Some men held medical degrees or advanced training in theology. Most delegates were educated in the colonies, but several were lawyers who had been trained at the Inns of Court in London. Several notable Founders did not participate in the Constitutional Convention.
Thomas Jefferson was abroad, serving as the minister to France. John Adams was in Britain, serving as minister to that country, but he wrote home to encourage the delegates.
Most were successful in subsequent careers, although seven suffered serious financial reverses that left them in or near bankruptcy. Most of the group continued to render public service, particularly to the new government they had helped to create. At the Constitutional Convention, several plans were introduced. While waiting for the Convention to formally begin, James Madison sketched out his initial draft, which became known as the Virginia Plan. It also reflected his views as a strong nationalist.
The Virginia Plan proposed a legislative branch consisting of two chambers. Rotation in office and recall were two principles applied to the lower house of the national legislature. It was a confederation, or treaty, among the thirteen states.
There was to be a bicameral legislature made up of a Senate and a House of Delegates. The House would have one member for every one thousand inhabitants. The House would elect Senators who would serve by rotation for four years and represent one of four regions. Congress would meet in a joint session to elect a President, and it would also appoint members of the cabinet.
Congress, in joint session, would serve as the court of appeal of last resort in disputes between states. Pinckney did also provide for a supreme Federal Judicial Court. The Pinckney plan was not debated, but it may have been referred to by the Committee of Detail for early draft.
Congress would meet in a joint session to elect a President, and would also appoint members of the cabinet. Under the Articles of Confederation, each state had equal representation in Congress—one vote per state. This position reflected the belief that the states were independent entities that could enter and leave the United States on their own volition.
It also was known as the British Plan, because of its resemblance to the British system of strong centralized government.
The plan featured a bicameral legislature, the lower house elected by the people for three years. The upper house would be elected by electors chosen by the people and would serve for life.
The plan also gave the Governor, an executive elected by electors for a life-term of service, an absolute veto over bills. State governors would be appointed by the national legislature, and the national legislature had veto power over any state legislation. Hamilton presented his plan to the Convention on June 18, The plan was perceived as a well-thought-out plan, but it was not considered because it resembled the British system too closely.
To resolve this stalemate, Roger Sherman, a delegate from Connecticut, forged the Connecticut Compromise. In a sense it blended the Virginia large-state and New Jersey small-state proposals. Ultimately, its main contribution was determining the method for apportionment of the Senate and retaining a federal character in the constitution. What was ultimately included in the Constitution was a modified form of this plan. In the Committee of Detail, Benjamin Franklin added the requirement that revenue bills originate in the House.
As such, the Senate would bring a federal character to the government, not because senators were elected by state legislatures, but because each state was equally represented.
The Virginia delegation took the initiative to frame the debate by immediately drawing up and presenting a proposal, for which delegate James Madison is given chief credit. It was, however, Edmund Randolph, the Virginia governor at the time, who officially put it before the convention on May 29, in the form of 15 resolutions.
The scope of the resolutions, going well beyond tinkering with the Articles of Confederation, succeeded in broadening the debate to encompass fundamental revisions to the structure and powers of the national government. The resolutions proposed, for example, a new form of national government having three branches: legislative, executive, and judicial. One contentious issue facing the convention was the manner in which large and small states would be represented in the legislature.
The contention was whether there would be equal representation for each state regardless of its size and population, or proportionate to population giving larger states more votes than less-populous states. The Virginia Plan proposed a bicameral legislature, a legislative branch with two chambers.
This legislature would contain the dual principles of rotation in office and recall, applied to the lower house of the national legislature. Large states supported this plan, while smaller states generally opposed it. In addition to dealing with legislative representation, the Virginia Plan ed other issues as well, with many provisions that did not make it into the Constitution that emerged.
It called for a national government of three branches: legislative, executive, and judicial. The people would elect members for one of the two legislative chambers. Members of that chamber would then elect the second chamber from nominations submitted by state legislatures. The legislative branch would then choose the executive branch.
