Open the link in the module marked US Constitution.
Once you have read the article, answer the following questions in an essay/review format.
1. What are the major questions explored in the article?
2. What are the findings?
3. What are the implications?
4. Offer a clear and concise critique of the article. Does this article answer questions concerning the subject? Does this article create more questions?
5. Explain how this article relates to other assigned reading and fits the larger discussion.
Your essay/review needs to be two to four pages. Two pages is the MINIMUM. This does not include the heading or any bibliographic content. You will be graded on content and proper writing form. Your essay/review is worth one hundred (125) points towards your final grade. Type needs to be double-spaced and at 10 or 12 point font, Arial or Times New Roman.
A few pointers on what not to do.
There is no writing in the first person. If you are having trouble writing in the first person, feel free to send me a paragraph or so of your work. I will be glad to illustrate what can be done here.
A few writing pointers you will find helpful as you continue in college and into the business world. These ‘pet peeves’ will not cost you points unless the paper is simply difficult to read.
1.Spell out contractions. Example: don’t = do not. Didn’t = did not.
2.Limit your use of descriptives. He, she, they, and so on are acceptable. Do not rely on these in your essay. Example: DO NOT write…’He pioneered the method as he…” Instead you will write …”Ford pioneered the method as he…”
3.The word IT. There is a person, place, thought, or object that IT describes. Take the time and make the effort to describe IT. You will find your writing improve when doing this.
https://www.annenbergclassroom.org/resource/our-co…
Chapter 1 – Why Was the Constitution
Necessary?
I doubt . . . whether any Convention we can obtain, maybe able to make a better constitution;
for, when you assemble a number of men, to have the advantage of their joint wisdom, you
inevitably assemble with those men all their prejudices, their passions, their errors of opinion,
their local interests, and their selfish views. From such an assembly can a perfect production be
expected? It therefore astonishes me, Sir, to find this system approaching so near to perfection
as it does.
Benjamin Franklin, addressing the Constitutional Convention on September 17, 1787
Do you have a right to hold opinions that differ from others around you? Can you write
and publish what you think? Can you worship as you believe? Can you protest to your
government if you disapprove of its policies? Can the government search and seize your
property? Can you be arrested and held without trial? Can the government treat you
differently than it treats other people? As a citizen, you must know your constitutional
rights in order to assert them.
Every society sets rules to live by. Our Constitution established the United States
government and determined its relationship with the people and the individual states.
As constitutions go, it is remarkably short and durable. Most state constitutions are
hefty documents, and the proposed constitution of the European Union runs to 60,000
words. The original text of the U.S. Constitution, by comparison, came to only 4,200
words, and all its amendments, made over the course of two hundred years, added just
another 3,000 words. Despite its brevity, the Constitution has continued to satisfy the
needs of a nation that has grown enormously in territory and population, and has seen a
vast expansion in both its international and domestic responsibilities.
In existence for more than two centuries, the Constitution has been amended
infrequently. In order to win the campaign to ratify the Constitution, the supporters of
the new government promised to add a bill of rights, guaranteeing certain basic
protections to the people. Congress proposed the first ten amendments, known as the
Bill of Rights, almost as soon as the new government began. Although thousands of
amendments have been proposed since then, only seventeen other amendments have
been ratified. This means that the basic structure, functions, and powers of the federal
government remain essentially the same as when the framers drafted them, giving the
United States a bedrock of continuity and stability.
Because we live under these rules, it is essential that we know what they are, why they
were established, how they have been implemented, and how they directly affect us. The
Constitution not only designed a government but also placed limits on it to prevent
arbitrary rule. Particularly through its amendments, the Constitution guarantees every
American fundamental rights and protection of life, liberty, and property.
