The delegates elected George Washington to preside over the Convention. Rhode Island was the only state to not send any delegates at all. As history played out, the result of the Constitutional Convention was the United States Constitution, but it wasn't an easy path.
The drafting process was grueling. They wanted the supreme law of the United States to be perfect. The first two months of the Convention saw fierce debate over the 15 points of the " Virginia Plan " which had been proposed by Madison as an upgrade to the Articles of Confederation. Yet, the "Committee of the Whole" couldn't agree on anything. So, on July 24 of that year, the Committee of Detail was enacted to handle the drafting process.
The United States U. Constitution was adopted on September 17, with 39 signatures before being distributed to the States for ratification. Other than Gorham, the committee members had all been respected lawyers, and would go on to become leading legal figures in the new government Randolph would be the first attorney general, while Rutledge, Ellsworth and Wilson would become Supreme Court justices. Supreme Court Nicknamed "Dictator John" "By doing good with his money, a man, as it were, stamps the image of God upon it, and makes it pass, current for the merchandise of heaven.
Edmund Randolph August 10, - September 12, First United States Attorney General Second Secretary of State "The general object was to produce a cure for the evils under which the United States labored; that in tracing these evils to their origins, every man had found it in the turbulence and follies of democracy.
Oliver Ellsworth April 29, - November 26, Senator of Connecticut Third Chief Justice of the United States "The powers of congress must be defined, but their means must be adequate to the purposes of their constitution. The Constitution was not ratified by all states until May 29, , when Rhode Island finally approved the document, and the Bill of Rights was not ratified to become part of the Constitution until the end of the following year.
Moreover, the capital was not set until July 16, , almost a year and half after the general elections took place. The location of the capital was born, like most decisions in the formation of the budding nation, out of negotiation. Hamilton, now Secretary of the Treasury, sought passage of the Funding Act so that the federal government could assume state Revolutionary War debts and thus endow the government with more economic power.
In return, Hamilton would help Jefferson and Madison secure the votes needed to pass the Residence Act. Toggle navigation. Sign up for our email newsletter. Sign Up. Courtesy of the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. The Constitutional Convention assembled in Philadelphia in May of The delegates shuttered the windows of the State House and swore secrecy so they could speak freely.
Although they had gathered to revise the Articles of Confederation, by mid-June they had decided to completely redesign the government. There was little agreement about what form it would take. One of the fiercest arguments was over congressional representation—should it be based on population or divided equally among the states? The framers compromised by giving each state one representative for every 30, people in the House of Representatives and two representatives in the Senate.
They agreed to count enslaved Africans as three-fifths of a person. Slavery itself was a thorny question that threatened to derail the Union. It was temporarily resolved when the delegates agreed that the slave trade could continue until After three hot summer months of equally heated debate, the delegates appointed a Committee of Detail to put its decisions in writing.
0コメント