US Constitution in the Making
Storyboard Text
- The Philadelphia Convention
- This whole Articles of Confederation thing isn't working out...
- Critical Issues at the Convention
- I say we give votes based on population. Seems fair enough to me.
- The Madison Model
- The Philadelphia convention, or more commonly referred to as the constitutional convention, was a meeting between representatives from every state, to discuss the problems with the Articles of Confederation, as well as to come up with better governmental/ federal guidelines, in the form of the US Constitution. These men weren't delegates, and met up in secret. The Bill of Rights wasn't discussed until a while after the US Constitution was put in motion.
- Ratifying the Constitution
- I say slaves should count as 3/5ths of a person.
- At the convention, there was a lot of debate about what should be done about the pressing issues that were tearing the states apart. One of these problems was representation. Many small states thought that the big states had an unfair advantage in voting, so they created two new plans, the New Jersey plan and the Virginia plan. The New Jersey plan gave every state 1 vote in congress, while the Virginia plan gave states votes based on individual population. These changes sparked debate throughout the people. Many people thought that without a Bill of Rights, the ratification of these changes may put the liberties of the people in jeopardy, thus creating the federalists (agreed with changes), and anti-federalists (disagreed).
- Constitutional Change
- Were going to ad this... we need freedom of religion... assembly for sure... cruel and... what's the word? Oh! Unusual punishment...
- The Madison Model was a system of government that focused on the separation of powers. The Madisonian Model separated the federal government into three branches, legislative, executive, and judicial. The legislative branch creates laws, the executive branch enforces these laws, and the judicial branch interprets these laws, as well as decides whether laws are constitutional. This system of checks and balances was all an effort to avoid sovereignty, the very reason the US was created.
- Understanding the Constitution
- Executive Branch
- Legislative Branch
- Judicial Branch
- Before the constitution could be ratified, there was one more issue... slaves. Some states had more slaves than actual citizens, which made deciding how big that state's population was confusing. In the end it was decided that slaves were counted as 3/5ths of a person, or the three fifths clause. Once this was done, on June 21, 1788, after nine of the thirteen colonies agreed to pass this new constitution, the new Constitution was finally set in motion.
- An amendment of the constitution is possible, and may be proposed by either congress with a 2/3 majority vote in both the senate and the House of representatives, or by a constitutional convention, that has been requested by 2/3 of the state legislatures. If the proposed amendment passes these votes, then it goes to the states. If 3/4 (38 out of 50) of the states ratify the amendment, then it is put in the records, and the process is brought to a close.
- Neither the New Jersey plan nor the Virginia plan truly passed, but instead the US opted for an alternative known as the electoral college. The number of votes for each state in the electoral college is based on the number of senators in a state, plus the number of seats in the house of representatives that state has. Both of the original plans can still be seen in the electoral college, in the form of the Connecticut Compromise. This compromise gave every state equal representation in the senate, as well as representation in the House of representatives that varies depending on state population.
- Electoral College
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