Our Constitution created an effective national government, one that balances expansive
powers with specific limits. By contrast to its sturdy endurance, the first American
government established under the Articles of Confederation in March 1781 showed signs
of weakness and disorder within a few years after it was organized. That first national
government depended upon the states for revenue but could not compel their
cooperation. Surrounded by lands controlled by Great Britain, France, and Spain,
Congress under the Articles of Confederation had trouble funding its own army. Its
weaknesses troubled many of the leaders of the young republic. In 1787, they gathered
in Philadelphia to form a more perfect union.
The road to the Philadelphia convention started two years earlier at Mount Vernon, the
Virginia estate of General George Washington. The hero of the American Revolution
brought together representatives from Virginia and Maryland to settle navigation rights
on the Potomac River, which ran between them. Following that gathering, the Virginia
Assembly called for a larger conference to deal with trade among all thirteen states. Only
five states bothered to send delegates to the meeting in Annapolis, Maryland, the
following year. Although disappointed by the turnout, the delegates who had gathered
were persuaded by a New Yorker, Alexander Hamilton, to call for a full constitutional
convention to tackle the serious weaknesses in their union. They requested that the
Confederation Congress issue formal invitations to the states to appoint delegates to
meet in Philadelphia.
This Constitutional Convention drew fifty-five delegates from all but one of the states.
Rhode Island, fearing national interference in its own state economic initiatives, stayed
away. Those who decided to come to Philadelphia gained prestige when General
Washington agreed not only to serve as a delegate but also as the convention’s presiding
officer.
In May 1787, the delegates convened in Philadelphia’s Independence Hall, where the
Declaration of Independence had been adopted in 1776. The Confederation Congress
had also met there until 1783, when American soldiers marched on Philadelphia to
demand their unpaid salaries. Unable to raise sufficient funds either to provide for the
military, or to protect itself, Congress hastily departed. The Confederation Congress met
in several locations before it settled in New York City.
The inability of Congress to handle the soldiers’ protest demonstrated the powerlessness
of America’s first national government. Real power rested with the individual states. The
Articles of Confederation established a single legislature but no executive or judiciary
branch. In that Congress, all the states had an equal vote, regardless of size. Delegates
from seven states had to be present in order to conduct business. To amend the Articles
required the unanimous agreement of all the states. These requirements made it
difficult to get much done.
What the Articles of Confederation created was less a nation than a “league of
friendship” among the thirteen states. The national government could make treaties and
declare war, but it could not raise taxes or require the states to provide the funds that it
requested. Nor could it stop the states from imposing taxes on each other’s exports. The
weak national government was in no position to prevent the American economy from
sinking into depression.
In Massachusetts, during the winter of 1786, deeply indebted farmers whose land was
being foreclosed refused to pay their state taxes, shut down the local courts, and seized a
government arsenal. Troops from Massachusetts put down the farmers’ revolt—known
as Shays’ Rebellion after its leader, Daniel Shays—while the Confederation Congress
stood helpless in the crisis. “From the high ground we stood upon,” General Washington
despaired in a May 18, 1786, letter to John Jay, “to be so fallen! So lost! It is really
mortifying.” To national leaders, including Washington, the need for a stronger central
government grew increasingly evident. Yet Americans had only recently rebelled against
a tyrannical government, and remained suspicious of a concentration of government
power.
This was the dilemma facing the delegates who gathered in Philadelphia. Fortunately,
they were well educated and experienced in law and government. Eight of them had
signed the Declaration of Independence. A third had served in the Continental Army
during the American Revolution. Most had been members of the Continental Congress
or the Congress under the Articles of Confederation. They ranged from young men,
including James Madison and Alexander Hamilton, who were still in their thirties, to
the eighty-year-old Benjamin Franklin. They were merchants, planters, and
professionals who had a personal interest in creating and preserving a stable society.
Some of them had read widely in history and philosophy and had studied other forms of
government, from republics to monarchies.
The delegates did not intend to produce the type of “pure democracy” that existed in the
ancient Greek city states, where citizens voted on everything. Instead, during their
debates several of the delegates warned against the “excesses of democracy,” with its
“turbulence and follies,” and “dangerous leveling spirit.” They were more impressed
with the ancient Roman republic, where representatives of both the aristocracy and the
people had a say in passing laws.
