JEB1337

__Articles of Confederation__ The structure of the Articles of Confederation was that it was set up under one house legislature called Congress. In this, each of the 13 states had up to only seven representatives, however only one representative could vote no matter the population on the state. Each state had their own sovereigny to control their own affairs. Congress had quite a few powers such as to have and mantain communications with the other contries. They could borrow money and isse currency and importantly control the army. However, they did have major weaknesses like they couldn't pass any laws without the approval of nine of the 13 states. They couldn't either enforce laws that were passed because Congress had no executive branch to enforce it. So, if there was an argument between them they had no judicial branch to solve the problem. Also, they couldn't pay back soldiers from the Revolutionary War, so they raised taxes on farms and the farmers couldn't pay up. The Articles of Confederation was unsucessful because they had many major issues that could not be fixed and little power.

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__Constitutional Convention Compromises__ The only way the convention could survive is if it compromised. To compromise, an agreement had to be created between two sides in which both sides had to agree give up something to gain something. This dispute or agreement was between small and large states, both wanted one thing and both didn't want what the other to have what they wanted. To solve this this problem **Roger Sherman** of Connecticut proposed that the power of the legislative branch was broken in two houses, the lower house based population from each state and the upper house made up of two members form each state, otherwise known as the House of Representatives and the Senate Therefore, smaller states got the representation that they wanted as well as the larger states. Slavery was a major problem in this convention. Specifically slave population was what had to be compromised. The Southern States such as Virginia had maybe over 290,000 slaves and wanted the slaves to be counted in the population so they could have more representatives. However, the Northern States realized that they would lose political power if they allowed the slaves to be counted as a full person so they objected this idea. Some Northern States even argued that the slaves should be counted for tax purposes because they were considered property not people. Once again the committee agreed to count the slaves as a three-fifths of a person. One of the final controversies was that the North wanted to abolish slave importation and slave trade. Southern states relied entirely on slaves for their economical position, so they threatened to leave the convention if such stunt was pulled on them. The Northern States agreed to not interfere with the slave trade until twenty years after, in 1808, since the North wanted to keep the support of the Southern States. The final controversy that arose in the convention was that a type of bill of rights should be included in the Constitution. Since their experience with a British King or monarchy wasn't so pleasant, delegates believed that people should be guaranteed protection from the government. Yet, many of the delegates thought that a bill of rights was unnecessary because the rights of the people were clearly defined in the Constitution. After a while the document was finished and signed on September 17, 1787 by most of the delegates.

__Founding Fathers__ a. James Madison-James Madison is known as the Father of the Constitution. He helped organize the convention. Madison was the creator of the Virginia Plan. James supported the ratification of the constitution and helped write the Federalist Papers, which was series of essays that persuaded the citizens to support the constitution. The federalists did this so that they could get 9 out of the 13 states to agree so that the constitution could be ratified. b. Gouvneur Morris-Morris is from New York, but he represented Pennsylvania at the convention. He had a part in writing the preamble. Gouvneur supported the constitution and was one of its signers. c. Edmund Randolph-Randolph was an American attorney. He was the governor of Virginia. He supported the constitution. d. George Mason-Mason was a Virginia statesman and a delegate. He was the leader of the anti-federalists and James Madison in the writing of the Bill of Rights. George was an anti-federalist, therefore he did not support the constitution. e. Alexander Hamilton-He served in the New York legislature. He half wrote the federalist papers. Hamilton was the only new yorker to sign the Constitution. f. William Patterson-Patterson was the governor of New Jersey. He made the New Jersey Plan. At first he opposed the Constitution, but he did sign it. g. John Dickinson-Dickinson was a delegate from Delaware. He didn't support the constitution because is a very small state and the were 'small state' 'big state' fights. The small states supported the New Jersey Plan.

__Ratification__ The issue with the ratification was that there were two sides argueing over the approval of the Constitution. One side, the Federalists, lead by Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison wanted to approve the Constitution. The other side, the Antifederalists, of course diapproved of the Constitution becuase it lacked the bill of rights, which protected the freedom of the people. The Federalists thought the bill of rights was not needed because it would gives the impression that people only had protection to what rights were listed. The Antifederalists thought too that the executive branch had too much power and it will become a monarchy, but the Federalists said that the power would be shared by three branches. But eventualy the Constitution was approved, but also the bill of rights after the Constitution. []