The Constitutional Convention

May 1787Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Who was there?

• 55 delegates• Lawyers, physicians, generals,

governors, planters, and a college president

• Well educated• All states represented,except

Rhode Island

George Washington

• Presided over meeting

• Gave the meeting greater significance

• Would later become the first president of the United States

Benjamin Franklin

• Oldest delegate (80 years old)

• Like Washington, was well respected and added a positive presence to the meetings

Gouverneur Morris

• Powerful speaker and writer

• Wrote the Preamble

• Wrote final draft of Constitution

• Tried to get Constitutional Convention to ban slavery

James Madison

• Father of the Constitution

• His notes became the best record of what happened at the convention.

• Supporter of strong central government

Edmund Randolph

• Governor of Virginia

• Proposed creating strong national government instead of rewriting Articles

• Introduced Virginia Plan to convention

William Paterson

• Presented the New Jersey plan, a plan that revised the Articles of Confederation

Roger Sherman

• Proposed a compromise to the New Jersey and Virginia plan which came to be known as The Great Compromise

What Influenced the Framers?

• English Parliamentary Traditions– The Magna Carta (1215)– The English Bill of Rights (1689)

• Enlightenment Thinkers– John Locke

• Natural Rights

– Baron de Montesquieu• Separation of Powers

Debates, Decisions and Compromises

• Convention began by choosing George Washington to preside over meetings.

• Each state would have one vote on all questions.

• The delegates decided to keep all the sessions secret. This made it possible for the delegates to talk freely.

The Virginia Plan

• Proposed by Edmund Randolph• Two-house (bicameral) legislature• Members of the lower house elected by the

people• Members of the upper house elected by the

lower house• Number of representatives would be

proportional to the population of each state

The New Jersey Plan

• Proposed by William Paterson

• Kept Confederation’s One-House legislature

• Gave Congress the power to tax and regulate trade

• Congress would elect a weak executive branch consisting of more than one person

The Great Compromise

• Suggested by Roger Sherman

• Two-House legislature

• Lower House (House of Representatives)– Membership would be proportional to

population of the state

• Upper House (Senate)– Each state would have two members

Slavery Issue

• Northern states wanted to ban slavery throughout the nation

• Southern states considered slavery essential to their economies

• It was agreed that Congress would not interfere with the slave trade until 1808

The 3/5 Compromise

• Southern states wanted slaves to be counted as population for the purpose of representation in the House of Representatives

• Northerners wanted slaves to be counted as property and taxed

• Compromise—slaves would be counted as 3/5 of a free person for the purpose of taxation AND representation

Ratification

• 9 out of 13 states had to ratify (approve) the Constitution

• Federalists-supporters of the Constitution– James Madison, Alexander Hamilton and John Jay

defended the Constitution in The Federalist Papers

• Anti-Federalists-opposed ratification– Lacked a bill of rights to protect individual freedoms

Adopting the Constitution• June 21, 1788—New

Hampshire (the 9th state) ratified the Constitution

• June 25, 1788—Virginia ratified the Constitution

• June 26, 1788—New York ratified the Constitution

• November 1789—Constitution ratified by North Carolina

• May 1790—Constitution ratified by Rhode Island