As British subjects by birth, all the delegates shared in the British legal tradition dating
back to the writing of the Magna Carta (the Great Charter) in 1215, which stated that all
people have rights that even a king has to respect. The delegates to the Constitutional
Convention were also influenced by the ideas of philosophers from the European
Enlightenment, the eighteenth-century intellectual movement that emphasized rational
thought. These philosophers had defined ideal governments as ones in which power was
separated between executive, legislative, and judicial branches that could check and
balance each other.
As North Americans, the delegates had the additional example of the Iroquois
Confederation, in which five Native American tribes in New York State governed
themselves independently but also sent their chiefs to a Great Council to make decisions
on larger issues of war and peace affecting the five tribes.
In writing a constitution the delegates departed from the practice in Great Britain,
where the government was established not by a single document but rather by the entire
body of British common law, the rulings of judges and parliamentary legislation. The
delegates were instead continuing a colonial tradition that dated back to the Mayflower
Compact of 1620, and other colonial charters. These systems had accustomed
Americans to the idea of a single document serving as a contract between the people and
their government.
For Ratification of the Constitution
Often called the Father of the Constitution, James Madison was born in 1751 and raised on a plantation in
Orange County, Virginia. He graduated from the College of New Jersey (later Princeton University) during
the American Revolution, but his fragile health kept him from military service. Madison instead involved
himself in public affairs by helping to write Virginia’s first constitution. He served in both the Continental
Congress and the Confederation Congress, and was a delegate to the Annapolis Convention. Having lost
faith in the government formed under the Articles of Confederation, he actively promoted the
Constitutional Convention and took the lead in drafting the Virginia Plan, which offered the basic
structure of the new government. After winning Virginia’s ratification of the Constitution, Madison was
elected to the House of Representatives during the First Congress. There he led the Federalists and
sponsored the Bill of Rights.
Madison grew troubled over the policies of Presidents George Washington and John Adams. He joined
with Thomas Jefferson in founding the Democratic-Republican Party in opposition to the Federalists.
When Jefferson became President in 1801 he named Madison as his secretary of state. Later Madison
succeeded Jefferson, serving as President from 1809 to 1817. During his administration, the United States
declared war on Great Britain. In August 1814, British troops invaded Washington, D.C., and burned the
Capitol and White House, forcing Madison to flee to safety. America’s pride was salvaged by victory of its
troops at New Orleans. Madison devoted his last years as President to rebuilding the capital and the
national economy. At the time of his death in 1836, James Madison was the last surviving delegate to the
Constitutional Convention.
When the delegates convened, Virginia’s Governor Edmund Randolph offered a bold
proposal that they not simply revise the Articles of Confederation but create an entirely
new form of national government. Randolph introduced the Virginia Plan, which
outlined a Congress with two bodies: a House of Representatives and a Senate. The new
government would also have a separate executive branch, headed by a president, who
would be both chief executive and commander in chief of the armed forces. The plan
also called for an independent judiciary.
Although Randolph introduced the Virginia Plan, its actual author was James Madison,
a young Virginian who served in the Confederation Congress and knew its weaknesses
firsthand. Much of what we know today about the Constitutional Convention we owe to
Madison, who kept detailed notes of the secret sessions. In an effort to avoid public
pressures that might hinder their ability to reach a consensus, the delegates had barred
the doors and windows and conducted all their business away from public view. The
official minutes of the convention recorded little of the debate between the delegates.
But Madison took a seat in front of the chamber, where he could hear the presiding
officer and members on both sides, and he diligently kept a daily journal that
summarized the members’ arguments. His notes reveal the shared sentiments and
disagreements among the delegates, the alternative proposals they considered, and the
compromises they reached. Not published until after his death, Madison’s notes have
become an essential source for jurists who ponder the founders’ intent for each
provision of the Constitution.
