American Democracy in Context. Joseph A. PikaЧитать онлайн книгу.
the event a potent symbol of the weakness of the Articles of Confederation.
The Delegates and Their Motives
All of the states except Rhode Island (which opposed changing the Articles of Confederation) sent delegates to the Constitutional Convention. Of the 74 delegates the states had appointed, only 55 actually attended the convention, and far fewer stayed for the entire convention. The attendees included two of the most famous men in America, George Washington and Benjamin Franklin, and other luminaries such as James Madison and Alexander Hamilton. Notably absent were John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, who were abroad serving as ambassadors to Great Britain and France, respectively. Some passionate advocates of states’ rights, such as Patrick Henry, also stayed away.
In 1913, influential political scientist and historian Charles A. Beard proposed a controversial thesis: In writing the constitution, the framers’ primary goal had been to protect their property holdings and financial self-interest.30 Beard argued that the framers were a group of wealthy elites who had been adversely affected by the type of government created under the Articles of Confederation (see Table 2.1 for an overview of the delegates’ characteristics).31 Beard argued that in establishing property rights and protecting the economic interests of elites, the framers had purposely limited the ability of the majority to exercise real power.
In the 1950s, historians such as Robert E. Brown and Forrest McDonald suggested that a rigorous analysis of the data debunked Beard’s thesis. They pointed out that the framers were not as monolithic in their interests as Beard suggested (for example, some opponents of the Constitution also came from the privileged wealthy class, and not all supporters were wealthy creditors), and that a broader array of interests than Beard recognized had influenced the framers.32
Nonetheless, debate continues. Reality may rest somewhere between Beard’s clear-cut assumptions and the views of critics such as Brown and McDonald. The framers, after all, were politicians influenced by a range of factors. Economics was undoubtedly one of them, but not the only one—or even, necessarily, the most significant one.
Table 2.1
A bare quorum of delegates attended the opening session of the Constitutional Convention on May 25 in what is now called Independence Hall (the room where the members of the Second Continental Congress signed the Declaration of Independence). Thirteen tables—one for each state’s delegation—were arranged in a semicircle. Rhode Island never sent delegates, and New Hampshire’s arrived two months late. No more than 11 state delegations were ever in attendance at any one time. As had been the practice in Congress, each state delegation had one vote. The group deliberated in absolute secrecy so that delegates could express their views without fear of outside retaliation or pressure. Despite the heat, they kept the large windows closed that summer and posted sentries outside to ward off eavesdroppers.33
Large States versus Small States: The Virginia and New Jersey Plans
The Virginia delegation quickly took the reins after arriving in Philadelphia. Virginian James Madison issued a detailed critique of the Articles of Confederation entitled “Vices of the Political System of the United States,” and further argued that confederations were, by their very nature, doomed to failure.34 Most significantly, the group of Virginia delegates met every morning at a local boardinghouse to plot strategy for how to convince the other delegates to construct a new constitution rather than merely amend the Articles of Confederation. They also met each afternoon to greet arriving delegates.
The drafting of the Constitution was, after all, a distinctly political process, which involved consensus on some issues (such as the need for a limited, republican form of government) and conflict on others (such as what system of representation to adopt). Ultimately, compromise (on issues such as slavery, representation, presidential selection, and the court system) and creativity (the embrace of federalism, for example) led to success. Keep these “4 Cs” in mind—consensus, conflict, compromise, and creativity—as you read the rest of this chapter.
Virginia Plan A plan, favored by large states, to replace (rather than amend) the Articles of Confederation and create a strong national government consisting of three branches. It also called for replacing the one-state/one-vote system used under the Articles of Confederation with proportional voting power in the legislature.
Once the convention formally assembled on May 25, Virginia’s power became immediately evident. The delegates unanimously chose Virginian George Washington as its presiding officer. After the group had established the rules of the convention, Edmund Randolph, the head of the Virginia delegation, rose and introduced his delegation’s proposal for a new constitution, the result of the daily strategy sessions they had held. This so-called Virginia Plan, primarily authored by Madison and consisting of 15 draft resolutions, was designed to replace rather than amend the Articles of Confederation and to establish a strong central government consisting of three branches: a bicameral legislative branch, an executive branch, and a judicial branch (see Figure 2.1).
Figure 2.1 Central Government Under the Virginia Plan
The Virginia Plan called for members of the lower house of the legislature to be elected by the citizens of each state. Members of the lower house would, in turn, select members of the upper house. In addition to replacing the unicameral legislature that existed under the Articles of Confederation with a bicameral legislature, the Virginia Plan also called for the replacement of the one-state/one-vote system with proportional voting power in both houses: the number of representatives from each state would be based on the state’s population, and each of their representatives would have one individual vote. This new voting plan would increase the power of more populous states at the expense of less populous states. It also raised a nasty question: Were slaves to be included when counting the population of a state? Bluntly put, were they to be counted as people or property?35
Small states strongly opposed the Virginia Plan. On June 9, William Patterson of New Jersey stood and proclaimed that he was “astonished” and “alarmed” at the Virginia Plan’s proposal to base a state’s voting strength on its population.36 He then introduced an alternative set of proposals that came to be known as the New Jersey Plan, aimed at merely amending the Articles of Confederation. It, too, called for three branches, but unlike the proposals under the Virginia Plan, the New Jersey Plan called for maintaining a unicameral legislature, a weak executive branch comprising multiple officers (elected by Congress and subject to removal only upon majority vote of the state governors) rather than a single president, and a Supreme Court whose members would be elected by the executive officers (see Figure 2.2). Representatives to the legislature would continue to be chosen by state legislatures rather than being elected by the people. The New Jersey Plan also retained the one-state/one-vote system, thereby garnering support from small states.
Figure 2.2 Central Government Under the New Jersey Plan
The Three-Fifths Compromise and the Great Compromise
The two questions of state representation dominated the next few weeks of discussion at the convention: (1) Should there be proportional representation in Congress, as called for in the Virginia Plan, or equal representation (one state/one vote), as called for in the New Jersey Plan? (2) In the event that proportional representation was chosen, who would be counted in determining the number of representatives? The Virginia Plan called for representation in Congress to be based on the “numbers of free inhabitants”