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Willy Ben Chen
Chapter2ConstitutionanditsOrgins2020.pptxChapter 2: Constitution and its Origins
Instructor Walter Pearn
Chapter Objectives
Identify the origins of the core values in American political thought, including ideas regarding representational government.
Summarize Great Britain’s actions leading to the American Revolution.
Describe the steps taken during and after the American Revolution to create a government.
Identify the main features of the Articles of Confederation.
Describe the crises resulting from key features of the Articles of Confederation.
Identify the conflicts present and the compromises reached in drafting the Constitution.
Summarize the core features of the structure of U.S. government under the Constitution.
Chapter Objectives
Identify the steps required to ratify the Constitution.
Describe arguments the framers raised in support of a strong national government and counterpoints raised by the Anti-Federalists.
Describe how the Constitution can be formally amended.
Explain the contents and significance of the Bill of Rights.
Discuss the importance of the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, Fifteenth, and Nineteenth Amendments.
The beliefs and attitudes that led to the call for independence had long been an important part of colonial life. Of all the political thinkers who influenced American beliefs about government, the most important is John Locke. The most significant contributions of Locke, a seventeenth-century English philosopher, were his ideas regarding the relationship between government and natural rights. Natural Rights were believed to be God-given rights to life, liberty, and property..”
POLITICAL THOUGHT IN THE AMERICAN COLONIES Armstrong
Magna Carta
In 1215, King John signed Magna Carta—a promise to his subjects that he and future monarchs would refrain from certain actions that harmed, or had the potential to harm, the people of England.
Prominent in Magna Carta’s many provisions are protections for life, liberty, and property, this clause lays the foundation for the Fifth and Sixth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution.
While Magna Carta was intended to grant protections only to the English barons who were in revolt against King John in 1215, by the time of the American Revolution, English subjects, both in England and in North America, had come to regard the document as a cornerstone of liberty for men of all stations—a right that had been recognized by King John I in 1215, but the people had actually possessed long before then.
Magna Carta
The rights protected by Magna Carta had been granted by the king, and, in theory, a future king or queen could take them away.
Natural rights Locke described, however, had been granted by God and thus could never be abolished by human beings, even royal ones, or by the institutions they created.
Social Contract
Is an agreement among members of the society in which they accept existing laws and penalties as binding.
A second contract created government. It went into effect when a majority of the people agreed on the form of government that was created by the contract.
Should government deprive people of their rights by abusing the power given to it, the contract was broken, and the people were no longer bound by its terms.
The people could thus withdraw their consent to obey and form another government for their protection.
The belief that government should not deprive people of their liberties and should be restricted in its power over citizens’ lives was an important factor in the controversial decision by the American colonies to declare independence from England in 1776.
The desire to limit the power of government is closely related to the belief that people should govern themselves.
First, the British government did allow for a degree of self-government.
Laws were made by Parliament, and property-owning males were allowed to vote for representatives to Parliament.
Thus, Americans were accustomed to the idea of representative government from the beginning. For instance, Virginia established its House of Burgesses in 1619. Upon their arrival in North America a year later, the English Separatists who settled the Plymouth Colony, commonly known as the Pilgrims, promptly authored the Mayflower Compact, an agreement to govern themselves according to the laws created by the male voters of the colony.
By the eighteenth century, all the colonies had established legislatures to which men were elected to make the laws for their fellow colonists. When American colonists felt that this longstanding tradition of representative self-government was threatened by the actions of Parliament and the King, the American Revolution began.
THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION
The American Revolution began when a small and vocal group of colonists became convinced the king and Parliament were abusing them and depriving them of their rights.
By 1776, they had been living under the rule of the British government for more than a century.
Each colony had established its own legislature.
Taxes imposed by England were low, and property ownership was more widespread than in England.
People readily proclaimed their loyalty to the king. For the most part, American colonists were proud to be British citizens and had no desire to form an independent nation.
THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION
In 1763, this began to change when the Seven Years War between Great Britain and France came to an end.
Great Britain gained control of most of the French territory in North America.
The colonists had fought on behalf of Britain, and many colonists expected that after the war they would be allowed to settle on land west of the Appalachian Mountains that had been taken from France.
Their hopes were not realized. Hoping to prevent conflict with Indian tribes in the Ohio Valley, Parliament passed the Proclamation of 1763, which forbade the colonists to purchase land or settle west of the Appalachian Mountains.
American Revolution
To pay its debts from the war and maintain the troops it left behind to protect the colonies, the British government had to take new measures to raise revenue.
