The Constitution Dbq Essay

763 Words4 Pages

The Constitution DBQ The Constitution of United States is regarded by many as an important document, for it gave the common people the power to form a government the way they want. Yet, despite all the benefits that it brought to the American people at the time, people also had some concerns about the Constitution such as: it is creating a Central government that is too powerful, only white men that owns property are allowed to vote, not everyone in the nation are treated equally, etc. When the Constitution was first being drafted, Representatives from each state hoped to add terms that would benefit their own states—this lead to a heated debate on how the Constitution should be formed. The Constitution is a combination of all the states’ …show more content…

of those of other descriptions on the 1st. year after this Government shall have been adopted and every year thereafter…”(Document 6). When it came to the issue of slavery, the southern and northern states broke into a bitter argument on whether slaves should be included into the state’s population or not. Southern states wanted to include slaves because the majority of their population were made up of slaves, but northern states feared that by allowing southern states to do so they might loose control of the House of Representatives. Unmoral as it may be, the 3/5th compromise eased the conflict between the Northern and Southern states. Yet, to most people at the time the Constitution created an effective central government and federal system, “…Should all the states adopt it, it will be then a government established by the thirteen states of America…, but by the people at large…The existing system has been derived…whereas this is derived from the superior power of the people”(Document 8). James Madison included the statement above in his speech defending the Constitution, for he believed that the Constitution was a document by the people and for the people. What’s more was that he believed the Constitution provided a balance between the states and federal government that no other document had ever did