Writing the Constitution

Activity # GV131

Activity Introduction-

Hi I’m Kimberly, Today you’re going to find out why we wrote the constitution and how it

all came about. In the beginning, the newly independent United States gave only

limited power to their new government, the Articles of Confederation. Soon, they

realized that wasn’t working out. So they called a convention to try to solve the

problems. They had to make some compromises. And, eventually decided to write a

brand new constitution to guide a new government.

Video 1 – Introduction-

The first government in the U.S. right after independence was the Articles of

Confederation. The Articles of Confederation government was not perfect by any

means. In fact, this new government had some strengths, but also some weaknesses.

Video 1-

Did you know that the current government that we have was actually the second

attempt by the Founding Fathers in creating a new government system? The first one

that they created was called the Articles of Confederation. Now you're probably

wondering, or you may not be wondering, why we not have it. Well, there was a good

intent behind it, but it was a bad effect. It really didn't work the way that they had

designed it to.

Now there were three reasons why it was not effective, and sorry, it was bad, but the

three reasons why it didn't work were number one, there was no national executive. In

other words, who's going to represent the country when you have to deal with a foreign

diplomat? You have to remember that it was the same Founding Fathers that had a

bad taste in their mouth for dealing with the King of England, dealing with the problems

that they fought the Revolutionary War over.

Much of history deals with experiences. It's your bad experiences that you had that

really affect what you're going to do in the future, and the Founding Fathers really

experienced a lot of problems dealing with England that they did not want to repeat

again in creating this new government, and so those experiences really drove what they

were doing. When they created the legislature, or the Congress, they purposely made it

weak so that they wouldn't deal with some of those issues that they had before, and so

one of the things that made it weak was the fact that it couldn't really regulate trade

between the states.

They felt that authority should be best handled by the states, but at the same time, how

do you make sure the states are trading fairly with each other? At the same time, how

do you make sure the states are trading fairly with other countries? A country might

come in and make one deal with Rhode Island and make another deal with Florida.

How do you make sure that that's all being taken care of? If you're dealing with that,

how do you also regulate money? And that was another thing that they took away from

the federal government. They let the states handle that, but that creates another series

of issues on its own. If someone is going from Massachusetts and they're going to

Rhode Island, they're going to have to get a different type of currency. They've got to

change money. Think about it today. If you were going to travel across the country,

every state you go through you would have to change money, and that began to be a

problem as you're going along. You also have the issue of taxing. Now I don't like

taxing, a lot of people don't like taxing, but the problem with taxing is the fact that it's

necessary. How do you pay for services? You have to tax. And so if the federal

government can't tax, how does it pay for itself? How does it basically keep the country

running? And so that was something where the states would donate money to the

government, but what happens if you're a state and you don't want to donate money to

the government? Well, that comes to the next issue of no enforcement.

If the government passes laws, there's no way of enforcing it. There's no way of making

sure that those laws come about. That creates a series of problems on its own.

We next have the issue of one vote, one state. Now think about it this way. You have

someone living up in Rhode Island that has about 1000 people, then you have a state

like Virginia that has 100,000 people. They each have one vote, but is that really fair?

I mean, the concerns of 1000 versus 100,000 are very different, and for a lot of the

larger states, they didn't think that was fair. They really resented the fact that they were

being treated equal where they have a whole series of different problems. It's not going

to work the way that they want it, and then you also have the issue of having a super

majority.

When the Congress met, you had to have 9 out of 13 states agree just to pass general

laws. That's 70%. I've been in groups of people where there's 10 of us, and we can't

even agree on all these different issues. Imagine going out to dinner with 13 people

total, including yourself, and you're all having to sit there and be in agreement as to

where you're going to go and eat. By the time you come up with some kind of

agreement, you're ready for breakfast. It's going to take that long. And so that was

another issue that they were dealing with, and if they were going to pass an

amendment, you had to have unanimous consent. In other words, everybody had to be

in agreement. That's very difficult, I mean, trying to get all these people together.

