CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION May 25 – Sept. 17, 1787

The weaknesses of the Articles of Confederation (shown in Shays’ rebellion) prompted the states to call for a meeting to revise the Articles. The Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia led to an entirely new framework of government.

1. Goals of the Convention 1787 Philadelphia 1787 George Washington was

president of the Convention Called to amend (change)

the Articles of Confederation 55 delegates from 12 of the

states Rhode Island did not show

up—why? Two different plans to

change the Articles surfaced from state delegates

2. Virginia Plan (Large State Plan) Proposed by James Madison

and Edmund Randolph of Virginia

Plan called for a new, strong central government and to toss out the Articles all together

Plan instead proposed three branches of government the executive branch would carry out laws, the judicial branch would consist of a system of courts to interpret the law

2. Virginia Plan The legislative branch

would be broken up into two houses, a lower house and an upper house

The # of representatives each state had would be determined by the state’s POPULATION

Large states like Virginia, Pennsylvania and Massachusetts supported this plan (?)

Small states opposed it

Representation based on population

3. New Jersey Plan (Small state Plan) William Patterson

proposed a different plan to the delegates on June 15, 1787

This plan called for amending or changing the articles

This plan also called for three branches of government, but with one big difference

Equal representati

on

3. New Jersey Plan It called for a single

house of Congress, with equal representation for each state

Delegates argued day after day over the issues and between the plans, some even feared the Convention would fail

4. #genius Roger Sherman, a delegate from Connecticut; worked

out a compromise that would satisfy both the large and the small states

The Great Compromise created a bicameral legislature where the HOR representation would be based on population(large states happy) and the Senate would be equal(small states happy).

However, the fighting continued…over if or how to count slaves toward representation.

3/5th Compromise It was decided that slaves would count as 3/5th as a

free person, so 500 slaves would equal 300 free people.

This is called the 3/5th Compromise, it writes slavery into the US Constitution. It will not be undone until the addition of the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments

This made the Northern states mad, they argued slaves were not even allowed to vote…yet the Southern states wanted to use them to gain more representatives in the House and have more power in government

This made the Northern states mad, they argued slaves were not even allowed to vote…yet the Southern states wanted to use them to gain more representatives in the House and have more power in government

So the Congress decided that the slave trade would end in 20 years, meaning no more slaves could be imported into the US in order to get the Northern states to agree to the compromise