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The Constitutional Convention Of 1787 As A Revolution In Government

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Richard R. Beeman describes the Constitutional Convention of 1787 as a “Revolution in Government” because the goal of the Constitutional Convention was not a plan to amend the Articles of Confederation; it was a plan to drastically reform the old form of government, thus, revolutionizing the governing document of that time. The convention set in motion the creation of a completely different form of government. Beeman’s article could also suggest that the relationships between the different politicians was also groundbreaking. For example when “the southern delegates are willing to compromise for the sake of harmony” it shows that they are willing to set aside their differences in order to establish a better form of government for the well-being of the country (Beeman). In the beginning, the ideas of the small state delegates with the ideas of the larger states over the distribution of representation. It was not until Edmund Randolph offered a plan known as the Virginia plan. It provided a bicameral legislature that created two congressional houses and gave states representation primarily on its population. Shortly after, William Paterson proposed the New Jersey plan which made equal representation available in Congress. Moreover, Oliver Ellsworth and …show more content…

At this time, Congress had delegated powers which gave them specific powers that were extremely limited. Such limitations have Congress no power to tax or any power over interstate or foreign commerce. The Articles of Confederation also said that only the states were sovereign. This meant that only state governments had a direct impact on the people. Also, under this governing document congress consisted of one body and each state had a single vote. Amendments could only occur only when all the states approved. Lastly, no chief executive was chosen and no federal courts existed meaning that all laws were enforced by state

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In 1978, two plans were put forth regarding how each state in the union would be represented in the national legislature. The two plans put forth were the, “Virginia Plan” (which favored big states), and the “New Jersey Plan.” (which favored small states) Edmund Randolph of Virginia proposed the Virginia plan. The plan laid out a system in which states would be represented in the national legislature based on their population and/or by how much revenue they contributed to the national government.

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How would you like it if you and a group worked really hard on a project and thought it was perfect just the way it was. Then some people come around and decide it's not good enough so they try and change it or just make a completely new one .Well that's what happen with the articles confederation. Rufus king or the delegate of massachusetts thought it they were all good and didn't want to make any changes. He was one of the youngest delegates at the age of thirty three.

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The Constitutional Convention resulted in many different plans and ideas. The Virginia Plan was proposed by Edmund Randolph, but written by James Madison. The plan stated that people should have representation based on how many people are in their state. Essentially, this boils down to representation based on population. The New Jersey plan was proposed by William Patterson.

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DBQ Essay The United States Constitution is a document that or founding fathers made in order to replace the failing Articles of Confederation (A of C). Under the Constitution, the current government and states don’t have the problems they faced when the A of C was in action. The Constitution was created in 1788, and held an idea that the whole nation was nervous about. This idea was a strong national government, and the Federalist assured the people that this new government would work. The framers of the Constitution decided to give more power to the Federal government rather than the state governments because the A of C had many problems, there was a need for the layout of new government, rights, and laws, and there was a need for the Federal

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Plus, some states declined to hand out taxes, so Congress did not have ways to get source of finance. The only thing they could do was to borrow money on credit. More, because Congress lacks of central leadership so that they could not keep a stable form. Each State government was given power to overturn national actions which was objectionable. Because Congress had no ability to enforce their laws, states could ignore national law without worrying punishments (The Articles of Confederation, 2015).

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Therefore, Congress could not earn any money through all the international trade nor could they regulate the trade. Because of this, all of the states had the ability to trade with whomever they wanted and were not taxed or restricted. Furthermore, since Congress was unable to enforce treaties, other countries had no desire to create treaties with America because the treaties would never be fulfilled. As the Articles of Confederation limited the central government’s

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Written in 1787 and established in 1788, The Constitution is one of the most famous government systems in the world, laying down the foundation for the world we know today. It’s predecessor, the Articles of Confederation, was not nearly as long-lasting, being scrapped after just 10 years. However, both documents had a similar idea: giving power to the people and preventing the rise of a king. One huge difference is that the Constitution established a much stronger government than the Articles of Confederation. With the Articles, there was almost no government, leading to big problems.

