American Constitution

Constitution of the United States

The Constitution was the end product of long debates concerning state rights, representation, and slavery rights. First, we must examine the Articles of Confederation and Shay’s Rebellion to understand the influence each factor had on the Constitution. Afterwards, we will cover the two plans that were introduced before the founders ultimately settled on a framework. We will conclude this article with a brief introduction to the Bill of Rights.

American Constitution Definition

The US has possibly the most famous example of a written constitution. It is the most important legal document in the country, and all branches of government are subordinate to it. State and federal law must be constitutional, and courts can strike down laws which they deem not to be constitutional. All state and federal office holders also swear to uphold the Constitution.

Fig. 1 - "Scene at the Signing of the Consitution of the United States"

Articles of Confederation

After freeing itself from Great Britain, America implemented a government that was designed to prevent future tyranny. The Articles of Confederation did exactly that: the federal government was incredibly weak and decentralised so that states had as much independence and sovereignty as possible.

In theory, the government would only carry out functions of national importance that individual states could not deal with. For example, the government did not have the powers of direct taxation or the ability to regulate interstate commerce. However, Shay’s Rebellion in 1786 exposed the national government’s inability to act. For instance, the federal government's inability to raise any money meant they almost went bankrupt and amassed huge debts operating the military. The Constitution set out to remedy the Articles of Confederation’s shortcomings.

Constitutional Convention

The Constitutional Convention was convened in Philadelphia on 25 May 1787 to hash out the issues and decide on how to rectify the issues facing the central government. While only white, property-owning men were invited to attend, they were all like-minded people who agreed that there needed to be a strong centralised government. This did not mean that people agreed on every issue. For example, while Thomas Jefferson favoured a smaller central government with more freedom for individual states, James Madison pushed for a bigger centralised government with more control over individual state law.

The Virginia Plan

Madison attended the Constitutional Convention with a plan in mind. He began with rhetoric, saying that this plan was needed; that this was a national government established by the people and not the states. If this phrase sounds familiar, it should! Madison began the preamble of the Constitution with:

Madison’s vision included a government with the power to overturn state laws and had national laws that would directly operate on citizens. He called it the Virginia Plan, and fittingly, his plan would benefit large states like Virginia. His plan created a bicameral legislature with two houses in Congress.

Firstly, the Lower House would be voted by the people. The members of the Lower House would then elect members of the Upper House. Both the Upper and Lower houses would then elect members to the Supreme Court. The only problem was that more populous states would have more members in the Lower House. People from less populous states hated this plan because they thought that bigger states would dominate the Lower House. Ultimately, it was troublesome that population size would essentially determine the people in the Upper House.

The New Jersey Plan

William Paterson, a New Jersey statesman, presented the New Jersey Plan as a counteroffer to the Virginia Plan. Under this plan, Congress would be a unicameral legislature with only one house. States would have equal votes and Congress would elect an executive leader. Paterson argued that rather than get rid of the Articles of Confederation entirely, it would be far better to simply amend it. The form of the government would be preserved, but the government would gain additional powers to raise revenue and regulate commerce and foreign affairs. Paterson was later a signatory of the US Constitution.

The Grand Committee

Both plans were fiercely debated, but ultimately, the Virginia Plan ended up being used as a framework. The debate was so divisive that some delegates were contemplating leaving the convention due to their fear that an incredibly strong federal government would emerge. If nothing was achieved, there was the fear that the colonies would become “European fodder”.

When this deadlock arose, Benjamin Franklin arrived and formed the Grand Committee. This committee was made up of delegates who had the most disagreements.

The Great Compromise

The Great Compromise incorporated parts of both the Virginia and New Jersey Plans. There would be a bicameral legislature (like the Virginia Plan suggested). The Lower House, which eventually came to be called the House of Representatives, would ensure that more populated states would get more representation. There would be a census every 10 years to count the population. The very first census was in 1790.

In the Upper house, which came to be called the Senate, each state would get two senators. Since each state had the same number of senators, there would be equal representation and each state would be considered equal.

The Three-Fifths Compromise

At the heart of this conflict was slavery. After the announcement of how representatives would be elected to the Lower House, southern states wanted slaves to be counted as part of their population. While having a higher population ensured more representatives, this also meant that the state would pay more in taxes.

Northern states fiercely opposed this decision - in their view, the South shouldn't have been able to treat the slaves as property but also treat them as people for the census. This then led to Southern states announcing that if they were not allowed to count slaves, they would leave the US. This debate resulted in the Three-Fifths Compromise.

This compromise ensured that every enslaved person would count as three-fifths of a white person. What is interesting to note is that the word “slavery” did not appear in the Constitution until the Thirteenth Amendment was ratified.

American Constitution Written

There were many who supported the ratification of a Constitution (labelled Federalists), and many who opposed it (labelled anti-Federalists). It largely came down to disagreements over how big the government should be and how big an influence it should have on states and the lives of daily citizens. In the end, the Constitution set out a system of government essentially the same as that agreed upon by the Great Compromise.

The Federalist Papers

In an effort to get the Constitution ratified, Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison worked together to publish a series of essays that came to be known as the Federalist Papers. Their arguments became the classic defences of the Constitution.

Eventually, Madison left the Federalists because they could not come to an agreement concerning the proper size of the government.

Anti-Federalists

This group was made up of country folk and farmers. While this group was significantly less organized than the Federalist group, the people were fearful that state governments would lose power and that the government would be ruled by the wealthy.

They argued that governments in other republics tended to get too big and that to make the government “by the people”, the government should ultimately be kept as local as possible. The argument was that, ultimately, people who live in a certain area know that area the best and are most clear on what the best course of action to take is. Anti-Federalists would form the core of the Anti-Administration group, which then became the Democratic-Republican Party.

American Constitution Amendments

Delaware was the first state to ratify the Constitution in 1788. Massachusetts only ratified it after a promise that a Bill of Rights would be written. The Bill of Rights was added in 1791 and significantly limited the government’s power over the individual. It is contained in the first Ten Amendments to the Constitution. The First Amendment famously ensures that the individual has the freedom of speech, religion, and the press and the right to peaceful assembly and petition. The Bill of Rights also guarantees rights to a fair procedure for people accused of crimes and guarantees a public, quick trial by an impartial, local jury.

Originally, the Bill of Rights only protected citizens from the national government. For example, even though the Constitution forbids a national religion, the official religion of Massachusetts was Congregationalism until 1833. It then fell on the citizens’ shoulders to look up State Constitutions for the protection of their rights against the overreach of state governments.

Ultimately, the Constitution was written to strengthen the national government. However, it was created with multiple backstops to ensure that power was never concentrated in one area. For example, separation of powers ensures that the three branches of government (legislative, executive, and judicial) oversee different matters and perform checks and balances on each other. In theory, this prevents any one branch from becoming too powerful. The explicit guarantee of unalienable individual rights is an effort to preserve liberty and security. Finding the right balance between authority and liberty was, and is still, the key debate in the administration of the United States.