What happened at the Constitutional Convention?
1 Answer
The articles of Confederation were replaced with a constitution that had a strong central government with balances and compromises.
Explanation:
The articles of Confederation were not working. There was no executive branch. The congress was ineffective because it required a 2/3 majority for any measure to pass. The Articles were based on Rousseau's philosophy of basic and goodness of mankind government being the source evil
The Constitution provided for a strong executive branch, balanced by both a strong congress and a strong judiciary. The Constitution was based on Montesque's philosophy that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. The Constitution is based on a system of checks and balances where each branch of the government has the power to block the actions of the other branches.
To get 13 different states with different needs and interests to agree required compromises.
One compromise was the method of representation in Congress. The small states wanted each state to have the same representation. The large states wanted the representation to be based on population. The Iroquois Federation provided the answer. One part of congress would be based on population (The house of Representatives) The second part of congress would be based on equal representation between the states ( The Senate)
Another compromise that planted the seeds of the later Civil War was on slavery. The free northern states wanted slavery outlawed and slaves not counted for representation in Congress. The southern slave states wanted slavery to legal in all states and the slaves counted completely for representation.
The 3/5 compromise preserved the Constitution but
was a compromise in morality. States rights were balanced against the power of Federal government. States were able to decide if the the state constitution would allow slavery or not. States rights verus Federal government is an issue still being fought out today.
