Britain was the most obvious. But the comparative knowledge of the Framers ranged from Ancient Greece to then contemporary Poland. This educated group meeting in Philadelphia was well aware that their draft was highly original in some ways and deeply indebted to other constitutional ideas in other ways.
Once the American Constitution was ratified, the idea of the single written constitution became popular the world over. Poland adopted its first written constitution in the spring of ; France followed with its first written constitution later that year and went through four constitutions in the s alone. Many 19th century changes of government were marked by the adoption of written constitutions, some of which are still in existence.
The European Revolutions of produced dozens of new constitutions in that year alone, though few of them lasted. But it was clear by century's end in many parts of the world that changes of government should be marked by the adoption of new constitutions.
In the 20th century, constitutions have become fashionable, especially since the Second World War. Almost all democratic governments now have written constitutions.
Since the collapse of the Soviet Empire, a wave of new constitution-writing has produced a new faith in the abilities of constitutions to guide new governments. The new constitutions tend to be much longer than the American one, because they govern more institutions like central banks, administrative agencies, cabinet-level offices, and the military and because they include more rights not only a more extensive list of civil and political rights, but also increasingly social, cultural and economic rights as well.
The American Constitution remains special in this history, but its exact provisions, its elaborate system of checks and balances, its constrained list of rights, and its sparseness are not very often copied exactly these days. But the American constitutional experience showed how one might construct a long-lasting democratic government though clever ideas about the design of political institutions. They were merchants, planters, and professionals who had a personal interest in creating and preserving a stable society.
Some of them had read widely in history and philosophy and had studied other forms of government, from republics to monarchies. As British subjects by birth, all the delegates shared in the British legal tradition dating back to the writing of the Magna Carta the Great Charter in , which stated that all people have rights that even a king has to respect. The delegates to the Constitutional Convention were also influenced by the ideas of philosophers from the European Enlightenment, the eighteenth-century intellectual movement that emphasized rational thought.
These philosophers had defined ideal governments as ones in which power was separated between executive, legislative, and judicial branches that could check and balance each other. As North Americans, the delegates had the additional example of the Iroquois Confederation, in which five Native American tribes in New York State governed themselves independently but also sent their chiefs to a Great Council to make decisions on larger issues of war and peace affecting the five tribes.
In writing a constitution the delegates departed from the practice in Great Britain, where the government was established not by a single document but rather by the entire body of British common law, the rulings of judges and parliamentary legislation. The delegates were instead continuing a colonial tradition that dated back to the Mayflower Compact of , and other colonial charters.
These systems had accustomed Americans to the idea of a single document serving as a contract between the people and their government. He graduated from the College of New Jersey later Princeton University during the American Revolution, but his fragile health kept him from military service.
He served in both the Continental Congress and the Confederation Congress, and was a delegate to the Annapolis Convention. Having lost faith in the government formed under the Articles of Confederation, he actively promoted the Constitutional Convention and took the lead in drafting the Virginia Plan, which offered the basic structure of the new government. There he led the Federalists and sponsored the Bill of Rights. When Jefferson became President in he named Madison as his secretary of state.
Later Madison succeeded Jefferson, serving as President from to During his administration, the United States declared war on Great Britain. In August , British troops invaded Washington, D. Madison devoted his last years as President to rebuilding the capital and the national economy. At the time of his death in , James Madison was the last surviving delegate to the Constitutional Convention.
Randolph introduced the Virginia Plan, which outlined a Congress with two bodies: a House of Representatives and a Senate. The new government would also have a separate executive branch, headed by a president, who would be both chief executive and commander in chief of the armed forces. The plan also called for an independent judiciary. Although Randolph introduced the Virginia Plan, its actual author was James Madison, a young Virginian who served in the Confederation Congress and knew its weaknesses firsthand.
Much of what we know today about the Constitutional Convention we owe to Madison, who kept detailed notes of the secret sessions. In an effort to avoid public pressures that might hinder their ability to reach a consensus, the delegates had barred the doors and windows and conducted all their business away from public view. The official minutes of the convention recorded little of the debate between the delegates.
His notes reveal the shared sentiments and disagreements among the delegates, the alternative proposals they considered, and the compromises they reached. The Virginia Plan envisioned a republic based on popular consent. Elected officials would represent the people, although the people could vote directly only for members of the House of Representatives. State legislatures would elect senators.
Members of an Electoral College, chosen by the people, would elect the President. The Virginia Plan provided that each state would have representation in the House and Senate that reflected the size of their populations. Because every state had one vote under the old system, the smaller states, representing a minority of the population, could block the will of the majority.