Among the acts passed by Parliament were laws requiring American colonists to pay British merchants with gold and silver instead of paper currency.
Mandated suspected smugglers be tried in vice-admiralty courts, without jury trials.
What angered the colonists most was the imposition of direct taxes: taxes imposed on individuals instead of on transactions.
American Revolution
Because the colonists had not consented to direct taxation, their primary objection was that it reduced their status as free men.
The right of the people or their representatives to consent to taxation was enshrined in both Magna Carta and the English Bill of Rights.
Taxes were imposed by the House of Commons, one of the two houses of the British Parliament.
The North American colonists were not allowed to elect representatives to that body.
Those who were not allowed to vote, such as women and blacks, were considered to have virtual representation in the British legislature; representatives elected by those who could vote made laws on behalf of those who could not.
Colonists maintained anything except direct representation was a violation of their rights as English subjects.
The first such tax to draw the ire of colonists was the Stamp Act, passed in 1765, which required that almost all paper goods, such as diplomas, land deeds, contracts, and newspapers, have revenue stamps placed on them.
The outcry was so great that the new tax was quickly withdrawn, but its repeal was soon followed by a series of other tax acts, such as the Townshend Acts (1767), which imposed taxes on many everyday objects such as glass, tea, and paint.
American Revolution
The Massachusetts legislature sent a petition to the king asking for relief from the taxes and requested that other colonies join in a boycott of British manufactured goods.
British officials threatened to suspend the legislatures of colonies that engaged in a boycott and, in response to a request for help from Boston’s customs collector, sent a warship to the city in 1768.
A few months later, British troops arrived, and on the evening of March 5, 1770, an altercation erupted outside the customs house.
Shots rang out as the soldiers fired into the crowd. Several people were hit; three died immediately.
Britain had taxed the colonists without their consent. Now, British soldiers had taken colonists’ lives.
American Revolution
Following this event, later known as the Boston Massacre, resistance to British rule grew.
In December 1773, a group of Boston men boarded a ship in Boston harbor and threw its cargo of tea, owned by the British East India Company, into the water to protest British policies, including the granting of a monopoly on tea to the British East India Company, which many colonial merchants resented.
This act of defiance became known as the Boston Tea Party.
Today, many who do not agree with the positions of the Democratic or the Republican Party have organized themselves into an oppositional group dubbed the Tea Party.
American Revolution
The Intolerable Acts were punitive laws passed by the British Parliament in 1774 after the Boston Tea Party.
The laws were meant to punish the Massachusetts colonists for their defiance in the Tea Party protest in reaction to changes in taxation by the British Government.
American Revolution
In May 1775, delegates met again in the Second Continental Congress.
By this time, war with Great Britain had already begun, following skirmishes between colonial militiamen and British troops at Lexington and Concord, Massachusetts. Congress drafted a Declaration of Causes explaining the colonies’ reasons for rebellion.
On July 2, 1776, Congress declared American independence from Britain and two days later signed the Declaration of Independence.
American Revolution
The Declaration of Independence was drafted by Thomas Jefferson, and officially proclaimed the colonies’ separation from Britain.
Jefferson eloquently laid out the reasons for rebellion.
God, he wrote, had given everyone the rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
People had created governments to protect these rights and consented to be governed by them so long as government functioned as intended.
Jefferson then proceeded to list the many ways in which the British monarch had abused his power and failed in his duties to his subjects.
The king, Jefferson charged, had taxed the colonists without the consent of their elected representatives, interfered with their trade, denied them the right to trial by jury, and deprived them of their right to self-government.
Articles of Confederation
Written in 1777 and stemming from wartime urgency, its progress was slowed by fears of central authority and extensive land claims by states.
The Articles were not ratified until March 1, 1781.
It would not become the law of the land until all thirteen states had approved it.
The Articles of Confederation named the new nation “The United States of America.”
Congress was given the authority to make treaties and alliances, maintain armed forces and coin money.
When the last of these states, Virginia, relinquished its land claims in early 1781, Maryland approved the Articles.4 A few months later, the British surrendered.
The central government lacked the ability to levy taxes and regulate commerce, issues that led to the Constitutional Convention in 1787 for the creation of new federal laws under The United States Constitution.
Articles of Confederation
The weakness of the Articles of Confederation was that Congress was not strong enough to enforce laws or raise taxes, making it difficult for the new nation to repay their debts from the Revolutionary War.
There was no executive and no judiciary, two of the three branches of government we have today to act as a system of checks and balances.