The Virginia Plan envisioned a republic based on popular consent. Elected officials
would represent the people, although the people could vote directly only for members of
the House of Representatives. State legislatures would elect senators. Members of an
Electoral College, chosen by the people, would elect the President. The Virginia Plan
provided that each state would have representation in the House and Senate that
reflected the size of their populations. This was the desire of the larger states, which
blamed the Articles of Confederation’s weakness on the equal representation of the
states. Because every state had one vote under the old system, the smaller states,
representing a minority of the population, could block the will of the majority.
The smaller states refused to accept any plan that sacrificed their equality. They
countered with a plan, introduced by William Patterson of New Jersey, that would have
preserved the government structure under the Articles of Confederation. The
convention voted to reject the New Jersey Plan in favor of the Virginia Plan, granting the
larger states the most members in both houses of the new Congress. But the smaller
states would not tolerate inequality, and they continued to fight for their rights. The
convention reached an impasse, just as it planned to take a few days off to celebrate the
Fourth of July. It appointed a special committee to try to work out the disagreement
during the recess. Chaired by Roger Sherman of Connecticut, the committee split the
difference between the two factions. It proposed that the larger House of
Representatives reflect the size of each state’s population, while the states would have
equal representation in the Senate. This became known as the Connecticut Compromise,
or the Great Compromise. The delegates accepted the compromise and, as an additional
assurance to the smaller states, wrote into the Constitution that no state would lose its
equality in the Senate without its consent (which, of course, no state would give).
Through this compromise, the Constitution went on to create a single nation from a
confederation of states. Yet, the states remained as permanent and integral parts of the
new federal system.
The absence of anyone representing Rhode Island served as a reminder to the other
delegates that it would be folly for them to require unanimity in any new form of
government. They provided that the Constitution could be ratified by the vote of nine of
the thirteen states. Nor would unanimity be needed for future amendments. Instead, the
approval of two-thirds of both houses of Congress and three-quarters of the states would
be required to ratify an amendment.
From May until September 1787, the delegates deliberated over all aspects of the new
government. They worked out its structure and listed the specific powers of each branch.
However, they left considerable flexibility in implementing those powers, by giving
Congress the power to make all laws “necessary and proper” for carrying out its explicit
powers. The great difficulty in framing a government, as James Madison pointed out
in The Federalist, the papers written to support ratification of the Constitution, was first
to “enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place, oblige it to
control itself.” Assuming that human nature would always be the same, and that
powerful leaders would inevitably try to amass greater power, the Constitution divided
power among the branches of government and created a system of checks and balances.
Madison reasoned that “ambition must be made to counteract ambition.”
On September 17, 1787, most of the delegates signed the new Constitution. A few of
them, notably Virginia’s George Mason, declined to add their signatures on the grounds
that the Constitution lacked a bill of rights that would identify and protect the rights of
citizens. The weary delegates had voted down a bill of rights on the grounds that the
state constitutions already protected the people’s liberties. Otherwise, the signers had
good reason to feel satisfied with their accomplishment. The elderly Benjamin Franklin
pointed out at the end of their deliberations that the back of the chair where General
Washington sat while presiding had a half-sun carved upon it. Often during the debates
he had “looked at that behind the president without being able to tell whether it was
rising or setting,” he said. “But now at length I have the happiness to know that it is a
rising and not a setting sun.”
Afterward, some of the delegates traveled directly to New York City to serve in the
Confederation Congress. They presented the Constitution to the Congress, which
transmitted it to the states for ratification. Proponents of the Constitution identified
themselves as Federalists. Its skeptics became known as Anti-Federalists. The
opponents feared the Constitution would create a powerful central government that
would overwhelm the states and would run contrary to the democratic spirit of the
American Revolution. They were particularly agitated over the Constitution’s lack of a
bill of rights.
