The Creation of the Constitution

 

 

The Convention that drafted the Constitution of the US was organized by a group of experienced and influential politicians – who later received the respectful name Founding Fathers – in Philadelphia in 1787. These people were deeply worried about the current state of affairs in the country: the Articles of Confederation, which had been valid since 1781, created a weak central government and left most powers, especially the power of taxation, in the hands of the states. During the War of Independence, huge war debts had been piled up by both the Continental Congress and the states, which had to be repaid, but the economy was depressed after the traditional trade connections with Britain had been torn. Poor farmers and artisans were angry with the high taxes imposed by many state governments. Many of the delegates at the Convention felt that these economic and social problems threatened the survival of the United States, and therefore the Articles of Confederation should be thoroughly revised in order to strengthen the central government.

 

The Convention began in May 1787, with 55 delegates from 12 states (Rhode Island, the smallest state, was not represented). Some of the people present were well-known statesmen, such as George Washington, who was elected the chairman of the Convention, or Benjamin Franklin. Alexander Hamilton, who first proposed the Convention, was also present. Thomas Jefferson and John Adams were missing, because they served as ambassadors to France and Britain. One of the younger politicians who proved very influential during the discussions was James Madison from Virginia, who changed the purpose of the whole Convention when he presented the so-called Virginia plan, a completely new framework of government.

 

Madison was convinced that the Convention should construct a completely new federal government which would enjoy superiority over individual states, and would not be dependent on them. Therefore the federal legislature should be elected directly by the people, not delegated by the states, and its laws would be valid without the approval of the states. Therefore in his plan he proposed a legislature consisting of two houses, in which the lower house would be elected directly, and the upper house would be elected by the lower house out of candidates nominated by the state legislatures. He also proposed separate executive and judicial branches: they would be chosen by the legislature, and they would have veto powers over laws passed by the legislature. The legislature would have supreme power in all matters on which the individual states were not entitled to act, and it could veto state laws if necessary.

 

The Virginia Plan was received with little enthusiasm by the small states: they were worried that in such a federal legislature the large states (that is, states with high population, e.g. Virginia, Massachusetts, New York, and Pennsylvania) would have far more representatives than the small states, so in practice the large states could have a permanent majority and decide all important issues among themselves. Therefore, they presented an alternative proposal, the so-called New Jersey Plan, which was in effect an amendment to the Articles of Confederation. The Plan wanted to strengthen the federal government to a certain degree, but also tried to preserve the crucial feature of the old Confederation Congress – in one house, each state would have one vote. It also wanted to give less power to the federal government than the Virginia Plan.

 

When the majority of the states voted in favor of the Virginia Plan, the Convention decided to work out a compromise proposal combining the features of the two Plans. Finally, they agreed on the following national legislature, called Congress:

 

 

This way, the lower house fulfilled the democratic principle: representatives would be elected by the people, and each state would have members in proportion to its population, giving relatively more influence to the large states. In order to make sure that the distribution of representatives among states is correct, a national census (counting of the population) should be held every ten years.

 

On the other hand, the upper house fulfilled the principle of the equality of states, giving in practice relatively more influence to the small states. Furthermore, the Senate was meant to prevent mob rule: Senators, wise and experienced politicians, would be chosen by the state legislatures, not elected directly, so they would not be forced to serve the wishes of the ignorant population. Neither side was entirely happy with this solution, but they realized that such a compromise is the best they can work out.

 

After agreeing on the composition of Congress, the Convention turned to the executive branch. They imagined a powerful figure, the republican equivalent of a king, to govern the nation, and they decided to call him President. They disagreed, however, on how to choose this person. Some delegates wanted the head of the executive to be elected by the people, others wanted him to be elected by the legislature. Ultimately, they left the issue undecided by an ingenious proposal: they suggested that the President should be elected by a so-called electoral college, whose members would be delegated by the states. They had several objectives with this idea: they wanted to make the President independent of Congress, so that the two branches could limit and counterbalance each other if necessary; they wanted to avoid a direct election by the people because they were worried that such a system could easily bring immoral demagogues into office who were good at manipulating the crowd; and they wanted to satisfy the state governments, whose powers would be severely limited by the new Constitution, by giving them influence over the election of the President.

