Essays on Constitutional Convention

Question 1 Response: Creating a new Constitution was vital to the unity of the United States of America since the Articles of Confederation weren’t sufficient for good government. If there was any evidence of this, it was that the United States was clearly bankrupt and now needed to be organized in such a manner that both the States and the Federal government had to share power in such a manner that everyone’s interests were kept in mind. A centralized approach was key to putting the country back on track. Hence, a meeting was held in the Pennsylvania ...

The following primary documents include two antifederalist essays and three federalist essays that were published in newspapers three to six months following the Constitutional Convention. The antifederalists aimed to convince the states that the new constitution would not work while the federalists hoped to gain support and ratification of the new constitution. In 1787 and 1788, when the essays were written, the new country was struggling. The Articles of Confederation were not sufficient, and the fears that resulted in the Revolutionary War were still very fresh in the minds of everyone.

SUMMARY OF THE ESSAYS

THE ANTIFEDERALIST NO. 18-20 WHAT DOES HISTORY TEACH? ( ...

When Federalists and Anti-Federalists were debating about the new U.S. Constitution, one of the most controversial issues was the balance of power between the national and state governments. In order give more power to the national government, Federalists had to take into account Anti-Federalists’ views and introduce three branches of power that would be empowered to control each other. James Madison, one of America’s founding fathers, wrote in The Federalist Papers that “power is of an encroaching natureit ought to be effectually restrained from passing the limits assigned to it.” (Cited in The Federalist Papers Project 19). It ...

The American political system as it was formulated by the Founding Fathers and written down in the Constitution was based on a particularly eighteenth century vision of liberal government based on Enlightenment ideals. The Constitution and the Bill of Rights as a document is a great example of what the priorities and values of the Framers of the Constitution were. The values of the Framers which they fought a war against Great Britain over basically centered around the belief in limited government, the decentralization of power and the separation of powers combined with a system of checks and balances. ...

The Key Constitutional Concepts is a film that focuses the creation of the American Constitution during the historic Constitutional Convention (Key Constitutional Concepts). It has three segments that examine the creation of the American Constitution and two constitutional conflicts that were landmark cases of the Supreme Court. The cases include Youngstown V. Sawyer and Gideon V. Wainwright and Youngstown v. Sawyer. Specifically, the first section of the three-part documentary examines the creation of American Constitution (Key Constitutional Concepts). In 1787, the Constitutional Convention held in Philadelphia’s Independence Hall brought together the Founding Fathers who faced the daunting task ...

Introduction

American founding fathers were brave, noble and great as they pioneered the drafting of the America Constitution. America government has over the years suffered from a series of problems that proves the need for a new constitution. There is the urgent need for amending the constitution while maintaining its legal, ethical, and moral structure. Over 224 years since the ratification of the America Constitution, several amendments have emerged, and only 27 of these changes were approved and included in the constitution. Depending on the challenges faced in the 21st century ranging from corruption and poor leadership the constitution should ...

People active in politics are elite in the sense that they play a larger role than most citizens. But there are also many American elections and so many places where political action can be blocked that no single elite can dominate. Business corporations, for example, are an importance interest group, but they only dominate client politics, and even then their influences can be overcome by entrepreneurial politics.

DO ELITES DOMINATE AMERICAN POLITICS?

Public opinion influences the making of U.S. policies through a number of channels. Elites in American business, education, communications, labor, and religion try to influence presidential decision making through several strategies. In ...

When Britain’s' thirteen colonies in North America took up arms against the mother country, the prospects of an independent nation demanded a new government for the free people. Notably, there was pressure to ensure that the new laws were democratic as opposed to the Monarchical rule exerted by the British on the colonists. Hence, in 1777, the Founding Fathers attempted a government based on the autonomy of the individual States by proposing the Articles of Confederation at the Second Continental Congress in Philadelphia. The Articles came into effect in 1781when the States ratified them but by 1789, the ...

The constitution emerged to create a structured society through the creation of a stable system of government and protection of individuals’ powers. It creates three branches of government with different responsibilities and mandates that complement each other in achieving the government objectives. The legislature has a responsibility of making laws, the executive implements the laws, while the judiciary undertakes their interpretation (Cox, 1987, p.42). The Constitution regulates the powers of these branches so that none is superior to the other, but rather work in harmony. It also outlines the powers of the federal government such as printing money, controlling ...