Unlike the idealistic Declaration of Independence, which had declared that “all men are
created equal . . . [and] endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights,” the
Constitution made little reference to religion, except to prohibit any religious test as a
qualification for candidates for federal office. It did, however, date its completion “in the
year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and eighty-seven,” as was customary at
the time. The Constitution was a pragmatic document that sought to balance the varied
interests of the large and small states, the mass of people and the wealthier elite, and
those who supported and those who opposed human slavery.
Against Ratification of the Constitution
George Mason had never left his native Virginia until he traveled to Philadelphia as a delegate to the
Constitutional Convention.He preferred to remain at his comfortable home, Gunston Hall, but went to the
convention because he favored a stronger national government. Born on a Virginia plantation in 1725,
Mason was a planter and also treasurer of the Ohio Company, which sold land to settlers moving
westward. To assist his work with the Ohio Company, he read each of the colonial charters. This
experience proved handy in 1776, when he joined with Virginia patriots in writing the state’s Declaration
of Rights and its first constitution.
Mason served as a delegate to the conference held at Mount Vernon in 1785, and became one of Virginia’s
delegates to the Constitutional Convention in 1787. At first he worked closely with his fellow Virginia
delegate, James Madison, but soon their thinking diverged and Mason grew disillusioned. Mason feared
the Constitution gave too much authority to the President over Congress, and too much power to the
national government over the states. When Mason lost a motion to add a bill of rights he told the
delegates that he would rather “chop off his right hand than put it to the constitution as it now stands.”
Back in Virginia, he fought against ratification. Not even Congress’s enactment of the Bill of Rights
appeased Mason. He died in 1792, suspicious of the Constitution to the end.
Slavery seemed to many Americans contradictory to their Revolution’s principles of
freedom and equality. The northern states had already begun to abolish slavery at the
time of the Constitutional Convention, but the southern states were growing more
dependent on slave labor. At the convention, southern delegates insisted that the
Constitution not interfere with slavery. Northerners agreed, both because they
considered slavery a state matter, and because they felt that the southern states would
never enter the Union without such a guarantee.
The framers did not use the word “slave” in the Constitution, but referred instead to
“other persons” when addressing issues related to slavery and the slave population. The
Constitution prohibited Congress from ending the importation of slaves before 1808. It
also provided that slaves be counted as three-fifths of a person to determine taxation
and representation in Congress. (At the time, slaves accounted for about 20 percent of
the U.S. population, mostly concentrated in the South.)
During the ratification of the Constitution, the most inflammatory issue was not its
toleration of slavery but its lack of a bill of rights. Thomas Jefferson, who had drafted
the Declaration of Independence, was away serving as the American minister to France.
Jefferson admired the delegates’ work, but he wrote to his friend James Madison that “a
bill of rights is what the people are entitled to against every government on earth . . . and
what no just government should refuse.” Many other Americans shared Jefferson’s
concern about the protection of their rights.
In order to win ratification, the authors of the Constitution needed to explain and
defend their handiwork to the people. Under the joint pen name of Publius (Latin for
“the public” or “the people”), James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and John Jay wrote
a brilliant series of essays published in newspapers throughout the states in 1788. These
essays have been reprinted in book form in many editions since then, and are known
today as The Federalist. They explained how the new government would work, and
sought to calm people’s apprehensions about it. In one of his essays, Madison discussed
the failure of past republics when one faction grew so strong that it dominated and
suppressed all others. Madison predicted that the American republic would survive
because of its size and its continued growth. In a large republic, no single faction would
predominate, he reasoned. This would prevent a powerful majority from suppressing
the rights of the minority. As Americans moved westward into new territories, they
would form new states that would join the Union and add even more groups into the
equation. The arguments put forth by the authors of The Federalist carried great weight,
and they still inform us about the thinking of the framers of the Constitution.
