Link here an interactive graphic of the painting  

Scene at the Signing of the Constitution of the United States by Howard Chandler Christy

 

Topics on the Page

 

The Constitutional Convention

 

The Iroquois Constitution and Native American Tribal Constitutions

 

Major Debates at the Convention

a. The distribution of political power

• Virginia and New Jersey Plans
• The Great Compromise

b. The rights of individuals

• The Bill of Rights

c. The rights of states

d. Slavery

• The Three-Fifths Compromise

 

 

 

 

Artist Reimagines Ratification of U.S. Constitution in "The Signing"

 

• Women and men of color -- some dressed in current fashions, some in 1700s period clothing and some in African attire --are the signers in place of the Founding Fathers in this 12 foot long photograph by Renee Cox.

 

Leading Figures at the Convention

• Benjamin Franklin
• Alexander Hamilton
• James Madison
• George Washington

 

Women and the Constitution

• Dolley Madison 

 

Cross-Link: Major Issues at the Constitutional Convention

Cross-Link: The Bill of Rights

 

READING:  Perspectives on the Constitution: Constitutions Around the World

 

 

Focus Questions:

 

What were the roles of various founders at the Constitutional Convention?

 

What were the major debates that occurred at the Convention?

 

 

19th Century Engraving by Frederick Juengling and Alfred Kappes

 

The Constitutional Convention

 

The Constitutional Convention was a meeting of delegates from twelve of the thirteen states in the newly formed United States. It was held in Philadelphia in 1787. The purpose of the convention was to address the problems with the Articles of Confederation, which had been the first attempt at a national government for the United States, but had proven to be ineffective.

 

The Constitutional Convention lasted from May 25 to September 17, 1787, and during this time, the delegates debated, discussed, and ultimately created the United States Constitution, which is still the supreme law of the United States today.

 

Click here to read the Constitution as it was written in 1787.

 

Six Big Ideas in the Constitution, National Archives

• Limited government
• Republicanism
• Separation of Powers
• Checks and Balances
• Popular Sovereignty
• Federalism

 

A super multimedia video and lesson plan on the Constitutional Convention via Khan Academy 

 

Education Portal provides a quick video over-viewing the Constitutional Convention and the Great Compromise. It also comes with some quiz questions.

 

Video showcasing a quick run through of the events of the convention made by Hughes History on YouTube; it's about 15 minutes so it's a good length for showing it in class.

 

 

The Iroquois Constitution and Native American Tribal Constitutions

 

 

Iroquois Constitution:  A Forerunner to Colonists' Democratic Principles

Democracy and the Iroquois Constitution, The Field Museum

 

The Great Binding Law Gayanashagowa

 

Native American Tribal Constitutions

 

Current Topics

Recent political actions have lead to the notion of creating another Constitutional Convention, the first in 230 years.

 

 

  Primary Sources

 

The only records we have of what went on inside the Convention are James Madison's notes that he took in Philadelphia. Click here for all of Madison's notes for the entire convention, sorted by day from Yale Law School.

 

For primary source documents on the Constitution, see the Founders Constitution from the University of Chicago Press and the Liberty Fund.

 

PBS has a documentary and primary documents (Abigail Adams' letter to John Adams to 'Remember the ladies') for the American Experience: John and Abigail Adams

Timeline for the Ratification of the Constitution about the events surrounding the Constitutional Convention. Almost every event has a link connecting you with primary sources, or explanation and analysis of the event.

 

 

     

• Go here for names and pictures of the 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence, the 40 signers of the Constitution, and the 15 delegates to the Constitutional Convention who did not sign the Constitution from Wikimedia Commons.

 

Interactive Constitution from the National Constitution Center allows readers to view the Constitution article by article with explanatory notes from Linda R.

 

 

 

 

 

Major Debates at the Convention

In 1787, delegates from the various states met in Philadelphia for what is now known as the Constitutional Convention. These delegates sought to unify the states by creating a constitution that would bring the states together under a cohesive government. Many debates took place at the Constitutional Convention over how the new government should operate.