Additionally, there were several issues between states that were not settled with ratification:
A disagreement over the appointment of taxes forecast the division over slavery in the Constitutional Convention.
Dickinson’s draft required the states to provide money to Congress in proportion to the number of their inhabitants, black and white, except Indians not paying taxes.
With large numbers of slaves, the southern states opposed this requirement, arguing that taxes should be based on the number of white inhabitants. This failed to pass, but eventually the southerners had their way as Congress decided that each state’s contribution should rest on the value of its lands and improvements. In the middle of the war, Congress had little time and less desire to take action on such matters as the slave trade and fugitive slaves, both issues receiving much attention in the Constitutional Convention.
republic
Americans wished their new government to be a republic.
A state in which supreme power is held by the people and their elected representatives, and which has an elected or nominated president rather than a monarch.
Many, however, feared that a nation as large as the United States could not be ruled effectively as a republic.
Many also worried that even a government of representatives elected by the people might become too powerful and overbearing.
Confederation
Thus, a confederation was created—an entity in which independent, self-governing states form a union for the purpose of acting together in areas such as defense.
Fearful of replacing one oppressive national government with another, however, the framers of the Articles of Confederation created an alliance of sovereign states held together by a weak central government.
The Confederate States of America was a collection of 11 states that seceded from the United States in 1860 following the election of President Abraham Lincoln.
Led by Jefferson Davis and existing from 1861 to 1865, the Confederacy struggled for legitimacy and was never recognized as a sovereign nation. After suffering a crushing defeat in the Civil War, the Confederate States of America ceased to exist.
Articles of Confederation
The Articles of Confederation satisfied the desire of those in the new nation who wanted a weak central government with limited power.
No power to impose taxes. To avoid any perception of “taxation without representation”
Only state governments could levy taxes. To pay for its expenses, the national government had to request money from the states.
Currency it issued, called the Continental, was largely worthless.
The national government had the power to coin money, however the states were also able to do so.
Central government also lacked the power to impose tariffs on foreign imports or regulate interstate commerce.
The national government also lacked the power to raise an army or navy.
Shays’ Rebellion
Shays’ Rebellion was a series of violent attacks on courthouses and other government properties in Massachusetts that began in 1786 and led to a full-blown military confrontation in 1787.
The rebels were mostly ex-Revolutionary War soldiers-turned farmers who opposed state economic policies causing poverty and property foreclosures.
The rebellion was named after Daniel Shays, a farmer and former soldier who fought at Bunker Hill and was one of several leaders of the insurrection.
The farmers who fought in the Revolutionary War had received little compensation, and by the 1780s many were struggling to make ends meet.
Businesses in Boston and elsewhere demanded immediate payment for goods.
There was no paper money in circulation and no gold or silver to be accessed by the farmers to settle these debts.
At the same time, Massachusetts residents were expected to pay higher taxes than they had ever paid to the British in order to assure that Governor James Bowdoin’s business associates would receive a good return on their investments.
With no means to move their crops and make money to pay off debts and taxes, Boston authorities began to arrest the farmers and foreclose on their farms.
Revising the Articles of Confederation
In 1786, Virginia and Maryland invited delegates from the other eleven states to meet in Annapolis, Maryland, for the purpose of revising the Articles of Confederation.
Only five states sent representatives.
Because all thirteen states had to agree to any alteration of the Articles, the convention in Annapolis could not accomplish its goal.
Two of the delegates, Alexander Hamilton and James Madison, requested that all states send delegates to a convention in Philadelphia the following year to attempt once again to revise the Articles of Confederation.
All the states except Rhode Island chose delegates to send to the meeting, a total of seventy men in all, but many did not attend.
Among those not in attendance were John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, both of whom were overseas representing the country as diplomats.
The convention that met in Philadelphia in 1787 decided to create an entirely new government.
Constitutional Convention
Fifty-five delegates arrived in Philadelphia on May 1787 for the meeting that became known as the Constitutional Convention.
Feared the creation of a central government that was too powerful.
Wanted to preserve state autonomy, although not to a degree that prevented the states from working together collectively or made them entirely independent of the will of the national government.
Seeking to protect the rights of individuals from government abuse, they nevertheless wished to create a society in which concerns for law and order did not give way in the face of demands for individual liberty.
They wished to give political rights to all free men but also feared mob rule, which many felt would have been the result of Shays’ Rebellion had it succeeded.
Delegates from small states did not want their interests pushed aside by delegations from more populous states like Virginia.
And everyone was concerned about slavery.