 

After settling the two key problems, the delegates figured out the other issues quite quickly. They decided that the federal judicial branch should be represented by a Supreme Court, and defined its authority in very general terms, but left it to the future Congress to work out the details, including the creation of lower federal courts. They refused to determine who has the right to vote at federal elections, knowing that various states had different rules about franchise.

 

Another sensitive issue at the Convention was slavery. Some of the northern delegates were opposed to it, whereas southerners refused any criticism of the institution. In the spirit of compromise, the Constitution did not make any statement on slavery, in fact, it did not even mention the word ’slave’ (it referred to „all other Persons” on one occasion). Nonetheless, in a carefully worded section, the Constitution forbade Congress to prohibit the importation of slaves for 20 years after ratification (postponing this problem to the next generation of politicians). Slaves also became a problem when it came to determining the number of Representatives given to each state. In some southern states (e.g. South Carolina), more than half of the population consisted of black slaves, therefore southerners demanded that slaves should be included in the calculation. Northerners refused, arguing that slaves were not free and could not vote, therefore they were not equal members of the republic. Ultimately, a compromise was struck in this case too: for the purposes of representation, a slave would be counted as three-fifth (in modern terms, 60%) of a free person.

 

Ultimately, on September 17, the complete draft of the Constitution was approved by all twelve states represented, and 39 out of the 42 delegates still present. This document, however, had no legal validity yet: in order to become a valid Constitution, it had to be ratified (officially accepted) by nine of the thirteen states. The Convention adopted the two-thirds rule rather than the unanimous ratification, because they were afraid that a few states would reject the draft, making the whole effort worthless. The supporters of the Constitution immediately began a public campaign, publishing dozens of pamphlets and newspaper articles in all the states, arguing for the benefits of a stronger union. In New York, many of the opponents were persuaded by a series of brilliant newspaper articles written by James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and John Jay. They were later published collectively as The Federalist Papers, and have been considered classic writings of American political theory ever since.

 

As the Federalists expected, a considerable number of people disagreed with the idea of a more centralized federal government. They were worried that a powerful federal government will deprive state governments of their power, and it will create a tyrannical, oppressive bureaucracy which will take away those liberties that the states had fought for and defended in the War of Independence against Britain. These Antifederalists campaigned against the Constitution, arguing that the old Articles were still better.

 

Federalists replied to such charges that the Constitution created a limited federal government where each of the three branches „checks and balances” the other two, preventing the tyranny of any single person or institution. Furthermore, the Constitution specified the powers of the federal government, leaving all other powers to the states. Antifederalists also criticized that the Constitution did not lay down those individual rights enjoyed by all American citizens that neither the federal nor the state governments should take away; therefore Federalists promised to add these fundamental rights to the Constitution in a series of amendments.

 

The states organized special conventions for the purpose, and by June 1788, the required nine states ratified the Constitution. The small states supported it with large majorities, but three of the largest states, Massachusetts, Virginia, and New York, were sharply divided over the issue. Ultimately, all these states ratified the Constitutions with very small majorities.

 

The first Congress under the new Constitution was elected in November 1788, while the first President of the nation, George Washington, was elected unanimously and without an opponent in April 1789. Congress began its first session in September 1789, when they completed the setup of the federal government: they created three executive departments for the President, led by Secretaries (the equivalent of British ministers): the Department of State (meaning foreign affairs), led by Thomas Jefferson, the Treasury, led by Alexander Hamilton, and the Department of War. The Secretaries of these departments became President’s Cabinet, or body of advisers.

 

The first Congress also passed the Judiciary Act of 1789, creating a system of federal district and circuit courts, where citizens could appeal to from state courts. And Congress fulfilled the promise of the Federalists by passing ten amendments to the Constitution, the so-called Bill of Rights, in which the fundamental rights of the citizens were protected. After the Bill of Rights had been ratified by two-thirds of the states by 1791, the new framework of the American government was complete.

 

For a detailed description of the structure of government outlined in the Constitution, as well as each of the three branches, see Constitution; Congress; the President; or the Supreme Court.

 

 

 

Sources:

J.A. Henretta―W. E. Brownlee―D. Brody―S. Ware, America's History. Vol. 1 to 1877. 2nd Edition. New York: Worth Publishers, 1993.

J.Q. Wilson―J.J. DiIulio, Jr., American Government. 8th Edition. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 2001.