Distribution of Political Power

 

The delegates from the various states were divided over how political power should be distributed. Two different plans of governmental structure were discussed.

The Virginia Plan and The New Jersey Plan

 
The first plan proposed was the Virginia Plan, also called the "Large-State Plan", which called for a two-house, bicameral legislature (law-making body), a chief executive (the president), and a court system.

 

• Our modern government is based in large part on this plan except in regard to legislative representation. The Virginia Plan held that state representation in the legislature should be proportional to its population. This meant that states with large populations would have more representation than states with small populations. Those who didn’t like the Virginia Plans could support the alternative New Jersey Plan.

 

• The New Jersey Plan, also named to "Small-State Plan", called for a one-house or "unicameral" legislature where representation would be equal for all of the states. Each state would get one elected official and one vote.

 

• The larger states tended to support the Virginia Plan because it would give them more power if representation was based on population, while the smaller states supported the New Jersey Plan because it would give them more power if representation was uniform across all states.

 

The Great Compromise

 

Conflict between large and small states over Congressional representation almost derailed the conference.

 

• As a result, Benjamin Franklin created a committee to try and resolve conflicts relating to representation. On July 16, 1787, Roger Sherman and Oliver Ellsworth proposed a compromise between the Virginia and New Jersey Plans.

 

• This compromise, also known as the Connecticut Compromise or Sherman's Compromise incorporated elements of both the Virginia and New Jersey Plan and was later adopted in the Constitution

 

• From the Virginia plan, a bicameral legislature was adopted. Today, representation in the House of Representatives is based on population. The number of representatives a state has is based on its population.

 

• From the New Jersey Plan, we have the Senate portion of Congress. Each state has two votes in the Senate. 

 

The Constitutional Convention:  Lesson Plan for Act II (Virginia and New Jersey Plans, Teaching American History, Ashland University

 

 

Analyzing the Great Compromise, 1787, Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History

 

 

Rights of individuals

By 1777, ten states had drafted and adopted their own constitutions. These constitutions addressed the rights of individuals including freedom of religion, a lack of property requirements to vote and power derived from the people.

The Constitution's greatest security for the protection of individual rights is the nation's foundational principles. The greatest power in this country is in the hands of the individual. Though the powers of government were expanded under the new constitution power is largest within the people, then the state, then the federal government. When the Constitution was drafted, some felt that the larger government required a set of outlined powers of the people.

The Bill of Rights, or the first ten Amendments to the Constitution include the basic rights of citizens. These include:
1. Freedom of Speech, Press, Petition, Religion, and peaceful protest
2. The Right to Bear Arms
3. No quartering of troops
4. No unreasonable search and seizure
5. Due Process, no self incrimination, no double jeopardy
6. Right to a Speedy Trial
7. Trial by Jury
8. No Cruel or Unusual Punishment
9. Rights of individuals not outlined in the Bill of Rights
10. Any powers not vested in the federal government are granted to the states and the people

 

It is important to note that these first 10 Amendments were NOT drafted at the Convention. These amendments were not ratified until December 1791, over four years after the Convention in Philadelphia. 

 

Rights of States

 

The Articles of Confederation reflected a fear of tyranny or a strong central government.

 

• As a result, the Articles placed most of the power in the very diverse states. 

 

• States acted as adjacent countries as opposed to states.

 

• Federalists including John Jay, James Madison and Alexander Hamilton believed that the power of the federal government needed to be expanded to unify the nation. Their beliefs and ideas are present in The Federalist Papers.

 

• Individuals who opposed the creation of a centralized federal government – for example, Patrick Henry - are known as Anti-Federalists.

 

• Those who supported creating a strong national government as outlined in the Constitution were the Federalists. George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and John Jay advocated the Federalist point of view.

A fun and interactive way to teach the Bill of Rights can be found here, it is an interactive website with lesson plans revolving around the Bill of Rights.

Slavery and the Three-Fifths Compromise

 

 Thomas Jefferson's Draft Constitution for Virginia (June 1776)

 

• In this document, never debated and now largely forgotten, Jefferson called for ending slavery, specified rights for native peoples, outlawing most capital punishment, eliminating any standing army, and not allowing politicians to run for reelection.

