Government Chapter 2, Part 2 Notes:
The CONSTITUTIONAL
CONVENTION
I. THE CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION BEGINS:
A. THE FOUNDERS : (the State Delegates who created
the U.S. Constitution)
-1787: Delegates or Representatives from 12 States meet at the Pennsylvania State
House, (aka Independence Hall), in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
-most of the State Delegates had political experience, EX.: some were serving in
the Confederation Congress or in their State legislatures & some had served
in the former Colonial legislatures
-most of the delegates were lawyers, merchants or planters & none were poor
-some of the more famous Founders at the Convention were:
-George Washington of VA.: was beloved by ALL his fellow Americans
-81 year old Benjamin Franklin of Penn.: scientist, inventor, philosopher
& diplomat
-James Madison of VA: takes daily notes at the Convention, he’ll author the
basic plan of gov’t the Convention eventually adopts &
later he’ll help create the U.S. Bill of Rights
-Madison will come to be known as the Father of the Constitution
-some famous Americans did not attend the Constitutional Convention b/c they
were fearful of too powerful a national gov’t & didn’t want the State
Governments to lose power to the national gov’t --they believed State
Governments would better protect the peoples’ rights
-the Delegates unanimously choose General George Washington to be President
of the Constitutional Convention
-the Delegates also decided that all meetings will be held in secret so the
delegates could speak freely
B. WRITING the U.S. CONSTITUTION
-Delegates realized getting everyone to agree to every change to the Articles of
Confederation was impossible, so they decide instead to write a whole new
plan of national/federal gov’t = a new constitution
-the plan of government that the State Delegates write at the Constitutional
Convention will be the U.S. Constitution which establishes the NATIONAL/
FEDERAL GOVERNMENT that we, in the U.S., live under to this day
-most Delegates at the Constitutional Convention agreed on certain basics of
gov’t that they wanted to include in the new Constitution: a limited gov’t,
a representative gov’t & separation of powers into 3 branches
-Madison & the VA. Delegation present the Virginia Plan to the Convention
which proposed a much stronger nat’l gov’t w/3 branches, but many
delegates were very fearful of too powerful a nat’l gov’t so in response, the
New Jersey Delegation comes up w/a plan that revises the Articles making
the Confederation Congress a bit more powerful
-Delegates debate over the 2 plans & eventually vote to make the Virginia Plan
the basis for the new Constitution
-Delegates at the Const. Conv. knew that they needed to make the new nat’l
gov’t more powerful, but the biggest challenge they faced was making the
national gov’t more powerful without making it too strong
or taking away too much power from the States
-to resolve this issue, the delegates decided that the U.S. would no longer be a
confederation, but would become a federal system (aka federalism)
-instead of the State governments having more power than the National Gov’t
(like under the Articles of Confed.), now government’s power in the U.S.
would be divided more equally between the National Government & the
State governments—the 2 levels would be more equal in power
-under this new federal system, each LEVEL of gov’t would have their own
specific powers & responsibilities & some they would share (=concurrent
powers), but neither level would be significantly more powerful than the
other & this was done to make sure that no level of gov’t ever became
too powerful
C. ARGUMENTS & COMPROMISES at the
CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION:
-while creating the Constitution at the Constitutional Convention, certain issues will
arise that will divide the Delegates & lead to serious debate:
the 1st disagreement at the Constitutional Convention:
-the 1st disagreement is between delegates from states w/large populations (=a lot
of citizens) & delegates from states w/small populations
-these states are arguing about how representation in the new legislative branch
will be decided (representation=how many members of Congress each state gets)
-the States w/big populations want representation in the new Congress to be
determined by a state’s pop (b/c they’d get more members of Congress,
have more votes & ultimately, they’d have more power in Congress)
- the States w/small populations wanted equal representation = every state gets the
SAME amount of representatives in Congress no matter the size
of the state’s population
-the debate over representation was about power & a compromise (=each side gives
up something to come to an agreement) was badly needed
the1st compromise at the Constitutional Convention :
-Roger Sherman & the rest of the Connecticut Delegation come up with
the compromise that resolves this issue & it is called
the Connecticut (or Great) Compromise:
-the Legislative Branch of the National Gov’t will be bicameral (=it has 2
houses/parts) & it will be called the U.S. Congress, the 2 houses are:
the U.S. House of Representatives: representation in the House of
Representatives is based on a state’s population
the U.S. Senate: each state, NO matter its population size, gets 2 Senators
-so each side got what they want = a compromise
the 2nd disagreement at the Constitutional Convention:
-this argument is between Southern States & Northern States
-Southern States want to count the African-Americans they held as-slaves as part
of their population which would mean they’d get more representatives in
Congress (the House) & more votes & therefore, more power
-the Northern States say “NO” b/c they don’t want Southern Sts to have more
power in Congress & N. Sts wouldn’t benefit anyway since slavery is
being outlawed in the N. Sts (some N. Delegates also had moral issues w/this)
Government Chapter 2, Part 2 Notes:
The CONSTITUTIONAL
CONVENTION, Pg. 2
2nd compromise at the Constitutional Convention:
-the solution to this argument is called the 3/5’s
Compromise aka
Enumeration Clause:
-every 5 Af-Ams-held-as slaves will count as 3 Caucasians for representation in
the House AND for taxation (which was also based on a State’s population)
-so Southern States do get more seats/Representatives & more power in the House
(& in Presidential elections), but they also have to pay more taxes to Congress
-the N states agree to this b/c they get to spend this tax money in Congress too
-also added to the Constitution was:
-a guarantee that Congress would not ban the slave trade until 1808
-the Fugitive Slave Clause which made states promise to return
