American Government: Constitutional Convention Then and Now

Before the Constitutional Convention, America lived by a set of rules known as The Articles of Confederation. This was essentially the first “Constitution” but was a flawed one a best. The idea was that The Articles of Confederation would establish a national government that was equitable to all member states. The national government would be able to declare war, coin money, trade with tribes and they would have diplomacy. But like I said this was a flawed system at best for several reasons. All 13 states and the overall government had their own form of currency. As you could imagine, this did not work well. For example, if you were from Georgia and had money from Georgia and decided to travel to North Carolina and wanted to buy anything, you wouldn’t be able to because North Carolina doesn’t accept money from Georgia. They only accept money from North Carolina, this caused a lot of problems but was not the only issue. Because every state had one vote no matter the number of people living in the state, there was no taxes, incentive or cooperation between states. So, several delegates met in Philadelphia on May 1787 for what is known as the Constitutional Convention.

The Convention lasted for about four months and consisted mostly of male lawyers around the age of 44. James Madison was the only person who showed up every day during this 4-month period. Which is understandable, would you want to show up to a crowded hot room full of a bunch of old men arguing about the same stuff every day for 4 months? The goal of this Convention was to basically scrap the Articles, re-define the goals and create a new framework. This might sound simple but when you put a relatively random group of people in a room together to decide the fate of their country, you are going to have some differences. Here’s what they could agree on; Rejection of concentrated, hereditary power (Monarchies), “Limited” Government and republicanism. The things the Framers could not agree on are as follows; majority rule and minority rights, power of large and small states, lawmaking vs. local power slavery. As you can see the Framers disagreed on more then what they could agree on. Sadly, part of the reason slavery was a topic that could not be agreed on was because it was often used as a bargaining chip with more of deeper South states to get them to agree on other topics.

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There were several compromises made during this 4-month period. Arguably, the two most important ones were; The Great Compromise and the 3/5’s Compromise. The Great Compromise helped to shape our government regarding how the legislator would be organized. The Framers created one house based off the population of each state (The House of Representatives) and the second house which held two seats for every state (The Senate). The 3/5’s Compromise had to do with how the Southern slaves would affect the House of Representatives. The Southern states wanted their slaves to count as part of their population to help represent them in Congress. They came to an agreement where only 3/5 of the slaves in a state would be eligible to represent them in the house.

Compromise is supposed to be a good thing in any situation, especially when talking about politics. The hope is that when there is an issue between two conflicting sides, they will both give a little and reach a middle ground. They might not like having to give up a part of what they want but this way they still get a part of what it is they are fighting for. When we are talking abut politics, it tends to affect the entire country, so these compromises are allowing everyone in the country to get a bit of what they want. Not just one side (that’s at least the goal). Just based off the two compromises I have listed; you can see that some hold up and some don’t. To this day we still have The House of Representatives and the Senate. But the 3/5’s Compromise didn’t hold for a number of reasons. For starters we don’t have slaves anymore, at least not legally. But at the end of the day, every single person counts as a full human who has a right to vote and represent their country. Which is how it should be.

I want to take this paragraph to talk about the people that were at the Constitutional convention and how things would be different if we were to basically do it again but at this day in age. For starters, the fact that most of the people shaping the future of our country didn’t even show up every single day is not a good thing. If you are going to represent a state and try and come to an agreement on many hard-hitting topics, then you better show up prepared and ready to fight. If the Constitutional Convention were to be happening now, it would not just be a bunch of 44-year-old male lawyers. Because that is not at all accurately representing America today. It wasn’t even accurately representing America then. At the very least, there would be people of color and women and hopefully people with a wider range of ages and different occupations/backgrounds. With today’s social media platforms and influencers out there, I think a lot more people would not only get interested in what would be happening but it could also help to make final decisions on arguments that the people at the convention might not be a be to settle. If it seems its hard to come to a compromise, then they could ask the people to take a vote. This vote could be quick and easy be making it online. Not only would this help to settle arguments but it would allow the people to feel more involved and hopefully allow the constitution to better reflect the peoples wants and needs. At the time that the constitution was created, it was great for America. But when you flash forward 232 years later into 2019, things are a bit different. The constitution has only been amended 27 times sense its creation, that is not a lot when you think about how ever changing not only the U.S is but the entire world. I include the world in this because even though the Constitution only applies to the United States, what is happening around us should affect how we do things I the U.S. Even though the constitution should have some more changes does not mean its nit affective or that it should or will be abolished any time soon. There are three main goals that the Constitution must meet in order to continue being good and functioning. Those three goals are as follows; limits government action, defines the political process and is amendable. Which ours for the most part meets these goals. But that’s not all, the other reasons the Constitution is likely to remain the framework for the government are; Ambiguity, its brief its vague and its short. Because of this, is open for interpretation. It’s also durable, it has made it this long and because of that people are not likely going to want to change it any time soon. It’s become a huge part of Americas history and Americans like there history. So if it ain’t broke then why fix it.