2. INTRODUCTION
After the failure of the Articles of Confederation, the people of
the United States sorely needed a new government. But what,
exactly? Under the Articles, the central government was weak
and unstable, without the ability to even tax its states. Needing
a new plan, delegates from the states gathered in Philadelphia.
Revision after revision, compromise after compromise, our
founding fathers finally crafted the Constitution as we know it
today, and it has held ever since.
3. WHO, WHAT, WHEN,
WHERE AND WHY
• The constitution was crafted primarily by delegates, also known as
“Framers” of the Constitution (Benjamin Franklin (Pennsylvania),
Alexander Hamilton (New York), James Madison (Virginia),
William Peterson (New Jersey), Edmund Randolph (Virginia) and
Roger Sherman (Connecticut)). Representatives from 12 of the 13
states eventually attended.
• The convention for the revision of the Articles of Confederation
began on May 25, 1787. After months of heated debate, the new
Constitution was finally completed on September 17 of the same
year.
• The convention was held in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
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4. CONTINUED FROM
PREVIOUS SLIDE
• The events leading up to the Constitution were primarily, Shay’s Rebellion–
a violent protest by farmers due to the prospect of losing their land.
Though the Northwest Ordinance was fairly successful, the unrest created
by the Rebellion made Americans fearful. Even though the government
militia was just powerful enough to fight the farmers off, it caused the
American people to question the effectiveness of the Articles.
• Last and most importantly, the Constitution was created due to the
weakness of the Articles of Confederation. A weak central government was
ineffective– and that needed to change.
5. PRECURSORS OF THE
CONSTITUTION
• The preceding documents of the Constitution include the Virginia
Plan, a proposal that the government be divided into three branches–
legislative, executive and judicial, each with the power to “check”
each other. This plan called for strong central government.
Membership in Congress was based on population. The rival plan to
this was the New Jersey Plan, which was very similar to the Virginia
Plan in structure, but the primary difference was that every state
received one vote in terms of representation. Population has no value
. However, there was a compromise to this, appropriately called the
Great Compromise. This implemented a bicameral legislature, one
based off of population, in the other, each state receives two
representatives regardless of population.
• The Three Fifths Compromise was significant as well. This was the
result of a dispute as to whether enslaved people should count as
population. The Compromise states that three fifths of enslaved
people count as population.
6. PROBLEMS SOLVED BY
THE CONSTITUTION
• The Constitution gave the central government much more power in that they
now had the sole power to coin money, tax the states (especially to pay off
the debt from the war), raise a national army from said taxes, regulate
commerce, and prohibit states from conducting foreign affairs. The
Constitution gave the American people a much more stable government than
in the days of the Articles of Confederation.
7. LIMITATIONS OF THE
CONSTITUTION
• The Antifederalists felt that the Constitution interfered with state
sovereignty and republicanism (they believed that representative
government could only exist in a small territory). The lack of a Bill of
Rights, a feature of every state constitution , caused skepticism as well.
Many were intimidated by the idea of strong central government, fearing
that it would rehash the oppression of the British King, even though the
president’s power is severely more limited than a monarch’s.
8. HOW I WOULD IMPROVE
THE CONSTITUTION
• Though these are modern ideas that were unheard of in the days of the
Revolution, I would alter the Constitution to include the equal rights of all
genders, races, ethnicities, sexual orientations, ages, socio-economic statues,
creeds (or lack thereof), and nationalities– not just the “equal” rights of white
men with property.
• I would probably elaborate more on rights to privacy and one’s own body and
property (both intellectual and physical) more than is stated in the
constitution.
• I might or might not include the right to bear arms, as I am a pacifist and
believe gun control is a serious problem in this country.
9. RELEVANCE OF THE
CONSTITUTION
Though I believe that the constitution is still relevant today, the only way it has been
able to stay relevant is our ability to make amends to it, and that the interpretation of
the constitution is able to change over time. It may not be relevant in the way our
founding fathers intended it to be hundreds of years ago, but due to the adaptive
nature of the constitution, it is still relevant and useful today.
