The Critical Period in American History 1781-178 The Constitution

• Towards a Stronger Government
  • Meetings leading up to the Constitutional Convention
    • Mt. Vernon Conference 1785: met at Washington's house. Two states were Virginia and Maryland. The purpose was to address commerce issues concerning the Potomac River and the Chesapeake Bay. It proved to be a pretty successful meeting, so they agreed to meet in Annapolis the next year, and invited any states who wanted to come.
    • Annapolis Conference 1786: 12 reps from 6 states: NY, NJ, PA, DE, VA, MD. Still not enough states to do much good, but they decided to have another meeting and invited all the states. Alexander Hamilton from NY was the one that suggested to send out a message through the national government to make an official convention. Did he really want to revise the Articles of Confederation, or was it in his mind already to make a new constitution?
    • The Philadelphia Convention of 1787
  • Introduction to the Convention
    • May through September 1787
    • The People were called Founding Fathers, Jefferson called them demigods
    • All 55 delegates were all rich, men of property, who were all professionals (lawyers, doctors, but the majority were lawyers), they were mostly young guys, Ben Franklin was the oldest one (probably about 80 years old).
    • Who was there? Alexander Hamilton for strong central government, George Mason was the opposite of Hamilton strong state rights, and James Madison was the happy medium, also called the Father of the Constitution. Gouverneur Morris was the guy who physically wrote the constitution because he had such good penmanship. Morris also condensed the 23 Articles of Confederation down to 7.
    • Who was not there? Thomas Jefferson was minister to France, John Adams was minister to GBR, and Patrick Henry did not go because he, "smelt a rat." Samuel Adams was not elected, nor was John Hancock.
  • Virginia Plan- proposed by Madison and Governor Edward Randolph. A tripartite government: executive, legislative, judicial. All based on population. The lower house would be chosen by the people, but the big debate was how you choose the upper house.
  • This idea is credited to John Dickinson 1788-1913 the Senate was elected by the state legislature. He compared the link between central and government and state government to the sun and the plantes
  • The electoral college is how we elect the president
    • 1876, 1888, 2000 were years where the president was elected by the electoral college and no the popular vote.
  • New Jersey Plan- proposed by William Paterson. Basically was a return to the Articles of Confederation with two exceptions: 1. There would be an executive branch with 3 Presidents called the consul 2. Congress could tax and regulate trade
  • The Great Compromise- proposed by Roger Sherman from Connecticut. The lower house was elected based on population, and the upper house was 2 delegates like in the Articles of Confederation
  • Other Compromises:
    • 3/5 compromise: slaves in the south would count as 3/5 of a person for taxation and representation purposes.
    • The slave trade compromise: Moratorium was a 20 year dead period 1788-1808 for slavery, and after that the trans-atlantic slave trade was made illegal.
    • Commerce Compromise: South wanted no taxes, North wanted import and export taxes. The compromise was a tax only on imports.
    • Mason-Dixon Line: originally the line between Pennsylvania and Maryland, but became the line between free and slave states. This led to the Fugitive Slave Law. This law said that you had to turn in blacks who people thought were slaves. Once people saw it as a moral problem, it was hard to compromise.
• Basic Ideas of the Constitution
  • 7 Articles: 1- legislative 2- executive 3- judicial 4 and 5- Supremacy Clause 6- separation of church and state 7- Ratification
  • 27 Amendments: 1-10 are called the Bill of Rights
    • 1: freedom of press, religion, speech, petition, and assembly. Religion is the "first freedom."
    • 2: the right to bear arms
    • 3: right to quarter
    • 4: search and seazure
    • 5: double jeopardy, due process (a jury trail)
    • 6: right to a speedy, public trial, Miranda Warning
    • 7: civil courts and suits "We are gonna skip this one its stupid."
    • 8: cruel and unusual punishment
    • 9: rights to the people
    • 10: States rights amendment
    • 13: abolished slavery
    • 14: citizenship (back then this amendment was to appeal to the slaves and their children, but now is very controversial because of immigration. anchor babies)
    • 15: sufferage of Black males
    • 16: Income tax
    • 17: direct senators
    • 18: no booze
    • 19: women sufferage
    • 21: ALCHOHOL
    • 26: voting age from 21-18
    • 27: congress cant get a raise until re-electoin
  • Separation of Powers between the three branches through checks and balances: Know one example of each for the major quiz
    • Judicial checks the Executive: judges the actions of the president
    • Executive checks the legislative: vetoes
    • Legislative checks the Executive: can impeach the president
    • Executive checks the judicial: appoints the judges
    • Judicial checks the legislative: judges and interprets the laws
    • Legislative checks the judicial: approves the presidents' appointments
  • The Hierarchy
    • National government: print money, declare war. these are enumerated or delegated powers, found in article 1 section 8. clause 18 is the Necessary and proper clause)
    • State: education. these are called reserved powers. basically anything that is not prohibited in the constitution
    • County/City
    • Powers shared by all are concurrent powers. the power to tax is concurrent.
  • Democratic Features:
    • "We the People" elect the representatives.
    • We don't allow Ex post facto laws: you can't be punished for something that wasn't against the law at the time.
    • No Bills of Attainder: you cant deny the rights of life libery and property
    • Habeas Corpus: you must bring the body into court and try it
  • Non-Democratic Features:
    • Electoral College
    • Senators were elected by the state legislature until the 17th amendment
    • 9/13 states needed to ratify: Article 7
    • Federalists vs Anti Federalists
    • Constitutional Conventions were not democratic
      • The small states ratified the constitution first. Delaware was the first state.
      • Pennsylvania was the first big state to ratify.
      • New Hampshire was #9
      • Massachusetts wanted a Bill of Rights
      • Virginia and New York were still not ratifying the Constitution. In order to convince NY to ratify, Madison, Jay and Alexander Hamilton wrote the Federalist Papers to convince NY to ratify.
      • North Carolina was number 12
      • Rhode Island was last