The smaller states refused to accept any plan that sacrificed their equality. They countered with a plan, introduced by William Patterson of New Jersey, that would have preserved the government structure under the Articles of Confederation. The convention voted to reject the New Jersey Plan in favor of the Virginia Plan, granting the larger states the most members in both houses of the new Congress.
But the smaller states would not tolerate inequality, and they continued to fight for their rights. The convention reached an impasse, just as it planned to take a few days off to celebrate the Fourth of July.
It appointed a special committee to try to work out the disagreement during the recess. Chaired by Roger Sherman of Connecticut, the committee split the difference between the two factions. This became known as the Connecticut Compromise, or the Great Compromise. The delegates accepted the compromise and, as an additional assurance to the smaller states, wrote into the Constitution that no state would lose its equality in the Senate without its consent which, of course, no state would give.
Through this compromise, the Constitution went on to create a single nation from a confederation of states. Yet, the states remained as permanent and integral parts of the new federal system. The absence of anyone representing Rhode Island served as a reminder to the other delegates that it would be folly for them to require unanimity in any new form of government.
They provided that the Constitution could be ratified by the vote of nine of the thirteen states. Nor would unanimity be needed for future amendments. Instead, the approval of two-thirds of both houses of Congress and three-quarters of the states would be required to ratify an amendment. From May until September , the delegates deliberated over all aspects of the new government. They worked out its structure and listed the specific powers of each branch. On September 17, , most of the delegates signed the new Constitution.
Otherwise, the signers had good reason to feel satisfied with their accomplishment. The elderly Benjamin Franklin pointed out at the end of their deliberations that the back of the chair where General Washington sat while presiding had a half-sun carved upon it. Afterward, some of the delegates traveled directly to New York City to serve in the Confederation Congress. They presented the Constitution to the Congress, which transmitted it to the states for ratification. Proponents of the Constitution identified themselves as Federalists.
Its skeptics became known as Anti-Federalists. The opponents feared the Constitution would create a powerful central government that would overwhelm the states and would run contrary to the democratic spirit of the American Revolution. The Constitution was a pragmatic document that sought to balance the varied interests of the large and small states, the mass of people and the wealthier elite, and those who supported and those who opposed human slavery.
George Mason had never left his native Virginia until he traveled to Philadelphia as a delegate to the Constitutional Convention. Born on a Virginia plantation in , Mason was a planter and also treasurer of the Ohio Company, which sold land to settlers moving westward. To assist his work with the Ohio Company, he read each of the colonial charters.
At first he worked closely with his fellow Virginia delegate, James Madison, but soon their thinking diverged and Mason grew disillusioned. Mason feared the Constitution gave too much authority to the President over Congress, and too much power to the national government over the states. He died in , suspicious of the Constitution to the end. The northern states had already begun to abolish slavery at the time of the Constitutional Convention, but the southern states were growing more dependent on slave labor.
At the convention, southern delegates insisted that the Constitution not interfere with slavery. Northerners agreed, both because they considered slavery a state matter, and because they felt that the southern states would never enter the Union without such a guarantee.
The Constitution prohibited Congress from ending the importation of slaves before It also provided that slaves be counted as three-fifths of a person to determine taxation and representation in Congress. At the time, slaves accounted for about 20 percent of the U. During the ratification of the Constitution, the most inflammatory issue was not its toleration of slavery but its lack of a bill of rights.
Thomas Jefferson, who had drafted the Declaration of Independence, was away serving as the American minister to France. In order to win ratification, the authors of the Constitution needed to explain and defend their handiwork to the people.
These essays have been reprinted in book form in many editions since then, and are known today as The Federalist. In one of his essays, Madison discussed the failure of past republics when one faction grew so strong that it dominated and suppressed all others.
Madison predicted that the American republic would survive because of its size and its continued growth. In a large republic, no single faction would predominate, he reasoned.
This would prevent a powerful majority from suppressing the rights of the minority. As Americans moved westward into new territories, they would form new states that would join the Union and add even more groups into the equation. The arguments put forth by the authors of The Federalist carried great weight, and they still inform us about the thinking of the framers of the Constitution. On December 7, , Delaware became the first state to ratify the Constitution, and other states quickly followed.
The fiercest battles took place in the larger states. To gain support, Madison pledged that the new government would move speedily to adopt a bill of rights. On June 25, , after four months of debate, the Virginia convention voted 89 to 79 for ratification.
On July 26, New York concluded an equally divisive debate and approved the Constitution by the narrow margin of 30 to
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