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A) New information from in-class lecture #1
In 1783, when peace came, the U.S. Was deeply dead. The USA tried to survive on economic independence. British shut their ports to USA staff, which caused the Economic Crisis to the USA. It is considered as Critical Era today.
Reason: the economic crisis is a main factor of pushing people to reevaluate the Articles of Confederation, which helped the writing and ratification of new Constitution.
Location: paragraph 2
B)New information from in-class lecture #2
Colonists considered British government can not tax colonists in America because there is no colonist in the House of Commons. But even if they had, how many people should be in it would be the unsolvable problem. So colonists set the congress instead of the House of Commons without House of Lords and King. That is also the reason colonists gave few power to the government.
Reason: That experience helped colonists to write the Constitution about how the government system should been set up.
Location: paragraph 2
C)New information from in-class lecture #3:
The slavery and the Constitution. Combined the Virginia Plan and New Jersey Plan, the government set as president, senate, and the house of representatives. In the house of representatives, the factor of each state's power is the population. So many states of south required to count their slaves into their population, which was disagreed by other states. Finally, they found a way to solve the problem in-between that is three of fifth of slaves in states could be count for representation in government. The name is Extraterritoriality.
Reason: Extraterritoriality is a very important factor on writing of the Constitution.
Location: paragraph 6
D)New information from in-class lecture #4:
Ratification Debate.
Federalists set the government as three parts which are House of Representatives, instead of Congress, Senate, and President, who can select Judiciary . The president is not selected by people, but by Senate. Anti-Federalists considered it was similar with British government system. They worried that the government would have too much power and the members of Senate would always be rich people. They wanted another system to control government power. It resulted Bill of Rights.
Reason: The argument between Federalists and Anti-Federalists helped colonists to set a better government system with Checks and Balance. It also is a factor of writing the new Constitution.
Location: paragraph 7
The major factors that shaped the writing of the new Constitution include colonial experience and the war to against the British government with the post-war situation. And the post-war economic situation, or called Critical Era, lead the failure of the Articles of Confederation, which is the main factor of the ratification of the new Constitution. The colonists tried to avoid many legal feature in Europe such as a inherited rule instead of democratic selection of country leaders by ratification of the Articles of Confederation. The solutions offered by the Anti federalists and the Federalists, which is from James Madison, were opposed, and both of them had influence in shaping the Constitution.#p#分页标题#e#
The Treaty of Paris left the United States independent in early 1780s. But the government was unsettled. The national debt, paper money and run-away inflation, and economic depression lead to a big financial chaos in the 1780s. According to professor Mooney, the Critical Era pushed colonists to think over the post-war situation and to set up a new government system.(History 100 lecture, 22 February,2010) The second continental congress draft the Articles in June 1776 and the ratification was completed in March 1781, to structure a new federation style called the United States. The Articles of Confederation established the union of the states and was the foundation of the new Constitution. The historians consider that when colonists wrote the Articles of Confederation, the goal was to be different from England. Professor Mooney indicated that colonists' experience in British government made them to choose giving only few power to the government.(History 100 lecture, 22 February 2010) To prevent anyone from becoming supreme, the colonists used a system called Checks and Balances, similar to Separation of Powers, to allow one branch to limit another. But that leads to a weak government. Under the Articles, Congress had no military and no power to enforce the states of taxition. The Congress declined to levy tax and the power to regulate commerce. Because colonists afraid of a new government with too much power, which is similar with British. So both the Congress and the states had incurred debts for the Revolution War and how to pay National Debts became the most prominent issue in post-war time. According to Federalists, the Articles were too weak and did not have a strong political and economical base for the new country.
Based on the post-war darkening economic clouds, more and more colonists wanted to re-structure the government through the 1780s. Soon, Debtor's problems became the main factor of Shays' Rebellion. After the war, farmers in America needed a place to sell their products in the international trade, which is controlled by British. Congress was unable to protect manufacturing and shipping and the weak central government was not powerful to regulate trade, fight in the war when necessary, or especially build a financial system. Many American poor farmers were angery with debt and taxes and feared to be in the debtor's prisons caused by the failure to repay debts. So on August 29, 1786, Shays' Rebellion started in Massachusetts, which gave strong impetus to reevaluate the Articles of Confederation.
For that reason, in 1787, the Virginia delegation made a proposal the Virginia Plan, drafted by the delegate James Madison, to tinker with the Articles of Confederation. Virginia Plan is notable by its new form of national government having three branches---legislative, executive and judicial. And it set a idea of population-weighted representation in the National Legislature, which means the vote numbers of every state representative in the government by their population: more people equals more power. #p#分页标题#e#
In response to the Virginia Plan, the New Jersey Plan was proposed at the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, as known as Philadelphia Convention, in summer 1787. The New Jersey Plan gave power to raise money by taxing foreign goods and to regulate trade. At the Philadelphia Convention, Madison's three-branch federal system was the basis of the U.S. Constitution of today.
The slavery in America also influenced the writing of new Constitution. According to professor Mooney, the disagreement between different states about wether slaves should be count into the population also is a factor of writing the new Constitution. Finally, they found a way to solve the problem in-between that is three of fifth of slaves in states could be count for representation in government. The problem was solved with the Extraterritoriality.(History 100 lecture, 24 February 2010) However, the slavery trade issue was considered too controversial to resolve in the convention. The original Constitution allowed slavery trade until 1808.
To advocacy ratification of the Constitution for a strong national government, James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and John Jay, wrote the Federalist from 1787 to 1788, which indicated as the Federalist Papers since twentieth century. Federalists proposed that the government as three parts which are House of Representatives, instead of Congress, Senate, and President, who can select Judiciary . The president is not selected by people, but by Senate. Professor Mooney explained Anti-Federalists worried that the new government would have too much power and the members of Senate would always be rich people, which is similar with British.(History 100 lecture, 24 February 2010) Anti-Federalists dictated the central government should have the equal, or less power than state government to avoid the democratic system with presidency evolving into a monarchy. Besides, because of Anti-Federalists' worries, people proposed the Bill of Rights during the conflict between Federalists and anti-Federalists. The Bill of Rights prohibits Congress from making any law about the establishment of religion and prohibits the federalhttp://www.ukassignment.org/daixieEssay/meiguoessaydaixie/ government from doing any action without due process of law. Bill of Rights had been applied to the first ten amendments in the article five of the Constitution.
After that, the Connecticut Compromise, or called the Great Compromise of July, 1787, proposed a bicameral legislature and passed, resulting in the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives. The Virginia Plan and some ideas from the New Jersey Plan were used in the Connecticut Compromise. It resulted each state would be represented equally in Senate and the House of Representatives votes would be distributed by population in modern United States.
Thus, it is explicit to see that the colony experience and the Revolution War influenced the colonists to build the new federal polity which was wrote in the Constitution. Otherwise, the bad economic situation after the war resulted in the failure of the Article of Constitution. Those factors structured the first four articles of the Constitution about the legislative, executive, judicial power, and states' powers and limits, as well as federal power of article six. And based on James Madison and his advocators' persistence, amendments was added to the Constitution as Article V.#p#分页标题#e#
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