The Constitutional Convention
Events that lead to the need for a new government:
After the Revolution, America’s 1st gov’t was organized under THE ARTICLES OF CONFEDERATION…
(1.)Problems Faced by Gov’t
Why this was a problem
The Fed. Gov’t could not tax
The Federal Gov’t had no money
Each state could print money
The nation faced a financial
depression
The Federal Government did
not have a standing army
-Laws could not be enforced
Each state only had one vote
in the national congress
Large states did not have a fair
9 of 13 representatives in
It was very difficult for laws to be
passed
Congress had to agree for a
law to be passed
say in national matters
Shays’ Rebellion…
• In 1786, a rebellion of farmers lead by Daniel
Shays began in Massachusetts.
The farmers felt they were being unfairly taxed
by the state of Massachusetts.
• The state capital was threatened and many lives
were in jeopardy.
• To help them deal with this violation of the law,
Massachusetts asked the Federal Government for
assistance. Because they had no money or troops
or anyway to stop the rebels, the Federal
Government could do nothing.
• This lack of action and power convinced many
people that the Articles of Confederation could not
enforce laws or protect people.
(3.) With Shays’ Rebellion in his mind and the fear
of a nation without law and order, Alexander
Hamilton called on the 13 states to send
representatives to Philadelphia to fix the Articles
of Confederation.
(4.)In the end, 55 men from 12 states (Rhode
Island’s state government was against the
meeting, they did not send a representative)
attended the meeting that became known as The
Constitutional Convention.
(5.) Some of the more well known people at the
convention…
George Washington
Due to the respect
people had for him
and his ability to
make people
compromise, he was
elected president of
the convention.
James Madison
Madison attended almost
every meeting. We know
what we know about the
convention because of the
notes he took on almost
every session. The
construction of our national
government is based on his
ideas. For his contributions
he is called the “father of
the Constitution.”
Ben Franklin
Ben was old and
past his prime, but
his presence made
everyone realize
that what was going
on at the
convention was very
important.
Constitutional Convention cont…
• Soon after the meeting began, it became clear that it would
be impossible to simply change the Articles of Confederation
so the delegates decided to create a new document and a
new government.
• Two problems, however, had to be overcome before the
Constitution could be written:
1. – How would the number of representatives each state
had in Congress be decided?
2.
– How would slaves be counted in the new government?
(6.) Problem #1 – How many representatives would the
states get in Congress?
Under the Articles, each state had one representative and
one vote in Congress. The states with larger populations
did not think this was fair and wanted larger states to have
more representatives and more votes. They wanted the
number of people a state had in Congress to be based on
population.
Smaller states feared if the votes in Congress were based
on population they would be dominated by the larger
states and would not agree. They wanted each state,
regardless of size, to have two representatives – The
larger states would not agree to this.
(7.) The solution:
The Great Compromise
The delegates agreed to a two house
legislature or Congress.
The House of Rep.
-Number of
representatives
each state gets is
based on
population
The Senate
Each state gets two
representatives
Problem #2 – How to count slaves in the new government:
The Southern states wanted to count slaves in their population to get
more representatives in Congress. The North refused to agree to this.
(8.) The Solution – Slaves would count as 3/5 of a person
The finished product was known as the
Constitution of the United States.
- It created the government
you know today.
- It is the oldest written
Constitution in the World.