Malcolm Rivera
The United States Constitution, the supreme law of the United States of America, was written to address the inadequacies of the Articles of Confederation, the nation's first constitution. James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and George Washington, among others, believed that the Articles of Confederation were insufficient because they lacked enforcement powers, the ability to regulate commerce, and the power to print money. The Constitutional Convention of 1787 was convened to revise the Articles, but ultimately, a new constitution was created, aiming to balance authority and liberty by limiting the power of government and protecting citizens' freedoms.
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What You'll Learn
The Articles of Confederation were unworkable
The states' disputes over territory, war pensions, taxation, and trade threatened to tear the young country apart. James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and George Washington feared their young country was on the brink of collapse. Alexander Hamilton helped convince Congress to organise a Grand Convention of state delegates to work on revising the Articles of Confederation. The Constitutional Convention assembled in Philadelphia in May 1787, with delegates from wildly differing interests and views. They compromised and crafted a powerful central government.
One of the fiercest arguments was over congressional representation—should it be based on population or divided equally among the states? The framers compromised by giving each state one representative for every 30,000 people in the House of Representatives and two representatives in the Senate. They agreed to count enslaved Africans as three-fifths of a person. Slavery itself was a thorny question that threatened to derail the Union. It was temporarily resolved when the delegates agreed that the slave trade could continue until 1808.
The authors of the Constitution were especially concerned with limiting the power of government and securing the liberty of citizens. The doctrine of legislative, executive, and judicial separation of powers, the checks and balances of each branch against the others, and the explicit guarantees of individual liberty were all designed to strike a balance between authority and liberty—the central purpose of American constitutional law.
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The need for a strong central government
The United States Constitution, the supreme law of the United States, was written to address the inadequacies of the Articles of Confederation, the nation's first constitution. The Articles of Confederation had given the Confederation Congress the power to make rules and request funds from the states, but it lacked enforcement powers, the ability to regulate commerce, and the power to print money. This led to disputes among the states over territory, war pensions, taxation, and trade, threatening to tear the young country apart.
The Constitutional Convention, assembled in Philadelphia in May 1787, was tasked with revising the existing government. However, the delegates ultimately decided to completely redesign the government, creating a powerful central government. They recognized the need to strike a balance between centralized power and state loyalty, and crafted compromises to address the diverse interests and views represented.
One of the fiercest arguments during the Constitutional Convention was over congressional representation, with delegates debating whether it should be based on population or divided equally among the states. A compromise was reached, with each state receiving one representative for every 30,000 people in the House of Representatives and two representatives in the Senate. This compromise, along with others made during the convention, reflected the delegates' efforts to strengthen the central government while accommodating the interests of the individual states.
The framers of the Constitution were mindful of the potential excesses of centralized power and sought to secure the liberty of citizens. They incorporated the doctrine of separation of powers, dividing the federal government into three branches: the legislative, executive, and judicial. This system of checks and balances was designed to limit the power of the government and protect the rights of the people.
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The protection of individual liberties
The Constitution's first three articles embody the doctrine of the separation of powers, dividing the federal government into three branches: the legislative, the executive, and the judicial. This separation of powers was designed to limit the power of the government and protect citizens' liberties. The legislative branch consists of a bicameral Congress, the executive branch is made up of the President and subordinate officers, and the judicial branch comprises the Supreme Court and other federal courts. Each branch acts as a check and balance on the others, ensuring that no one branch becomes too powerful and protecting the rights of individuals.
The inclusion of a Bill of Rights was also important in safeguarding individual liberties. While the Constitution did not initially include a Bill of Rights, it was a condition of ratification in many states. As a result, Congress proposed 12 amendments in 1789, 10 of which were ratified by the states and adopted in 1791. These amendments guaranteed various rights, including freedom of speech, freedom of religion, the right to bear arms, and protection from unreasonable searches and seizures.
