Founding Fathers' Constitution: The Chosen Plan

The Founding Fathers of the United States were the political leaders of the British colonies in the 18th century. They were responsible for writing and signing the United States Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, and the Constitution of the United States. The Founding Fathers were wary of centralized power and loyal to their states, so they created a powerful central government with a system of checks and balances. This system, known as federalism, became the guiding principle of the Constitution, separating state and national powers to protect Americans from tyranny and provide checks against rogue states.

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The Articles of Confederation

The Founding Fathers, including James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and George Washington, became concerned that the Articles of Confederation were insufficient to prevent the country from collapsing. The states retained considerable power, and the central government struggled with economic issues, such as inflation and depleted treasuries, as well as disputes over territory, war pensions, taxation, and trade.

As a result, Alexander Hamilton called for a new Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia in 1787, where the Articles of Confederation were ultimately replaced by the United States Constitution, which established a federal system with a separation of powers between the state and federal governments.

Separation of powers

The Founding Fathers of the United States were the political leaders of the British colonies in North America during the latter half of the 18th century. They were responsible for writing and signing the United States Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, and the Constitution of the United States.

The Founding Fathers' experience with the British monarchy informed their belief that concentrating governmental powers in a single entity would lead to arbitrary and oppressive government action. As a result, they included a separation of powers in their new Constitution. This was a novel concept at the time, and it became a guiding principle to safeguard Americans against tyranny while providing a check against rogue states.

The separation of powers is a doctrine of constitutional law that divides the three branches of the U.S. government (executive, legislative, and judicial) and their duties, keeping them legally separate. This system of checks and balances ensures that each branch has certain powers to inspect and block the other branches from overstepping their duties. The legislative branch, or Congress, creates laws; the executive branch, led by the President, enforces those laws; and the judicial branch, headed by the Supreme Court, reviews the actions of the other two branches.

The Founding Fathers sought to ensure that each branch of the federal government would exercise one of these three basic functions independently. While the text of the Constitution does not expressly refer to the doctrine of separation of powers, it divides governmental power among the branches. The legislative power is vested in Congress, the executive power in the President, and the judicial power in the Supreme Court and any lower courts created by Congress.

The framers of the Constitution also incorporated various checks and balances to address concerns that one branch might attempt to exercise powers assigned to another. For example, the President can veto legislation passed by Congress, but Congress can overrule such vetoes with a supermajority vote. Additionally, Congress has the power to impeach and remove the President, Vice President, and civil officers.

Federalism

The Founding Fathers of the United States were the political leaders of the British colonies in North America during the latter half of the 18th century. They were responsible for writing and signing the United States Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, and the Constitution of the United States.

The Founding Fathers chose a form of government called federalism, which divides power between a central government and regional governments. Federalism is a political philosophy that combines a general level of government (a central or federal government) with a regional level of sub-unit governments (such as provinces, states, or territories), while sharing governing powers between the two levels.

The Founding Fathers had just broken free from the British Empire, and they were wary of centralised power. They wanted to prevent foreign powers from influencing their young democracy, and they were anxious about the potential for tyranny. They initially chose a confederation, where power originates at the local level in the individual states, and a weak central government has only the powers that the states delegate to it. However, they soon found that the Articles of Confederation were inadequate, as they gave the Confederation Congress no enforcement powers, and could not regulate commerce or print money.

In 1787, the Founding Fathers met again in Philadelphia and drafted a new Constitution grounded in federalism, with a separation of state and national powers. This new form of government was neither a national nor a federal constitution, but a composition of both. Federalism became the guiding principle to safeguard Americans against tyranny while providing a check against rogue states.

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Representative democracy

The Founding Fathers of the United States were the political leaders of the British colonies in North America during the latter half of the 18th century. They were responsible for drafting and signing the United States Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, and the Constitution of the United States. The Founding Fathers include notable figures such as George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, and Benjamin Franklin.

In the years following the Revolutionary War, the Founding Fathers became concerned that their young nation was on the brink of collapse due to disputes among the states over territory, war pensions, taxation, and trade. The Articles of Confederation, America's first constitution, gave the Confederation Congress the power to make rules and request funds from the states, but it lacked enforcement powers and the ability to regulate commerce or print money.

In 1787, the Founding Fathers met in Philadelphia and drafted a new Constitution based on the principle of federalism, which separated state and national powers. This new form of government, known as a confederation, gave power to the individual states, with a weak central government that could only make rules and request funds from the states.

The Founding Fathers chose a representative democracy as they believed it would safeguard Americans against tyranny while providing checks and balances against rogue states and the centralization of power. They wanted to ensure that the rights of all citizens were protected and that the government represented the diverse interests and views of the people.

Slavery

The issue of slavery proved to be a difficult one for the Founding Fathers to navigate. Born into a slaveholding society, many of the Founding Fathers—including George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and Benjamin Franklin—owned slaves themselves. Four of the first five presidents of the United States were slave owners. However, as the ideals of the Enlightenment spread through the American colonies in the 1760s and 1770s, the articulation of the ideals of liberty and freedom brought the morality of slavery into question.

During the Constitutional Convention of 1787, the Founding Fathers debated the issue of slavery and its future. Many of the Founding Fathers harboured moral qualms about slavery. Some, including Benjamin Franklin (a former slaveholder) and Alexander Hamilton (who was born in a slave colony in the British West Indies), became members of anti-slavery societies. John Jay, for example, was both a slaveholder and one of the leading architects of New York's 1799 Act for the Gradual Abolition of Slavery. Gouverneur Morris, another Founding Father, called slavery a "nefarious institution" and "the curse of heaven on the States where it prevailed".

Despite their misgivings, the Founding Fathers believed that concessions on slavery were the price for the support of southern delegates for a strong central government. They were convinced that if the Constitution restricted the slave trade, South Carolina and Georgia would refuse to join the Union. The Founding Fathers, therefore, sidestepped the issue of slavery, leaving the seeds for future conflict. The word "slave" does not appear in the Constitution, though slavery received important protections in the document. For example, the notorious three-fifths clause—which counted three-fifths of a state’s slave population in apportioning representation—gave the South extra representation in the House of Representatives and extra votes in the Electoral College.

During and after the American Revolution, many Northern states adopted legislation to end or significantly reduce slavery. In 1782, Virginia passed a manumission law that allowed owners to free their slaves by will or deed, resulting in the manumission of thousands of slaves. In 1787, during the Constitutional Convention, the Founding Fathers debated a South Carolina proposal to prohibit the federal government from regulating the Atlantic slave trade. Luther Martin of Maryland, a slaveholder, argued that the slave trade should be subject to federal regulation since the nation would be responsible for suppressing slave revolts. He also considered the slave trade contrary to America's republican ideals, stating:

> It is inconsistent with the principles of the Revolution, and dishonorable to the American character to have such a feature in the constitution.

On the other hand, John Rutledge of South Carolina responded forcefully:

> Religion and humanity have nothing to do with this question. [...] Unless regulation of the slave trade was left to the states, the southern-most states shall not be parties to the union.

In 1784, Thomas Jefferson proposed to ban slavery in all the western territories, but this failed to pass Congress by one vote. Congress did, however, ban slavery in the Northwest Ordinance, for lands north of the Ohio River. In 1787, the Founding Fathers once again demonstrated their commitment to maintaining the unity of the new United States by resolving to diffuse sectional tensions over slavery.

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