The Impact Of Framers On The Creation Of The Constitution

Calvin Coolidge, the 30th president of the United States, one said “every American can turn for solace and consolation to the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States with the assurance and confidence that those two great charters of freedom and justice remain firm and unshaken”. That reverence for our Nation’s long standing constitution still stands strong because of the hard work of the 55 delegates that argued for their beliefs in creating a new government at the Philadelphia Convention (Wilson et al. 27). The framers of the Constitution fervently contested what form the government of our nation should take and the impact of their debates are displayed throughout the framework of the document. The main concerns

The framers were concerned that the current federal government under the Articles of Confederation did not possess enough power in order to preserve the union; therefore, the constitution must provide the federal government with enough power to serve its duty while still preserving power in the state governments. In Federalist Paper No. 1, Hamilton is urging that under the new constitution the “utility of the union” created by a stronger federal government will help to ensure the vitality of the states as it offers protection of liberty (Hamilton et al. 30). Madison argued in Federalist Paper No. 10 that in a larger government the impacts of factions will be lessened because the people will defeat “sinister views by regular vote” (Hamilton et al. 75). He also states in Federalist Paper No. 39 that the ratifying of the constitution creates a government that is “neither wholly national nor wholly federal” (Hamilton et al. 242). The idea of these three Federalist Papers that were written by the framers of the constitution is that the federal government has to have a higher share of power than was present in the Articles of Confederation in order to strengthen the union. Because they believed the stronger central government was needed, the delegates gave the federal government new powers in the constitution

This concern was evident in the many checks and balances and the separation of powers in our federal government. Madison makes the separation of powers evident in Federalist Paper 48 because he states “power properly belonging to one of the departments ought not to be directly and completely administered by either of the other departments” (Hamilton et al. 305). This idea portatins to each of the branches having their own general duties with the Executive branch enforcing the laws, the legislative branch writing the laws, and the judicial branch interpreting the laws. Madison also demonstrates why the government needs checks on its power in Federalist Paper 51 because the government needs to be able to control the people but also it has to control itself since we are not governed by angels (Hamilton et al. 319). These ways to control the government are evident in Article 1, Section 3 as the “Senate shall have the sole power to try all Impeachments” and in Article 1, Section 7 which gives the President the power to veto bills (Hamilton et al. 546). Therefore, the concern of the founders over the checking of the power in the federal government is resolved for through the checks and balances in the