And then the other issue that made the Articles of Confederation ineffective was the fact

that they didn't have any judiciary. In other words, they didn't have a court system. So

if you have two states that are in disagreement, who's going to handle it? Case in point,

New York and New Jersey have been arguing with each other for years over who

actually owns the Statue of Liberty. If you don't have a court system, who's going to

determine it? I mean, if you take it back to the Congress, remember, they have to be all

in agreement just to pass an amendment, and then they've got to be 70% just to pass

laws. You can't go to them. I mean, they don't have the time to deal with these other

issues, because they're busy arguing over certain laws.

So these were some of the reasons why the Articles of Confederation were really

ineffective. Again, you've got to remember, these problems really weighed heavily on

what was going on, but there were some that chose to ignore it, and so you had the

Shay's Rebellion in Western Massachusetts that created a lot of concern for the people

that were there, because they recognized that there was no one to turn to, there was no

way of really being able to resolve it. And so you had problems associated with Shay's

Rebellion and Western Massachusetts that served as a wake-up call for the Founding

Fathers. There were serious problems associated with the Articles, and so to address

those problems they sent delegates to Philadelphia in 1787 at a Constitutional

Convention to begin addressing some of the problems that were associated with the

Articles, but you're going to have to tune in next time to hear more about that.

Video 1 – Recap

So, once again…

Americans limited the powers of the Articles of Confederation government, because of

the tyranny they endured when Great Britain ruled them.

The downside is that it left the U.S. with a weak government.

The legislature had limited law-making powers, plus, there were no executive or

judiciary branches at all.

They also limited Congress’s powers. For example, there was no ability to tax, only one

vote per state, unanimous consent was required to amend, and there was no

enforcement mechanism on the states. Something had to be done.

Reading Passage 1 Intro-

Now because the Articles of Confederation gave few powers to the legislature, and that

wasn’t working out, leaders decided to call a convention to try to come up with a new

plan.

An example of how things weren’t working out, could be seen in the skirmishes that

were breaking out in the country.

One was Shays’ Rebellion.

The delegates that came to the convention ended up creating a new constitution.

They are known as the “Framers of the Constitution”.

Reading Passage 1 Outro-

Now that you’ve read the passage…

Video 2- Introduction

Sometimes, you just gotta compromise, otherwise there is no way to move forward.

Delegates at the Constitutional Convention needed to compromise in order to write a

constitution that would be accepted by all 13 states.

They listened to three plans, the Virginia Plan, the New Jersey Plan, and the

Connecticut Plan.

Finally, they found a plan they could agree on and that was the Great Compromise.

Think about what this compromise was all about while you watch this video.

Video 2-

As we previously mentioned, the Articles of Confederation was a disaster, and so the

states, except for Rhode Island, sent delegates to Philadelphia in 1787 to repair the

flaws in the new government. Several problems existed with the Articles of

Confederation, but one of its key flaws was the equal representation of both the small

states and the large states in the government.

The large states hated this, feeling that they should receive certain rights for having

large populations. Of course, the small states rejected this concept, and they clung to

the equal representation they had under the Articles of Confederation. So each group

came up with their own proposal of how the new government should be created. The

large states such as Virginia, Pennsylvania and Massachusetts adopted the plan

created by Virginia, which was called the Virginia plan.

The plan proposed having a bicameral Congress, meaning it was made up of two

different law-making groups. Representation for these two chambers would be based

on population or the monetary support the states gave the national government. The

lower chamber, or the House of Representatives, will be made up of members that were

elected by the people. In the upper chamber, known as the Senate, the members were

selected by the state legislatures and approved by the House of Representatives. This

plan also allowed the Congress to undo or cancel laws passed by state legislatures. It

also allowed the Congress to force a state to obey its laws.