In conclusion, the protection of individual liberties was a central concern for the framers of the US Constitution. Through the separation of powers, checks and balances, explicit guarantees of rights, and the inclusion of a Bill of Rights, the Constitution sought to limit the power of the government and secure the liberties of citizens. The compromises made during the Constitutional Convention also reflected a desire to protect individual rights and strike a balance between authority and liberty.
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The separation of powers
The concept of the separation of powers is commonly ascribed to French Enlightenment political philosopher Charles de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu, who wrote in his 1748 book, "The Spirit of the Laws", that liberty is endangered when one branch of the government exercises some combination or all of the powers of the legislative, executive, and judicial branches. Montesquieu's interpretation of English political realities has since been disputed, but his work was widely influential, most notably in America, where it profoundly influenced the framing of the US Constitution.
The US Constitution, ratified by the individual states in 1787 and 1788, established three branches of government: the executive, the legislative, and the judicial. The intention of organizing the government in this way was to prevent any single branch from becoming too powerful. This so-called separation of powers was designed so that each branch of government could limit the power of the other two branches, hence the system of checks and balances.
The Federalists, who supported the US Constitution, and the Anti-Federalists, who were skeptical of it, held differing views on the separation of powers. The Federalists believed that the beauty of the US Constitution was that each branch of government would be coequal and independent from the other. The Anti-Federalists, on the other hand, feared that the president and the executive branch would have too much power and govern in their own interests, as did the British king and ministry. They wanted a stricter application of the separation of powers principle and believed that the Federalists had not done enough to separate and check the branches of government.
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The need to regulate commerce
The United States Constitution, the supreme law of the United States, was established in 1787 to supersede the Articles of Confederation, the nation's first constitution. The Articles of Confederation had given the Confederation Congress the power to make rules and request funds from the states, but it lacked enforcement powers, the ability to regulate commerce, and the ability to print money.
The Constitutional Convention, which assembled in Philadelphia in May 1787, was initially convened to revise the Articles of Confederation. However, the delegates, including James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and George Washington, soon realized that a completely new government was needed. They were concerned about the centralized power of the government and sought to strike a balance between authority and liberty.
The delegates engaged in heated debates over congressional representation, slavery, and other contentious issues. They compromised by agreeing to a bicameral Congress, with each state having one representative for every 30,000 people in the House of Representatives and two representatives in the Senate. They also agreed to count enslaved Africans as three-fifths of a person and allowed the slave trade to continue until 1808.
The final Constitution, signed by 39 delegates, established a federal government divided into three branches: the legislative, consisting of the bicameral Congress; the executive, consisting of the President and subordinate officers; and the judicial, consisting of the Supreme Court and other federal courts. The Constitution also delineated the rights and responsibilities of state governments and their relationship to the federal government. The need to regulate commerce was a driving force in the creation of this new framework for the American government.
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Frequently asked questions
America's first constitution, the Articles of Confederation, gave the Confederation Congress the power to make rules and request funds from the states, but it had no enforcement powers, couldn’t regulate commerce, or print money. The states’ disputes over territory, war pensions, taxation, and trade threatened to tear the young country apart.
The framers of the Constitution were especially concerned with limiting the power of government and securing the liberty of citizens. The doctrine of legislative, executive, and judicial separation of powers, the checks and balances of each branch against the others, and the explicit guarantees of individual liberty were all designed to strike a balance between authority and liberty.
The Constitutional Convention assembled in Philadelphia in May of 1787. The delegates wanted to revise the Articles of Confederation, but by mid-June they had decided to completely redesign the government. After three months of debate, the delegates appointed a Committee of Detail to put its decisions in writing. Near the end of the convention, a Committee of Style and Arrangement condensed 23 articles into seven in less than four days. On September 17, 1787, 38 delegates signed the Constitution.
Some people believed that the new government would become one controlled by the wealthy established families and the culturally refined. They believed that the common working people were in danger of being subjugated to the will of an all-powerful authority remote and inaccessible to the people. Some also believed that the convention was rushing to saddle the country with an ill-advised, potentially ruinous central authority.
