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The Constitution Wiki 1. The Articles of Confederation. while Thomas Jefferson was making the first draft of the declaration of independence. the members of continental congress were developing a plan of government detailed in the first constitution of the us, the articles of confederation. the government set up the congress, a one house legislature each state could have up to at the most 7 representatives. one of the weaknesses was that the congress couldn't pass any laws unless 9 out 13 of the states approved, also the articles could only be amended by an anonymous vote of all the states. another weakness was that any laws passed by the congress couldn't be enforced because there was no executive branch to make sure the laws were being followed. the last weakness was that there was no judicial branch to settle a problem if it occurred. these weaknesses made it hard for the congress to do anything if to efectively the 13 colonies in anyway.

2. One of the constitutional compromises was an argument about slaves. the southern states had most of slave population so they wanted the slaves to counts as one white person so they could have more representatives. the Northern states disagreed because that meant they will have less political power in the congress. they finally came to a conclusion that slaves could count as 3/5 as a man.

3. our founding fathers were very important to the great compromise. one of our founding fathers was James Madison.James Madison came up with the three branch government. he also worked with Alexander Hamilton and john jay on the federalists essays, because agreed with the ratification. another one of our founding fathers was Governor Morris. he represented Pennsylvania, even though he is originally from new york. he also was one of the men who singed the constitution. one of our founding fathers, Edmund Randolph, was very disappointing, in my opinion. Edmund Randolph is known for being in favor of the Virginia plan, and for declining to sign the constitution of September 17,1787, which i find disappointing. yet there is another founding father, i am talking about George mason. George Mason was a delegate from Virginia who helped draft writing that Jefferson used in the declaration of independence. he was an anti federalists so he also declined signing the constitution. Alexander Hamilton is another one of the founding fathers. he was a new york delegate at the convention. he came up with an idea for the government modeled on a British system,even though he considered it brilliant it was rejected by his delegates. close to last but there is still another founding father. he is William Patterson. he was in favor of the New Jersey "small states" plan, and opposed to the Virginia "large plans", but then he agreed with the Connecticut compromise supported by Oliver Willsworth. finally our last founding father is John Dickinson. john mainly contributed with the elections and powers for presidents. he also did a very strange thing, he wrote 9 essays under the name of "Fabius" about the ratification. 4. The Ratification The Ratification or change of the Constitution was opposed by some and supported by others. The people who opposed the Ratification were the Anti-Federalists and the people who supported the Ratification were called the federalists. The leaders of the federalists were Alexander Hamilton, John Jay and James Madison. To convince the Anti-federalists to go with the ratification, they wrote the "//Federalists Papers//", which composed of series of essays and gave lots of support of it. the Anti-'Federalists thought that the ratification did not protect the individual rights of the people like the bill of rights did. In the end the Constitution was approved thanks to a compromise that they would add a bill of rights if the states approved the new constitution. The constitution was approved and the bill of rights was added a year later.



http://teachingamericanhistory.org/convention/delegates/madison.html