How America Created Our Government Part 2

     This is How America Created Our Government Part 2, and is the sequel to part 1, which is the sequel to the Fourth of July post. You can read them here at STEMandPolitics, and there are links at the bottom of the page.

     So remember this is back in the mid 1780's after Daniel Shays and his group of farmers raided the federal arsenal and had there hands on weapons. The government couldn't terminate it because it was too weak. So the AOFC government shut down and then we had to create a new government.

     People worked together and then finally we decided to choose delegates to go to the Philadelphia Convention. The purpose of the convention was to revisit the AOFC and reflect to see what went wrong. 55 delegates attended in total, and we remember them as the Framers of the Constitution. The delegates were all men, and had an average age of 42 years. No one was poor, but not all were wealthy.

     James Madison (soon to be known as the Father of the Constitution) came to the convention with a plan for a new government. The reason we know so much about the convention is because James Madison took many great notes, just like we know a lot about the Revolution because of Abigail and John's correspondence.

     George Washington at the time was the most respected and honored man in the nation. He was for a stronger national government. He didn't want to go to the convention, but he went because he didn't want people to think he had lost faith in the new nation.

     Now let's list out people that didn't attend.

• Thomas Jefferson, who was in France at the time
• John Adams, who was in England
• Patrick Henry refused to attend

     Clearly there were different views. There were the small states versus the large states (which led to the Great Compromise and the 3/5 Clause).

The small states:

• feared that the larger states with higher population would control the government
• they called for equal representation (every state gets same amount of representatives/delegates disregarding the amount of population or land mass they have)

The larger states:

• thought that equal representation was unfair - more population should equal more votes
• they called for proportional representation (every state gets an amount of representatives in rough proportion to their population)

     Eventually there became basically two plans - the Virginia Plan and the New Jersey Plan.

Virginia Plan:

• strong national government
• two governments that get their power from the people: federal system
• the national government has the power to enforce and make laws and collect taxes
• three equal branches at the national level
• legislature would have two houses
• proportional representation

New Jersey Plan:

• weak national government
• only one house in Congress
• equal representation
• Congress would have power to collect taxes and regulate trade
• 3 equal branches of government

     The Framers resolved the argument with a compromise known as the Great Compromise. There was a bicameral legislature which included the house of reps and the Senate. Membership in the house would be proportional representation, which was the house that develops all of the bills that deal with taxes and government spending. However, membership in the Senate was equal representation. The Senate can make changes to bills involving taxes and government spending. 

     There were two other rivalries on how the government should be created - the North versus the South. First let's talk about the North versus the South on tariffs (taxes on imported goods)

North:

(Remember that the north has a diverse economy and didn't depend on slave labor. They competed with Britain.)

• Tariffs were necessary for businesses to prosper
• Framers from the North wanted the national government to be able to control tariffs 

South:

(The southern economy was nearly completely agricultural. The farm and plantation owners depended on slave labor to earn a profit. Their products were shipped to European nations including Great Britain.)

• Tariffs unfairly favor the North
• Great Britain could retaliate and place Tariffs on US goods
• Due to the smaller population in the South, they worried that they would not have power at the national level, so they wanted the states to have power over the Tariffs

The conflict was resolved, ending in a couple of results:

• Slavery could not be abolished by the national government until 1808
• The inclusion of the 3/5 clause which states that black slaves are counted as 3/5 of a person when determining population for proportional representation purposes
• slaves who escaped to the North were required to be returned to their owner
• Congress would have the power to place taxes on imports and regulate trade between states

And this slowly put together the Constitution...

-Owen 

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