The terms of office were unspecified, but the executive and members of the popularly elected legislative chamber could not be elected for an undetermined time afterward. The legislative branch would have the power to negate state laws if they were deemed incompatible with the articles of union. The concept of checks and balances was embodied in a provision that a council composed of the executive and selected members of the judicial branch could veto legislative acts.
An unspecified legislative majority could override their veto. Paterson was also known as the primary author of the New Jersey Plan during the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia. The less populous states were adamantly opposed to giving most of the control of the national government to the more populous states, and so proposed an alternative plan that would have kept the one-vote-per-state representation under one legislative body from the Articles of Confederation.
This position reflected the belief that the states were independent entities, and as they entered the United States of America freely and individually, so they remained. The plan proposed that the Articles of Confederation should be amended as follows:.
Ultimately, the New Jersey Plan was rejected as a basis for a new constitution. During the Constitutional Convention, the most contentious disputes revolved around the composition of the Presidency and the Judiciary. Most of the convention was spent deciding these issues, while the powers of legislature, executive, and judiciary were not heavily disputed. Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia : During the Constitutional Convention, some the most contentious disputes revolved around the composition of the Presidency and the Judiciary.
By the time the rest of the Virginia delegation arrived, most of the Pennsylvania delegation had arrived as well.
The delegates agreed with Madison that the executive function had to be independent of the legislature. In their aversion to kingly power, American legislatures had created state governments where the executive was beholden to the legislature and by the late s, this was widely seen as being a source of paralysis.
The Confederation government was the ultimate example of this. Portrait of James Madison : James Madison authored the Virginia Plan, which contained important provisions on the presidency and judiciary. Madison, however, did not believe that the judiciary should be truly independent, but rather be obligated to the legislature not the executive.
By insisting on the independence of the judiciary, Madison stepped away from the Articles of Confederation to create something entirely new. At the convention, some sided with Madison that the legislature should choose judges, while others believed the president should choose judges. The Articles protected the sovereignty of the states at the expense of the central government, which lacked the power to raise revenue or conduct diplomatic relations.
The central government also could not manage the western territories in an effective manner. After the Continental Congress decided to act on the problem, 12 of the 13 states Rhode Island abstained chose 70 delegates to represent them at the Federal Convention.
Out of those appointees, only 55 attended. When the delegates of the Federal Convention met in the Pennsylvania state house now Independence Hall in May , Edmund Randolph of Virginia offered the most comprehensive plan, essentially bypassing revisions and suggesting an entirely new government. The Virginia Plan received support from states with large populations such as Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, and South Carolina. The convention debated these competing proposals from May to July , before turning over plans to a Grand Committee to hash out an agreement.
After two more months of intense debates and revisions, the delegates produced the document we now know as the Constitution, which expanded the power of the central government while protecting the prerogatives of the states. Constitution at Independence Hall in Philadelphia.
A number of the delegates, like Washington, either served in the Continental Congress or fought the British during the American Revolution. Not all of the delegates agreed with the final product. Some expressed reservations but signed the Constitution, anticipating vigorous debates within their states. It describes two houses: one with members elected by the people for three-year terms and the other composed of older leaders elected by the state legislatures for seven-year terms.
Both would use population as a basis for dividing seats among the states. Historians have debated the exact text of the original resolutions as submitted on May 29th, using existing manuscript copies to understand what was originally proposed. You can learn more about this process on Founders Online , a searchable archive of the correspondence and other writings of several of the Founders of the United States government. This document is available on DocsTeach , the online tool for teaching with documents from the National Archives.
Find teaching activities that incorporate this document, or create your own online activity. Previous Document Next Document. This is a transcription of the document from June 13,, showing the proposed resolutions "as Altered, Amended, and Agreed to in a Committee of the Whole House," a third of the way through the convention. State of the resolutions submitted to the consideration of the House by the honorable Mr.
Randolph, as altered, amended, and agreed to, in a Committee of the whole House.
0コメント