book

Confederaion and Constitution

21 Pages 1200 Words 1557 Views

Articles of the Confederation and Constitution of 1787 Articles of confederation were ratified by the states after the Congress approved them in 1777. It was an attempt by the Americans to create a country with a national government. However, many problems arose and a new constitution was drafted in late 1780s. The new constitution called for a powerful unified government[ CITATION Uta10 l 1033 ]. One of the key differences between the articles of confederation and constitution was the setting up of the legislature. The constitution established the legislature with a house of representatives, lower house, the Senate, and the upper house. On the other hand, articles of confederation set up a unicameral legislature, which was known as the Congress[ CITATION Uta10 l 1033 ]. The reason for the change is that most states wanted representatives to be elected in different ways. Under the articles of confederation, each state was to be represented equally in the Congress. Big states felt that they needed more representation. Smaller states did not agree with this. Each state was required to send between two and seven representatives in the Congress. Under the constitution, each state was required to send one representative per 30,000 people and 2 members of the Senate[ CITATION USC13 l 1033 ]. States with bigger population wanted representation to be based on population while states with small population wanted representation to be fixed. The aforementioned problem was solved by the Connecticut Compromise, which formed two houses. Each state could be represented at the Senate regardless of its population size. The Great Compromise was an agreement between the bigger states and smaller states that was reached in 1787[ CITATION Law10 l 1033 ]. This agreement defined the legislative representation and structure of each state in the constitution. As for the house of representative, each state received representative per a particular number of people. The Great Compromise satisfied all the interests of the populated and less populated states. Another problem that emerged was counting of slaves during census of exercise. This problem was solved by the Three-Five compromise where it was agreed that each slave was to be counted as three fifth of a person, but slaves were not given rights or voice[ CITATION Uta10 l 1033 ]. The constitution allowed Americans to vote for people the

Read Full Essay