When Britain’s' thirteen colonies in North America took up arms against the mother country, the prospects of an independent nation demanded a new government for the free people. Notably, there was pressure to ensure that the new laws were democratic as opposed to the Monarchical rule exerted by the British on the colonists. Hence, in 1777, the Founding Fathers attempted a government based on the autonomy of the individual States by proposing the Articles of Confederation at the Second Continental Congress in Philadelphia. The Articles came into effect in 1781when the States ratified them but by 1789, the United States was under the laws of the Constitution. To that end, this paper explores the United States’ transition from the Articles of Confederation to the Constitution by focusing on the causes and proceeding of the Constitutional Convention.
The Articles of Confederation placed specific limitations on the Central government and the powers it could exert over the citizens of the United States. Apparently, the fears of a tyrannical rule, such as that of the overthrown British Crown, propelled the drafters of the Articles to ensure that the States exercised independence despite being under a joint government. As a result, the federal government exercised limited powers. For example, the Central government could not establish a national court system or levy taxes on Americans. The federal government could not interfere in territorial issues without risking riots. A perfect illustration of the mentioned limitations is evident in the Shays’s Rebellion of between 1786 and 1787, where the government of Massachusetts had to deal with rebelling farmers who closed the State courts to prevent the seizing of their lands. Given that the Articles prevented the central government from interfering, it is no wonder that the rebellion lasted an entire year. Nevertheless, the dilemma in which the Massachusetts administrators found themselves was proof enough that the Articles had flaws, and a new law was necessary.
Extensively, in 1787, fifty-five delegates from the States of America convened in Philadelphia again, for the Constitutional Convention. Immediately after the proposal of the Constitution, divisions emerged as every delegate represented a particular area that harbored an interest that differed from that of the other[s]. Consequently, in the Constitutional debates, there were two distinct factions: the Federalists that were pro-Constitution and the Anti-Federalists who opposed the document. On one hand, the Anti-Federalists supported the “confederacy of smaller States, [with] each having the full powers of internal regulations” to protect itself from the absolute power of one government. On the other, Federalists supported the notion of a strong central government in which only elected officials could govern. According to the Federalists, it was absurd to assume that every American was literate or well versed in matters of governance. Thus, the assumption that power would be safe in the hands of the public was risky. As a solution to the reservations of both sides, two compromises proved necessary at the Constitutional Convention: the Great Compromise and the Three-Fifths Compromise.
About the Great Compromise, the agreement solved the question of balanced powers between the federal government and the States. To ensure the satisfaction of the large and small territories, the drafters implemented the Virginia Plan through which they formed a bicameral Legislature by dividing Congress into two branches. First, there was the “well-constructed Senate” described in the Federalist Paper #63. According to the terms of the Constitution, the legislature was responsible for choosing two Senators from every State of America. Therefore, all areas gained equal representation regardless of size and population. The Second branch encompassed the House of Representatives. As per the terms of the new law, the citizens of the United States had the legal right to vote for representatives according to their particular numbers. In other words, the more the people, the higher the number of delegates in the House.
Now, there were questions on the issue of slavery, as the Slave-holding States demanded more seats in the House on the grounds of higher populations that included persons of African descent. The doctrines of the slavery system declared black people an inferior race to that of the whites and warranted their bondage to benefit the superior Caucasians. Hence, it was impossible to demand equal representation for black people and at the same time, dub them an inferior race that the whites could enslave. For that reason, the Federalists and Anti-Federalists designed the Three-Fifths Compromise. Accordingly, the “three-fifths of a white person” clause in the American Constitution counted every five slaves as three individuals. The Compromise protected the interests of the whites without destroying the institution of slavery. In other words, white supremacy prevailed while the Southern States claimed more seats in the House of Representatives. On the note, it is apparent that the fears of the Anti-Federalists were slave-related. Without the two compromises, the slave-holding regions would have been at risk of an invasion of the anti-slavery territories, especially so if the latter gained control of the central government.
Conclusively, the need for liberty under a functional government encouraged the Founding Fathers to draft the Articles of Confederation before working on the United States Constitution. However, while the former was subject to the desperate need for independence among the American colonists, the latter came into effect after the deliberations of individuals who at least had some sense of self-governance. For that reason, the divisions in the Constitutional Convention were inevitable because one group understood the problems of a weak central government after Shay’s Rebellion while the other merely sought to protect their economic interests. Still, the Federalists were right, and the American Constitution is still in effect.
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