A Constitutional Convention Or How Sometimes You Just Have to Compromise.
18
A Constitutional Convention Or How Sometimes You Just Have to Compromise
-
Upload
magnus-terry -
Category
Documents
-
view
215 -
download
0
Transcript of A Constitutional Convention Or How Sometimes You Just Have to Compromise.
A Constitutional Convention
Or How Sometimes You Just Have to Compromise
• The Articles of Confederation created a weak central government• And then farmers rebelled in
Massachusetts – Shays’ Rebellion
• How could the central government stop a rebellion if it did not even have an army?
• A Constitutional Convention was called• It was time to revise the Articles of
Confederation
• There were, however, some conflicts
1- Small states worried about representation – would big states have all the power?
2- And what about slaves – would slaves count in determining the states’ number of representatives?
• And what would Congress be allowed to tax?
• So, compromises were reached
• First, representation in Congress- New Jersey Plan: Smaller states
wanted the number of representatives to be the same for all states- Virginia Plan: Larger states wanted
representation be proportional to the size of each state’s population
• The Great Compromise- Or Connecticut Compromise- A bicameral or two-house Congress- A House of Representatives - And a Senate
• A House of Representatives: where states would be represented in proportion to their population • A Senate: where all states would be
represented equally
[2 Senators per state]
• And a census would be taken every ten years to determine the state’s population for the number of its representatives in the House of Representatives
• The Compromise over Slavery• Three-fifths Compromise: Three-fifths
of a state’s slave population would be counted for purposes of both taxation and representation
• The Compromise over Trade- Congress was given the power to tax
imports but not exports- A tax on imports is a tariff- So, Congress could create tariffs but
not tax exports
• The Constitution also created a federal government with three branches• This separation of power prevents any
one branch from having too much power• This is known as a system of checks
and balances
• The concept Checks and Balances mean that no one branch of government has all the power• Each branch can check or limit the
power of the other branches
• Examples of Checks and Balances:
• The American System of government is called Federalism- This means that there is a federal
government and state governments- Some powers are reserved to the states- Some powers are granted to the federal
government- And some powers are shared or concurrent
powers