Representatives from southern states worried that delegates from states where it had been or was being abolished might try to outlaw the institution.
Those who favored a nation free of the influence of slavery feared that southerners might attempt to make it a permanent part of American society.
The only decision that all could agree on was the election of George Washington, the former commander of the Continental Army and hero of the American Revolution, as the president of the convention.
The Question of Representation: Small States vs. Large States
One of the first differences among the delegates to become clear was between those from large states, such as New York and Virginia, and those who represented small states, like Delaware.
When discussing the structure of the government under the new constitution, the delegates from Virginia called for a bicameral legislature consisting of two houses. The number of a state’s representatives in each house was to be based on the state’s population.
In each state, representatives in the lower house would be elected by popular vote.
These representatives would then select their state’s representatives in the upper house from among candidates proposed by the state’s legislature. Once a representative’s term in the legislature had ended, the representative could not be reelected until an unspecified amount of time had passed.
The Question of Representation: Small States vs. Large States
Delegates from small states objected to this Virginia Plan. Another proposal, the New Jersey Plan, called for a unicameral legislature with one house, in which each state would have one vote.
Smaller states would have the same power in the national legislature as larger states.
Larger states argued that because they had more residents, they should be allotted more legislators to represent their interests.
Slavery and Freedom
Following the Revolution, some of the northern states had either abolished slavery or instituted plans by which slaves would gradually be emancipated.
Pennsylvania, for example, had passed the Act for the Gradual Abolition of Slavery in 1780. All people born in the state to enslaved mothers after the law’s passage would become indentured servants to be set free at age twenty-eight.
In 1783, Massachusetts had freed all enslaved people within the state. Many Americans believed slavery was opposed to the ideals stated in the Declaration of Independence.
Others felt it was inconsistent with the teachings of Christianity.
Some feared for the safety of the country’s white population if the number of slaves and white Americans’ reliance on them increased.
Some southerners shared similar sentiments, none of the southern states had abolished slavery and none wanted the Constitution to interfere with the institution.
In addition to supporting the agriculture of the South, slaves could be taxed as property and counted as population for purposes of a state’s representation in the government.
Federal Supremacy vs. State Sovereignty
Without the power to tax and regulate trade, the government would not have enough money to maintain the nation’s defense, protect American farmers and manufacturers from foreign competition, create the infrastructure necessary for interstate commerce and communications, maintain foreign embassies, or pay federal judges and other government officials.
It was feared that a strong national government might become too powerful and use its authority to oppress citizens and deprive them of their rights.
They advocated a central government with sufficient authority to defend the nation but insisted that other powers be left to the states.
Such delegates approved the approach of the New Jersey Plan, which retained the unicameral Congress that had existed under the Articles of Confederation.
It gave additional power to the national government, such as the power to regulate interstate and foreign commerce and to compel states to comply with laws passed by Congress.
However, states still retained a lot of power, including power over the national government.
Congress, for example, could not impose taxes without the consent of the states. Furthermore, the nation’s chief executive, appointed by the Congress, could be removed by Congress if state governors demanded it.
Individual Liberty vs. Social Stability
The belief that the king and Parliament had deprived colonists of their liberties, many feared the government of the United States might one day attempt to do the same.
They wanted and expected their new government to guarantee the rights of life, liberty, and property.
Others believed it was more important for the national government to maintain order, and this might require it to limit personal liberty at times.
All Americans, however, desired that the government not intrude upon people’s rights to life, liberty, and property without reason.
The Great Compromise
After debating at length over whether the Virginia Plan or the New Jersey Plan.
Constitution had ultimately arrived at what is called the Great Compromise.
It was decided, would consist of two chambers: the Senate and the House of Representatives.
Senators were to be appointed by state legislatures.
Members of the House of Representatives would be popularly elected by the voters in each state.
Elected members of the House would be limited to two years in office before having to seek reelection, and those appointed to the Senate by each state’s political elite would serve a term of six years.
The Great Compromise
Congress was given great power including:
Ability to tax
Maintain an army and a navy
Regulate trade and commerce.
Coin and borrow money
Grant patents and copyrights
Declare war
Establish laws regulating naturalization
Bankruptcy.
The Great Compromise
Legislation could be proposed by either chamber of Congress
It had to pass both chambers by a majority vote before being sent to the president to be signed into law
All bills to raise revenue had to begin in the House of Representatives.
Only those men elected by the voters to represent them could impose taxes upon them.
