MIDAN MASR
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Overview of the Constitution-Making Process - USA
Taking
Action
For a New
Constitution
• A constitutional
convention of 74
state delegates was
called on by the
Congress of the
Confederation in
1787 to propose a
plan of government.
• The convention
began deliberations
the same year. 74
delegates, who were
named “Framers”,
represented twelve
states in the
convention. The
Framers comprised
judges, merchants,
war veterans and
revolutionary
patriots, native-born,
and immigrants.
NOTE:
NOTE:
Creating A
Framework
• The convention was called for
the “sole and express purpose
of revising the Articles of
Confederation,” a constitutional
agreement among the 13
founding states that was crafted
following the declaration
of independence from the
U.K.
• The 74 members of the
Constitutional Convention were
convinced that an effective
central government with a
wide range of enforceable
powers must replace the weaker
Congress established by the 1777
Articles of Confederation.
NOTE:
The US Constitution
is the shortest in the
world, with only
seven articles.
Drafting the Constitution
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• To prepare for deliberations within the
committee, the Framers were given weeks within
which they were to draft plans for the new
Constitution. The two most popular drafts were:
- The Virginia Plan (national government with proportional
bicameral legislature), inspired by John Locke’s philosophy
of the consent of the governed, Montesquieu’s for
divided government, and Edward Coke’s emphasis on equity on outcomes,
recommended a consolidated national government, generally favoring the big
population states.
- The New Jersey Plan (unicameral and equally distributed legislature), which
was favored by the smaller states that were opposed to giving most of control
of the national government to the larger ones, reflecting the belief that states
were independent entities that entered the union freely and individually, and
so they remained.
• The Constitutional Convention, after the majority had dismissed the New
Jersey Plan, voted to proceed with discussing the fifteen propositions of the
Virginia Plan.
• All agreed to a republican form of government grounded in representing the
people in the states. However, two issues that the Convention failed to settle
were:
- How the votes were to be allocated among the states in the Congress and;
- How the representatives should be elected. • The deadlock over this issue was solved by referring the question to a newly
created committee, which consisted of one delegate from each represented
State. The committee submitted its report, which became the basis for the
Connecticut Compromise of 1787, known as “the Great Compromise,”
between the 12 states represented in the Constitutional Convention.
-The Connecticut Compromise retained Founding Father James Madison’s
proposal for a bicameral legislature - keeping proportional (based on each
state’s population) representation in the lower house - while counterweighing this in the upper house by ensuring equal representation of senators
(two from each state regardless of the size of their population) among the
states.
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• The advocates of the Constitution were anxious to obtain the unanimous
support of all states in Convention. Their goal can be summarized as, “Done
in Convention, by the unanimous consent of the States present.”
Ratification
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• Article 7 of the draft constitution adopted by the Framers in September
1787 outlined a four-stage ratification process:
a. Submission of the Constitution to the Congress of the Confederation
b. Transmission of the Constitution by Congress to the state legislatures
c. Election of delegates to conventions in each state to consider the
Constitution
Many of the states were hesitant to ratify the constitution
d. Ratification by at least nine of the thirteen states’ conventions.
without a bill of rights, and several conditioned their
Public Participation
and Civic Education
ratification on recommendations that one would be
included after the first Congress convened.
After the Constitution was ratified, the Congress
dissolved itself and a new Congress was elected in
March 4, 1789, which later became known as the First
Congress.
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• The final draft was debated in the Congress of the Confederation for three
days, the document was then sent to the states with neither an endorsement
nor a condemnation. It argued that the Constitution’s validity rested on the
approval of the people.
• In December 1787, the state ratification process began. The first five
ratifications took place in quick succession: Delaware, Pennsylvania,
Georgia, and New Jersey by a unanimous vote, and Connecticut with a vote
of 128 for and 40 against.
• Although the Constitution required only nine states to ratify the
constitution before it came into force, eleven states ratified the constitution
before it was passed in June 1788.