 

The delegates to the Constitutional Convention disagreed over whether slaves should be counted as part of the population when determining representation in Congress.

 

• The southern states (where slaves made up a significant portion of the population) wanted them to count solely because it would give them more representation in Congress.

 

• The northern states thought it was absurd that slaves would be counted since legally they were considered property, not citizens.

 

• No delegate at the Convention considered making African-Americans full-fledged citizens.

 

• The second aspect of the “Great Compromise” was to address this debate over whether or not slaves should be counted for determining representation. The committee decided on what is called the Three-Fifths Compromise: slaves would be counted as three-fifths of a person for the purposes of determining representation and taxes.

 

• Overview of the Three-Fifths Compromise from Digital History

 

Thurgood Marshall and the Bicentennial Speech

 

 Text of Remarks of Thurgood Marshall at the Annual Seminar of the San Francisco Patent and Trademark Law Association, Maui, Hawaii (May 6, 1987)

 

According to Thurgood Marshall, the first African American to sit on the Supreme Court, the Constitution was "defective from the start." 

• The word “slave” does not appear in the Constitution. The framers consciously avoided the word, recognizing that it would sully the document. Nevertheless, slavery received important protections in the Constitution.

 

• The notorious three-fifths clause—which counted three-fifths of a state’s slave population in apportioning representation—gave the South extra representation in the House of Representatives and extra votes in the Electoral College.

 

 

 

Click here for more resources on this issue.
Click here for a lesson plan on the Constitutional Convention, focusing on the issue of slavery

At the 1787 Constitutional Convention, northern and southern delegates debated whether or not slaves would be counted as part of the state’s population. Disagreement over this question led to bitter tensions among delegates. To resolve the question referred to in the passage, delegates agreed to:

 
A. include all male slaves in population totals
B. include no slaves in population totals
C. count each slave as three-fifths of a person in population totals
D. count slaves in the southern states but not in the northern states

Correct Answer: C (Question from the 2010 National Assessment of Education Progress Test)

Leading Figures at the Convention

 

From the Office of the Historian, a detailed account of the Convention and it's leading figures 

 

i. Benjamin Franklin

Benjamin Franklin, 1777

Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) was a delegate from Pennsylvania who played a critical role in helping resolve conflicts that emerged at the Constitutional Convention. He spearheaded a committee that helped solve debates between the various states over representation in the potential government. The committee was successful in resolving these conflicts by getting the delegates from the different states to compromise.

Ben Franklin's autobiography can be found here on Project Gutenberg

To learn more about Benjamin Franklin peruse the PBS interactive site.

ii. Alexander Hamilton

Alexander Hamilton (1755-1804) was one of the New York delegates at the constitutional convention.

 

• Hamilton supported the constitution and campaigned for its ratification. He wrote the majority of the Federalist Papers, which were a series of articles that presented argument in favor of ratifying the constitution. 

  

• Although Hamilton fully supported the constitution, at the convention he put forth a plan that called for an executive to serve for life and to have veto power over all law.

 

• He suggested that Senators also serve for life. Hamilton felt that since these people were elected to office and could be impeached, there was nothing wrong with a life term.

 

• To Hamilton, what mattered was how the people got into office. In other words, they did not inherit their position as did the monarchy in England.

A brief biography of Hamilton's life can be found here. and here

To learn more about Alexander Hamilton peruse the New York Historical Society's Collection.

 

As a fun and creative take on the Convention and Hamilton's role, the Broadway Hit "Hamilton" has a song surrounding the events that took place in the Philadelphia State House   

 

iii. James Madison

James Madison (1751-1836) was a delegate from Virginia at the Constitutional Convention. James Madison played a critical role in writing the constitution, and as such is often called "The Father of the Constitution".

 

• In January of 1786 Madison had suggested that delegates from each state meet to discuss conflicts arising from the Articles of Confederation. This led to a meeting in Annapolis, Maryland where it was decided that a grand convention should be held to improve the Articles. 