On December 7, 1787, Delaware became the first state to ratify the Constitution, and
other states quickly followed. The fiercest battles took place in the larger states. In
Virginia, Revolutionary War patriots such as Patrick Henry and Richard Henry Lee
opposed the Constitution, while Washington and Madison argued in its favor. To gain
support, Madison pledged that the new government would move speedily to adopt a bill
of rights. On June 25, 1788, after four months of debate, the Virginia convention voted
89 to 79 for ratification. On July 26, New York concluded an equally divisive debate and
approved the Constitution by the narrow margin of 30 to 27. North Carolina’s
convention voted against ratification, however, and Rhode Island never called a
convention. Still, eleven of the thirteen states had ratified the Constitution, which was
two more than required. North Carolina eventually joined the Union in 1789, and Rhode
Island in 1790.
Among its last acts, the outgoing Confederation Congress set the first Wednesday in
January of 1789 as the date for the first Presidential election. The Electoral College
would cast its ballots on the first Wednesday in February, and the new government
would begin on the first Wednesday in March. But on March 4, 1789, neither the House
nor the Senate could establish a quorum. Both had to wait until April, when enough
members arrived to conduct the business of implementing the new Constitution. Many
of the delegates to the Constitutional Convention were elected as members of the First
Congress, including James Madison, who served in the House of Representatives.
Representative Madison, true to his word, introduced a bill of rights. Congress crafted
his proposals into twelve amendments. The states ratified ten of them, which became
known as the Bill of Rights. Two hundred years later, in 1992, the states ratified the
eleventh of these original amendments, which dealt with congressional pay increases.
(The unratified twelfth amendment would have set the number of people to be
represented in each congressional district at fifty thousand, a number so low that the
House of Representatives would by now have grown to many thousands of members.)
Over the following centuries, Congress continued to enact all laws “necessary and
proper” to carry out the powers enumerated in the Constitution. Presidents vastly
expanded their power in competition with Congress. The Supreme Court became the
final arbiter of whether acts of Congress or Presidential actions were constitutional.
Beginning with the case of Marbury v. Madison (1804), the Supreme Court asserted its
right to declare laws unconstitutional—a power that is implied but not specified in the
Constitution. In the case of McCulloch v. Maryland (1819), Chief Justice John Marshall
observed that the Constitution provided only the “great outlines” of government. The
brevity of the document suggested that its authors expected judges to interpret its
meaning, and anticipated flexibility in its implementation.
Growing from thirteen to fifty states, the United States spread from the Atlantic to the
Pacific Ocean, with a larger population, a more complex economy, and a mightier
military than the authors of the Constitution could possibly have imagined. Yet the
Constitution remains essentially the same document they drafted during the summer of
1787. The Constitution’s succinctness helped it to survive largely intact, forcing
Presidents, Congress, and the courts to find new applications periodically to meet
changing circumstances and cope with new problems. Understanding the Constitution
requires careful reading of the original document and its amendments, taking into
consideration what we know about its framers’ intent, and the ways in which
generations of judges have construed its language to make it work.
The Federalist No. 10: Growth will strengthen the republic
At the time that the Constitution was written, people worried that past republics had worked best in
small governments such as city-states. James Madison saw different possibilities and argued in The
Federalist that the American republic would grow stronger as it expanded because it would be harder
for any one group to dominate it.
The smaller the society, the fewer probably will be the distinct parties and interests composing it; the
fewer the distinct parties and interests, the more frequently will a majority be found of the same party;
and the smaller the number of individuals composing a majority, and the smaller the compass within
which they are placed, the more easily will they concert and execute their plans of oppression. Extend the
sphere, and you take in a greater variety of parties and interests; you make it less probable that a majority
of the whole will have a common motive to invade the rights of other citizens; or if such a common motive
exists, it will be more difficult for all who feel it to discover their own strength, and to act in unison with
each other. Besides other impediments, it may be remarked that, where there is a consciousness of unjust
or dishonorable purposes, communication is always checked by distrust in proportion to the number
whose concurrence is necessary.
Hence, it clearly appears, that the same advantage which a republic has over a democracy, in controlling
the effects of faction, is enjoyed by a large over a small republic—is enjoyed by the Union over the States
composing it.
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