Read Chapter 10 in Morgan’s “Birth of the Republic”

1. Among the leading ‘founding fathers’, who attended the constitutional convention in Philadelphia and who didn’t attend?

29 men went. Virginia sent George Washington. James Madison and Gov. Morris of Pennsylvania went. Rhode Island did not participate. Benjamin Franklin went. Samuel Adams of Massachusetts and Patrick Henry of Virginia did not go. Thomas Jefferson and John Adams would have gone but they were in Europe.

2. What was the theory propounded by Charles Beard in 1913 regarding those who attended the constitutional convention?

Charles Beard said most of the members of the convention invested in public securities that the United States and stood to gain by strengthening public credit. He also said that they wanted to stop laws that would negatively affect the value of public securities. He concluded that the makers of the Constitution were seeking to protect their own economic interests.

3. What (include details he used to counter the argument) is Morgan’s response to Beard?

Morgan points out that they did not want to see their trade ruined or their property endangered by parliamentary taxation. Land spectators wanted to settle the West. He believed the members had a selfish interest in bringing about a public good. He also notes that it is impossible to differentiate private selfishness from public spirit

4. What, in Morgan’s view, was the general consensus among those who attended the constitutional convention regarding what they were trying to accomplish?

Morgan said that patriotism lead responsible Americans to invest in public securities in wartime and their patriotism guided them to fix the nation with their money and blood. Their men that went to the convention had principles and they cared more about the principles and money. He states that if the convention was successful it was not because the members possessed a common economic or class interest but because they held common principles. They learn those principles with 20 years of British tyranny.


 

5. What were the features of the government presented by Edmund Randolph and drafted by James Madison?

Randolph’s resolutions provided for national executive, a national judiciary, and a bicameral national legislature, the lower house to be popularly elected and representation in both houses to be proportioned to population were to the amount of taxation.

6. What two victories did the representatives of the small states achieve?

In the existing Confederation every state having equal weight in the government. If they accepted Randolph’s plan this wouldn’t be the case any more. The small states fought for a larger role in the new government. They wanted equal representation for states in the upper house of the legislature. The small states wanted the new states in the West to reduce the predominance of large Eastern states. Their big victory was equal representation for states in the Senate.

7. What agreements did the convention reach regarding the issue of slavery (including how to apportion representation)?

Everyone knew that the talk of ending slavery would and the convention. White Southerners got an extra share in the government because they counted population with 3/5 of the sleeves in any state would be included. The free population of the state thereby received a bonus in political power because of their slaves. There is also an agreement where the government would not prohibit the slave trade before the year 1808, and it would impose a tax of not more than $10 per slave imported. It also agreed that fugitive slaves escaping to a free state would be returned to their owners here

8. What power did the framers not impose on the states and what roles did it leave to the state legislatures in determining elections to federal offices?

The central government was not given the authority to veto state laws. The House of Representatives was to be popularity of elected and senators and presidential collectors were left to the state legislatures. The Constitution and the laws and treaties made under it were the supreme law of the land and could be enforced in both state and national courts. States were forbidden to enact certain types of laws like paper money laws custom duties and laws with the obligation of contracts. We believe this was secure property in states where the legislatures had proved unworthy to guard it. The national government was protected from legislator by an executive with veto power and a judiciary with tenure during good behavior.

9. What process and requirements for ratification did the framers set?

The Constitution would go to Congress and from Congress to the states to be approved or rejected by specially elected conventions in every state in order to prevent two or three states from frustrating the union of the rest ratification by nine states would ratify the Constitution.