The debated decision would take more than a few favored votes in signing a written document. The Articles of Confederation, being used to unite the new born country after the war, were deemed unfortunately insufficient by the representatives of the thirteen colonies. During this time, the young government was composed of one house that served as the Congress, containing no leader and no court system. This new government had miniscule power over the states, who governed themselves. (3) Consequently, this led the representatives of the 13 states to make a journey to Philadelphia, the capital, where they began to scrutinize possible options, and this meeting would become known as the Constitutional Convention. They elected the exemplary man of war, George Washington, to serve as the chairman of the covention, and held their meetings secretly. (4)Debating and fighting like squirrels over nuts (sim), some questioned whether revising the articles …show more content…
It not only required compromises but it also initiated controversy between the states over who had the most influence and representation in congress. The bigger states wanted population as their representation, while the smaller ones just wanted equality and their voices heard in congress. (2)Amid the verbal skirmish, a man named Roger Sherman ended it and proposed that two houses, one senate and one representative, be established.(4) Silencing the disagreements, Sherman’s idea led to what would be known as the Great Compromise. Now the south had slaves in their hands and wanted them to make up part of the population, and the north was opposed. The south was intractable with this issue, and took slavery lightly, which the north ferociously thought was a major problem. Slavery would be ignored for 20 more years before it was discussed again in 1808. However, these compromises between the representatives would soon turn into
The meeting was to discuss improvements on the Articles of Confederation. It lead to them discarding the first document and creating the U.S. Constitution. Many, including Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, Thomas Paine, and John Adams, built the U.S. Constitution. With seven articles in the new document, the following was also put into it. People were
In May of 1787, fifty-five delegates from eleven of the thirteen American states came together in Philadelphia. The goal that they had was to fix and improve the current government created by the Articles of Confederation, which had been occurring since the year of 1781. The Articles created a weak alliance among the states. There was nothing that the national government could do about the taxes or regulate commerce. The delegates whom attended the Philadelphia convention had came to agreement that there were issues in the Articles of Confederation that needed to be fixed.
Some of these include the Great (Connecticut) Compromise and the Trade Compromise, among others. The Great Compromise dealt with the subject of representation in Congress and was the product of a dispute between small states versus big states. After much discussion, a delegate from Connecticut came up with the idea to combine the basis of the Virginia Plan, proposed by E. Randolph, with the New Jersey plan. This resulted in a bicameral legislature with one house based on population while another with two envoys per state.
Many Americans grew upset with the Confederation government. So Alexander Hamilton a lawyer and General’s Aid to George Washington decided to change the Articles of the Confederation. He called on the National Convention to overhaul the document. He requested that Congress call upon all of the states to attend a gathering in Philadelphia. George Washington was the first to arrive in Philadelphia giving the large amounts of creditability for the meeting bringing 55 men from all of the states.
In May 25, 1787, a convention was called in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to express the purpose of revising the Articles of Confederation. However, the intention from many delegates was to draft a new constitution; create a new government rather than fix the existing one. Rhode Island was the only one of the 13 original states to refuse to send delegates to the Constitutional Convention. At the Convention, the first issues they had to address was the representation in Congress.
In the beginning of July 11 the delegates had begun arguing over the method of census and who would be counted. Slavery became a spotlight issue in the Great Compromise when the south and north’s different views on how slaves should be counted in representation was made apparent. On one hand, the south wanted slaves to be accounted for when deciding representation. Because the southern states had a large population of slaves they wanted to have more representation in the House of Representatives. However, the north had a different view, they thought that slaves should not be counted as the population for representation.
The Great Compromise was Roger Sherman’s plan, and was an attempt to resolve the conflicts between the smaller states and larger states, settling the Virginia Plan and New Jersey Plan. The Virginia Plan called for a bicameral
The larger states wanted representation in the legislative branch to be based on population, while the smaller states wanted population to be equal for all states. The solution to this disagreement, called the Great Compromise, was to create two branches of congress, the House of Representatives and the Congress, where the House’s representation is based on population, while the Congress is made up of two representatives per state (Valentine 7). This compromise is one of the most democratic because it gives say to the people and does not allow the bigger states to overpower the smaller, and vice versa. Out of all the branches and sub-branches of government, the House of Representatives seems to support democracy the most considering that it is chosen by the people, but the definition of people at this time was property owning white men (Genovese 2). Another compromise that was made by the delegates was about how the branches would interact with each other and what powers each individual branch would possess.
While debating how to set up representation in Congress, the large states wanted Congress representation to be based on population, so they would have more say in the government. The small states wanted each state to have only 2 people represent, so everyone would have an equal say. Together they decided that they would have two houses in congress, called the house of representative and the senate. The house of representatives is based on the states population(Source D), appeasing the large states. The senate had 2 representatives, (Source D).The small state-large state compromise protects against tyranny because it ensures that the large states do not take away power from the small states when it comes to making laws.
The Virginia Plan was considered unfair to the small states and the New Jersey plan was considered unfair to the large states. Soon after, Roger Sherman from Connecticut wrote “The Great Compromise.” Many
The Constitution of the United States has served as a foundation of how the government worked since 1789. It started as a modified version of the Articles of Confederation and ended up being the final product. The Federal Government has a sufficient amount of power that is divided through Federalism and Separation of Powers. It does its job well of protecting the citizens. The Constitution that frames this government, lists its power and limitations along with people’s rights.
After the countless debates, the Great Compromise was what the convention would come into agreement with representation by population in the House of Representatives “The number of Representatives shall not exceed one for every thirty thousand, but each state shall have at least one Representative. ”(add footnote) The smaller states were pleased with equal representation in the Senate “The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senates from each state and each Senator shall have one vote.”(add
The common definition we use of justice is just behavior or treatment. In relation to our United States government, this particular word means righteousness, equitableness or moral rightness. The Constitution aimed to better their original governing document called the Articles of Confederation and I do believe that the framers who shaped this made an immense amount of progress for our country, though do not stand for some of the policies they had to add. Our first paper involved learning three important men in America’s history voicing their personal opinions on the Constitution and how to possibly fix some flaws. George Washington was very determined to have a strong central government so the country would act as one state in any decision, stating that “we should confederate as a nation”, meaning he believed that the United States would become weak if we did not agree.
After no progress of which plan to go through with, Roger Sherman came up with the Great Compromise. The compromise called for two house legislator. Members of the house of representatives or the lower house would be elected by popular vote. Members of the Senate or the upper house would be chosen by the state legislators. Each state would only have two senators no matter the size, or population of the state.
With elements to appeal to both northerners and southerners, and in addition, sparking much controversy in Congress, passage required dividing the bill into parts and voting on each separately (History.com Staff, 2009). Although there was controversy over the compromise, it gave Congress several years of success in regards to slavery issues and the north and south disputes over it (History.com Staff,