The plan also promoted a national executive, or leader, as well as a national judiciary,

or court system, which would be chosen by the Congress. The small states such as

Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey and New York came up with their own alternative plan

since they did not like the population requirement that the Virginia plan promoted. This

plan was known as the New Jersey Plan. It allowed for a unicameral Congress, or only

one assembly like they had under the Articles of Confederation, each state would

receive only one vote in the new legislature, however, Congress could tax the states

and the people, and it could regulate or oversee trade inside and outside the states.

The New Jersey Plan also sought to have a multiperson federal executive chosen by

Congress, and these individuals would then choose the members of the judiciary, or the

court, system.

So what do you do at this point? Both groups resented the plans put forth by the other.

Large states felt the small states were seeking tyranny of the minority, and the small

states felt like they were being pushed to the side and that the big states were

purposely trying to limit their power. Delegates from both sides searched for an

acceptable compromise.

Their first step towards this compromise was proposed by Roger Sherman of

Connecticut, who had initially supported the New Jersey Plan. His plan was called the

Connecticut Plan. In it, he agreed to a bicameral legislature as long as equal

representation occurred in one chamber. The large states refused to accept his

proposal.

To avoid certain deadlock and a failed convention, the delegates appointed a grand

committee on July the 2nd, 1787. The committee consisted of one member from each

state who was chosen by ballot. The report delivered by the committee has become

known as the Great Compromise. It kept the main parts of the Connecticut Plan such

as representation in the lower chamber, or the House of Representatives, and that was

going to be based on the state's population. To get the southern states to support this

plan, they agreed to count each slave as three-fifths of a person when determining

population.

This provision has become known as the Three-Fifths Compromise. Now

representation in the upper chamber, or the Senate, was going to be equal, meaning

that each state will have the same number of representatives regardless of the

population. So on July the 16th, 1787, after two weeks of heated debate, the Great

Compromise passed, but just barely, with a vote of five in favor of it and four against.

With the overriding question of representation in Congress behind them, the delegates

at the Constitutional Convention could work on the rest of their new plan of government.

That task took them another seven weeks during that long, hot summer in Philadelphia.

Video 2- Recap-

So, one more time…

So you might want to ask yourself the same questions that were asked during the

formation of the great compromise.

All the delegates listened to the Virginia Plan which favored the large states and the

New Jersey Plan that favored the small states.

They couldn’t agree on either one.

The Connecticut Plan suggested some good compromises, but they didn’t go for that

one completely either.

Finally, they came up with a compromise…the Great Compromise. They took a lot of

ideas from the Connecticut Plan, but with a slight twist.

With the Great Compromise, they decided on two houses, so all states would get an

one equal vote in the Senate, but states with larger populations would get more votes in

the House.

So you can see that the big questions were finally answered thanks to the Great

Compromise.

Reading Passage 2 Intro-

So take a look at how the Constitution went from compromise to completion.

Framers of the Constitution had to make some compromises in order to reach final

agreement on the details of the new U.S. Constitution.

The compromises were about fair representation for all states in Congress, whether to

allow taxation on commerce, whether or not to allow the slave trade, and how to elect

the president.

Reading Passage 2 Outro-

Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body. So your mind just did about fifty

pushups.

What the Class Thinks-

Okay, time for another episode of “After Class.”

Student 1

Hey Bill. I missed our government class today. Can I take a look at your notes?

Student 2

Sure. Hopefully they will make sense to you.

Student 1

Wow. You took really great notes.

Student 1

It looks like you all discussed how U.S. government evolved.

Student 2

Yes. It started with the Articles of Confederation which had limited powers, then the

Student 1

It looks like they had to make a lot of compromises along the way.

Student 2

Yep. Mostly about representation for the states. Some states wanted something that

was good for them but not the other states.

Student 2

So, what they agreed on is written in the Constitution.

Student 1

Wow. We’ve had the same constitution since 1787?

Student 2

Yes. Actually I think they ratified it in 1788. Still, that was way over 200 years ago!

That’s it for this episode. Thanks for tuning in.

Generic Activity Exit-

Alright, looks like we’re done here. Until next time, see ya.