The Three-Fifths Compromise and the Debates over Slavery
Southern states were adamant that they should be, while delegates from northern states were vehemently opposed, arguing that representatives from southern states could not represent the interests of enslaved people.
If slaves were not counted, however, southern states would have far fewer representatives in the House than northern states did.
For example, if South Carolina were allotted representatives based solely on its free population, it would receive only half the number it would have received if slaves, who made up approximately 43 percent of the population, were included.
The Three-Fifths Compromise and the Debates over Slavery
For purposes of Congressional apportionment, slaveholding states could count all their free population, including free African Americans and 60 percent (three-fifths) of their enslaved population.
To mollify the north, the compromise also allowed counting 60 percent of a state’s slave population for federal taxation, although no such taxes were ever collected.
Another compromise regarding the institution of slavery granted Congress the right to impose taxes on imports in exchange for a twenty-year prohibition on laws attempting to ban the importation of slaves to the United States, which would hurt the economy of southern states more than that of northern states.
Because the southern states, especially South Carolina, had made it clear they would leave the convention if abolition were attempted, no serious effort was made by the framers to abolish slavery in the new nation, even though many delegates disapproved of the institution.
Supremacy Clause
The supremacy clause in Article VI of the Constitution proclaimed that the Constitution, laws passed by Congress, and treaties made by the federal government were “the supreme Law of the Land.” In the event of a conflict between the states and the national government, the national government would triumph.
Democratic Institutions
The U.S. Constitution established a government with 3 Branches:
Executive– President
Legislative– Congress
Judiciary– Courts
The U.S. Constitution outlines the authority of the branches of government:
Article 1 Section 1: U.S. Constitution: All legislative powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives.
Article 2 Section 2: The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America. He shall hold his Office during the Term of four Years, and, together with the Vice-President chosen for the same Term, be elected, as follows:
Article 3 Section 1: The Judicial Power of the United States, shall be vested in one supreme Court, and in such inferior Courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish. The Judges, both of the supreme and inferior Courts, shall hold their Offices during good Behavior, and shall, at stated Times, receive for their Services a Compensation which shall not be diminished during their Continuance in Office.
The U.S. Constitution outlines the authority of the branches of government:
Separation of Powers and Checks and Balances
Congress was given the power to make laws, but the executive branch, consisting of the president and the vice president, and the federal judiciary, notably the Supreme Court, were created to, respectively, enforce laws and try cases arising under federal law.
Congress can pass laws, but its power to do so can be checked by the president, who can veto potential legislation so that it cannot become a law.
Later, in the 1803 case of Marbury v. Madison, the U.S. Supreme Court established its own authority to rule on the constitutionality of laws, a process called judicial review.
Federal Power vs. State Power
Federal system, power is divided between the federal (or national) government and the state governments.
Explicit powers, called enumerated powers, were granted to the federal government to declare war, impose taxes, coin and regulate currency, regulate foreign and interstate commerce, raise and maintain an army and a navy, maintain a post office, make treaties with foreign nations and with Native American tribes, and make laws regulating the naturalization of immigrants.
All powers not expressly given to the national government, however, were intended to be exercised by the states. These powers are known as reserved powers. States remained free to pass laws regarding such things as intrastate commerce (commerce within the borders of a state) and marriage.
Some powers, such as the right to levy taxes, were given to both the state and federal governments.
The Ratification of the Constitution
Anti-Federalists objected to the power the Constitution gave the federal government and the absence of a bill of rights to protect individual liberties.
The Federalists countered that a strong government was necessary to lead the new nation and promised to add a bill of rights to the Constitution.
The Federalist Papers, in particular, argued in favor of ratification and sought to convince people that the new government would not become tyrannical.
Finally, in June 1788, New Hampshire became the ninth state to approve the Constitution, making it the law of the land. The large and prosperous states of Virginia and New York followed shortly thereafter, and the remaining states joined as well.
Constitutional Change
One of the problems with the Articles of Confederation was the difficulty of changing it. To prevent this difficulty from recurring, the framers provided a method for amending the Constitution that required a two-thirds majority in both houses of Congress and in three-quarters of state legislatures to approve a change.
The possibility of amending the Constitution helped ensure its ratification, although many feared the powerful federal government it created would deprive them of their rights.
To allay their anxieties, the framers promised that a Bill of Rights safeguarding individual liberties would be added following ratification.
These ten amendments were formally added to the document in 1791 and other amendments followed over the years. Among the most important were those ending slavery, granting citizenship to African Americans, and giving the right to vote to Americans regardless of race, color, or sex.
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