention" -- convened in the summer of 1787 (May through September) in Philadelphia to strengthen the national government by modifying the Articles of Confederation. This Convention became one of the most important events in the entire history of mankind.

Key participants in the Constitutional Convention were James Madison, George Washington, Alexander Hamilton and Benjamin Franklin. George Washington reluctantly agreed to attend the convention, and was elected to preside. Benjamin Franklin was the oldest attendee, at 82. He had to be carried to the meetings in a chair and wrote out his remarks so that others could speak for him. Nevertheless, his presence at the Convention was inspiring.

As the Constitutional Convention began, the delegates agreed that the Articles of Confederation had not created a functional government. Congress was in shambles, and attendance in Congress was so sporadic that between October 1785 and April 1786 it had the minimum required attendance to conduct business (a "quorum") on only three days. The stated purpose of the Constitutional Convention was to "render the federal constitution adequate to the exigencies of Government and the preservation of the Union."

Those words left the Convention somewhat open in terms of its goal. Delegates had a choice. First, they could amend the Articles, but this would be very difficult because unanimous approval from the states was required. Instead, they could draft a new constitution. Some questioned whether the Convention had authority to do this, but consensus was that a new constitution was the only choice.

The attendees thereby did not limit their actions to fixing the Articles of Confederation. This same debate rages today by calls for a constitutional convention. There is no way to limit what a constitutional convention does. This debate over whether a constitutional convention can be limited to a particular issue (e.g., requiring a balanced budget by the national government) continues today, with many saying that there is never a way to limit a constitutional convention. The only real protection from a convention exceeding its scope is that its proposal must still be ratified by the states. .

This conflict between the big and small states may have been the most difficult to resolve in the entire Convention. For weeks there was no progress. After many weeks of arguments, a compromise was reached. In July 1787, Connecticut delegate Roger Sherman proposed the Connecticut Plan, in which representation in the House would be proportional to population, and representation in the Senate would be 1 vote per state. This became the Great Compromise or the Connecticut Compromise, and it resolved that Congress would have one house with equal representation and one house with representation based on population. This compromise became part of the Constitution (with the change that there would be two votes per state), and today Americans have both the House of Representatives and the Senate.

A dispute arose between the North and the South over whether slaves should be counted in determining how many congressmen a State could have in the House of Representatives. Representation was in proportion to population, but the North opposed counting slaves because that would give the South more power than if slaves were not counted. The "Three-Fifths Compromise" counted slaves as three-fifths of a free man for the purpose of determining how many representatives a State would have in the House of Representatives (Art. I, Section 2, Paragraph 3):

And there was one additional compromise required for slavery: the new Congress could not ban the importation of slavery for 20 years, until 1808.

After all the compromises and hard work of the committees, most (but not all) of the delegates at the Convention agreed to the final version of the Constitution; 39 (out of the original 55) signed it on Sept. 17, 1787 (now honored as "Constitution Day"). Next it was sent to the states for ratification, and then the "fun" began. There was bitter opposition by the Anti-Federalists who did not like the idea of a powerful new central government.

At the time, nearly every country in the world was a monarchy. The new American government was the first of its kind.

The Constitution divides government into three separate branches that check and balance each other. If one branch grabs too much power, then the other two can work to stop it.

The Constitution itself (before passage of the Bill of Rights adding the first ten amendments) contains several important protections of individual rights, including a right to a jury trial and a prohibition on any bill of attainder, which was a practice in England whereby the legislature would punish an individual by expressly and specifically naming him in legislation. Under the Constitution, only courts can punish individual citizens.

Date: 2016-04-22; view: 726