 

• Madison wrote the Virginia Plan, which was presented by Edmund Randolph during the convention. He defended the constitution with great fervor during the process of state ratification. 

 

• This grand convention was the Constitutional Convention held in Philadelphia in 1787.

 

• Madison is remembered for speaking well and for taking careful notes, which are still used today to document the Convention. Madison played a critical role in writing the constitution. He defended the constitution with great fervor during the process of state ratification. 

 

• He wrote the majority of the Federalist Papers, which were a series of articles that presented argument in favor of ratifying the constitution. Madison authored the Bill of Rights - the first ten constitutional amendments which protect individuals form government abuses of power.

 

 

View this webpage detailing Madison's Federalist view of the Constitution from the Library of Congress

 

Click here for a collection of James Madison's papers

 

iv. George Washington

 

George Washington

 

George Washington (1732-1799) was a delegate from Virginia who attended the Constitutional Convention. He was elected the presiding officer of the Convention. Washington thought the Articles of Confederation were too weak (in light of Shays' Rebellion) and that there needed to be a stronger federal government. This motivated him to support the Constitution.

To learn more about George Washington peruse the official Mt. Vernon website.

 

View this webpage describing Washington's role at the convention from Washington's Mount Vernon organization. 

The Papers of George Washington


 Women and the Constitution

While it is commonly believed that women were not mentioned at all during the Constitutional Convention, there was in fact one reference made to them at a meeting on June 11, 1787.

 

• Rutgers University professor Jan Lewis discusses the meaning and significance of this finding in this really fascinating article: Women and the Constitution: Why the Constitution Includes Women.

 

• An early draft of the three-fifths compromise stated “in proportion to the whole number of white & other free Citizens and inhabitants of every age sex & condition including those bound to servitude for a term of years and three fifths of all other persons not comprehended in the foregoing description, except Indians paying taxes, in each state.”

Women Who Shaped the Constitution

• Lesson Plan Focusing on Abigail Adams and Mercy Otis Warren

The Women Behind the Signers

 

Ruth Bader Ginsburg and how she viewed the Constitution

 

Dolley Madison

 

Dolley Madison, 1804

James Madison's wife Dolley Payne Todd Madison was famous for active social and political life as First Lady.

The details of her legacy and her role in her husbands' legacy can be found here. Courtesy of the National First Ladies' Library.

See also The Dolley Madison Project at the Virginia Center for Digital History

When Dolley Madison Took Command of the White House details her actions during the 1814 British invasion of Washington, D.C.

 

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Sources

Ashbrook Center for Public Affairs at Ashland University, (2006). TeachingAmericanHistory.org . Retrieved April 8, 2007, Web site: http://teachingamericanhistory.org/convention/
Ashbrook Center for Public Affairs at Ashland University (2006). teachingAmericanHistory.org. Retrieved March 5, 2008. Web site: http://teachingamericanhistory.org/convention/delegates/age.html
Steve, Mount (1995). Retrieved April 8, 2007, from USConstitution.net Web site: http://www.usconstitution.net/index.html
Documents from the Continental Congress and the Constitutional Convention. Retrieved April 8, 2007, from The Library of Congress Web site: http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/continental/
Explore the Constitution. Retrieved April 8, 2007, from National Constitution Center Web site: http://www.constitutioncenter.org/explore/Welcome/index.shtml
Constitution of the United States. Retrieved April 8, 2007, from The National Archives Experience Web site: http://www.archives.gov/national-archives-experience/charters/constitution.html
Constitutional Convention. Retrieved March 5, 2008. Web site: http://www.jmu.edu/madison/gpos225-madison2/adopt.htm
Princeton University Press (1978). James Madison, Jr. Retrieved March 5, 2008. Web site: http://etcweb.princeton.edu/CampusWWW/Companion/madison_james.html
The Avalon Project at Yale Law School (1996-2007). Madison's notes from the Constitutional Convention. Retrieved March 5, 2008. Web site: http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/debates/debcont.htm