folks who had runaway from slavery to their owners
-some Northern Delegates at the Constitutional Convention had moral problems
w/slavery & the slave trade, several Sates had outlawed slavery, but many realized
that they needed the support of S states to ratify (=approve) the new Constitution
so they didn’t address the issue as they could/should have--also many of them
(wrongly) assumed that slavery was a dying institution
-many Delegates feared direct election of the President by the people & others feared
that if Congress elected the President, (as some suggested should happen, it would
give the legislative branch too much power over the executive branch,
(violating our system of separation of powers)
-so the Delegates created the Electoral College system to indirectly elect the
President: the States choose Electors who vote for the President & each State gets
the same number of Electors as they have members of Congress (both houses)
-Delegates decided that a Presidential term would be 4 years
-on Sept. 17, 1787 the final draft of the U.S. Constitution was complete & most of the
Delegates signed it, but getting the Constitution ratified (=approved)
by 9 of 13 states would be harder than creating it
II. RATIFYING THE U.S. CONSTITUTION:
-b/c the Constitution created a more powerful national gov’t it was VERY
Controversial, so 2 groups of Americans will form around whether or not
to ratify/approve the new Constitution:
(1) the FEDERALISTS supported ratification of the Constitution b/c they
felt a more powerful national gov’t would keep social order & better
protect the people’s rights (many of the Founders were Federalists)
(2) the ANTI-FEDERALISTS opposed ratification of the Constitution b/c they
feared that a more powerful national gov’t might infringe upon or take
away the rights of the people & power from the states
-their biggest grievance or complaint was that the new Constitution had no
bill of rights that specifically listed the people’s rights & liberties that
gov’t could NOT take away (Sam Adams, Thomas Paine & Patrick Henry
were Anti-Federalists)
-the Federalists & Anti-Federalists will help lead to (they are the predecessors of)
the first real political parties in the United States
-Alexander Hamilton, James Madison & John Jay, to convince New York State to
ratify the Constitution, publish a series of papers called The Federalist—these
papers will help influence other States to ratify the Constitution too
-to get the Constitution ratified, the LAST compromise over the Constitution is
reached when the Federalists agree to add a Bill of Rights onto the
Constitution to get the Anti-Feds to support ratification:
-so the Federalists got the Constitution ratified which creates a more
powerful national government that they wanted
-& the Anti-Federalists got the promise of a Bill of Rights added which
protects our rights FROM Government which they wanted
-AND together the Federalists & Anti-Federalists created the U.S.
Government where the needs of the nation are balanced
with the rights of the individual
-the 1st state to ratify the Constitution is Delaware, Georgia is the 4th state to ratify &
New Hampshire is the 9th state to ratify—New Hampshire’s vote officially put
the U.S. Constitution into effect as the U.S.’ plan of national gov’t
-New York City b/cms the temporary U.S. capital & George Washington is elected
1st President of the U.S. under the new Constitution (he was elected
unanimously) & John Adams of Massachusetts is elected 1st Vice-President
-in the very 1st Congress, James Madison introduces 12 amendments & 10 of these
will be approved by Congress & the States & will become the U.S. Bill of Rights
(=the 1st ten Amendments to the U.S. Constitution which is a list of the peoples’
rights that Government cannot take away)
GOVERNMENT CHAPTER 2, PART 2:
THE CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION
1.
ALL OF THE INFORMATION ON SECTION 1. A. GOES ON THE CHART labeled
“the Constitutional Convention”.
2. What did the Delegates quickly realize? What did they decide to do instead?
What will they create? Explain. READ what the Delegates agreed about. What is a
representative government? Why would they want to divide government’s power
into branches? Who presents the Virginia Plan? What objections did some
Delegates have to the Virginia Plan? READ about the New Jersey Delegation.
What will the Delegates finally decide about these two plans? Explain.
3. What did the delegates realize they needed? What challenge did they face in
doing this? EXPLAIN. What did they do to resolve this conflict? FULLY EXPLAIN
how this new national government will be significantly different from the old
one. What will be true about each level of government in this new federal
system? What is the name for powers that are shared between levels of
government? What will be true about the levels in comparison to each other?
Why was this done?
4. Complete the chart labeled “Arguments & Compromises at the Constitutional
Convention”
5. Describe the Fugitive Slave clause in the U.S. Constitution? What does it mean
that some Northern Delegates had moral issues over slavery & the slave trade?
Why did many Northern Delegates give into the Southerners on the issue of
slavery? What did many Northern Delegates incorrectly believe about slavery?
6. What does direct election of the president mean? How did some want the
president to be elected? READ about why this wasn’t done. What is the Electoral
College system for? What do electors do? How many electors does each State get?
How long did the delegates decide a presidential term should be?
7. What will be even harder than creating the Constitution? What made the new
Constitution so controversial? What will this lead to? Who were the Federalists?
Why did they like the new Constitution? (2) Who were many of the Federalists?
What did the Anti-Federalists not like about the Constitution? (2) What was the
biggest problem they had with the Constitution? Explain. Who will these two
groups eventually lead to? READ about the Federalist Papers.
8. What was the last compromise over the Constitution about? Who was it between?
FULLY DESCRIBE each side of the compromise that was made. In what way was
this compromise beneficial to all Americans?
9. What was the first state to approve the Constitution? What number was Georgia?
Why is it significant that New Hampshire was the 9th state to ratify the
Constitution? What will New York City become? What will George Washington
be elected? HOW was he elected? What will John Adams be elected?
10. What does James Madison do at the very first meeting of the new U.S. Congress?
What will be true about 10 of them? What will they become? What are the 2
definitions of the Bill of Rights?