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As it applies to the Articles of Confederation there were many weaknesses in the way it went about governing the United States. For one, the loose federation of the states was too weak to act as a foundation to be considered or act as a central government. In addition the state legislatures had too much power and in turn had the ability to influence economic issues of all kinds. This strong legislature is the same one that allowed for mob ruling and actions by debtors. The Articles of confederation were also weak because the required congress to have all 13 colonies in agreement when a new tax was to be passed.

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The Constitutional Convention of 1787 brought politicians from different states together in order to create a more complex and centralized form of government. The Virginia Plan was brought forward by James Madison, a representative of Virginia, who wanted to create a more centralized and powerful national government, that would benefit the larger states if it was implemented. The main political dilemma was to construct a central government that would provide the necessary national goods without interfering or endangering the power of the states. Some of the issues discussed at the Convention that were brought forward by the representatives were congressional representation, the appointment of House seats, the national assumption of state debts, the regulation of tariffs and the presidential powers, which were later on incorporated in what is known today as the Constitution.

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Jefferson protested Hamilton’s proposal for this reason, predicting that the most important citizens of his Republican vision, the yeoman farmers, would suffer. By the end of the night a compromise had been made that appeased both parties: the federal government would assume the national debt, and in turn, the capital of the nation would move from Pennsylvania to Virginia, an easily accessible region for Jefferson and Madison. Their quiet conversations clearly displayed their sole concern for themselves, not the American people. In addition, the fact that their compromise was made privately proves the lack of respect they

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Following the end of the American Revolution marked a new set of problems for the United States. As impending war debts were threatening to crush the new nation, America knew they needed to address the flaws of the Articles of Confederation through a Constitutional Convention. The United States Constitution of 1787 was created in hopes of developing a stronger and more effective governing body while still upholding America’s virtues of freedom. Unfortunately, with change, comes opposition, and many people feared that the Constitution would be oppressive and undermine the autonomy of the individual states through its strong central government. Because of this, the issues that sparked the greatest controversies during the ratification of the

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The plan proposed by Virginia otherwise known as the “large-state plan.” Which proposed “a bicameral legislature, in which the lower house would be elected proportionately and the upper house would be selected from a list of nominees sent from the state legislatures on the basis of equal representation for the states. ”(add footnote) As the smaller states feared that this plan would lose a voice in the federal government if they continued with the Virginia plan, they opposed this plan and came up with one for themselves which would be known as the “small-state plan.” The small-state plan would propose “a unicameral Congress, with equal representation for each state, with all the powers of the Confederation Congress.

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198). This was known as the New Jersey Plan. In the text, Experience History, it states that this plan raised Congress’s power to tax and regulate trade, and kept national government a unicameral. Though it did not take long before the delegates rejected Paterson’s plan and going back to Madison’s plan. The problem with this plan was the idea of the seats being proportional to the states because some states were bigger than others (Davidson, et al., 2013, p. 198).

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Naturally, they had tried to avoid the problems they had with the Articles of Confederation and so they structured the Constitution differently. Instead of letting state governments to have all the power while the national government was left to be weak, the Constitution tried to balance it out and worked more as a federalist system. Now the national government was finally able to establish an executive branch, along with a judicial branch. The power to tax and regulate interstate commerce were given the national government this time (Module 2.2). The Article VI had allowed national government to have jurisdiction over states in that “national laws and treaties “shall be the supreme Law of the Land” and superior to all laws adopted by any state or any subdivision.”

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Obviously, smaller states were not pleased with that plan. They thought that larger states could easily overrule them in congress. So William Paterson created a plan called the New Jersey Plan. It as well had the same three branches but, the plan provided legislators to have only one house. Each state would only one vote in the legislator, regardless of the population.

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