| The U.S. Constitution and the Organization of the National Government | The U.S. Constitution created a system of checks
and balances and three independent branches of government. The Legislative Branch Article I of the Constitution established Congress. The framers of the Constitution expected Congress to be the dominant branch of government. They placed it first in the Constitution and assigned more powers to it than to the presidency. Congress was given "all legislative powers," including the power to raise taxes, coin money, regulate interstate and foreign commerce, promote the sciences and the arts, and declare war. The Executive Branch Article II of the Constitution created the presidency. The president's powers were stated more briefly than those of Congress. The president was granted "executive Power," including the power "with the Advice and Consent of the Senate," to make treaties and appoint ambassadors. The president was also to serve as Commander in Chief of the army and navy. In delegate James Wilson's view, the presidency was "the most difficult [issue] of all on which we have had to decide." Americans had waged a revolution against a king and did not want concentrated power to appear in another guise. The delegates had to decide whether the chief executive should be one person or a committee; whether the president should be appointed by Congress; and how long the chief executive should serve. On August 18, 1787, a Pennsylvania newspaper carried a leaked report from the Constitutional Convention. It was the first word on the proceedings that directly quoted a delegate. "We are well informed" of "reports idly circulating, that it is intended to establish a monarchical government.... Tho' we cannot, affirmatively, tell you what we are doing, we can, negatively, tell you what we are not doing - we never once thought of a king." The conflict with royal governors had made the public deeply distrustful of powerful executives. Alexander Hamilton argued for a chief executive to be given broad powers and elected for life. Edmund Randolph of Virginia thought executive power should not be put into the hands of a single person since a single executive would be "the fetus of monarchy." To ensure a check on presidential power, Congress was given the power to override a presidential veto and to impeach and remove a president. Congress alone was given the power to declare war. The Judicial Branch Article III of the Constitution established a Supreme Court. The Constitution does not specify the size of the Supreme Court. Over the years the designated size of the supreme court has varied between six, seven, nine, and even ten members. Nor does the Constitution explicitly grant the courts the power of judicial review--to determine whether legislation is consistent with the constitution. Today, no other country makes as much use of judicial review as the United States. Many of our society's policies on racial desegregation, criminal procedure, abortion, and school prayer are the product of court decisions. The concept of judicial review was initially established on the state level and in the debates over the ratification of the Constitution. In contrast to Britain, American judges to not wear wigs. When the Supreme Court held its first session in 1790, one justice did arrive wearing a wig. But the public expressed derision at wig wearing, and the justice decided that republican judges should not wear wigs. Voting Rights The Constitution included no property qualifications for voting or office holding like those found in the state constitutions drafted between 1776 and 1780. In a republican society, office holding was supposed to reflect personal merit, not social rank. The constitution did not bar anyone from voting. It only said that voting for members of the House of Representatives should be the same in each state as that state's requirements for voting for the most numerous branch of the legislature. In order words, qualifications for voting were left to the individual states. The New Jersey constitution allowed women to vote if they met the same property requirements as men. |
| The Constitution and Slavery | On the 200th
anniversary of the U.S. Constitution, Thurgood Marshall,
the first African American to sit on the Supreme Court, said that the
Constitution was "defective from the start." He point out that the
framers had left out a majority of Americans when they wrote the
phrase, "We the People." While some members of the Constitutional
Convention voiced "eloquent objections" to slavery, Marshall said they
"consented to a document which laid a foundation for the tragic events
which were to follow." The word "slave" does not appear in the Constitution. The framers consciously avoided the word, recognizing that it would sully the document. Nevertheless, slavery received important protections in the Constitution. The notorious Three-fifths Compromise - which counted three fifths of the slave population in apportioning representation - gave the South extra representation in the House and extra votes in the Electoral College. Thomas Jefferson would have lost the election of 1800 if not for the Three-fifths compromise. The Constitution also prohibited Congress from outlawing the Atlantic slave trade for twenty years. A fugitive slave clause required the return of runaway slaves to their owners. The Constitution gave the federal government the power to put down domestic rebellions, including slave insurrections. The framers of the Constitution believed that concessions on slavery were the price for the support of southern delegates for a strong central government. They were convinced that if the Constitution restricted the slave trade, South Carolina and Georgia would refuse to join the Union. But by sidestepping the slavery issue, the framers left the seeds for future conflict. After the convention approved the great compromise, Madison wrote: "It seems now to be pretty well understood that the real difference of interests lies not between the large and small but between the northern and southern states. The institution of slavery and its consequences form the line of discrimination." Of the 55 Convention delegates, about 25 owned slaves. Many of the framers harbored moral qualms about slavery. Some, including Benjamin Franklin (a former slaveowner) and Alexander Hamilton (who was born in a slave colony in the British West Indies) became members of antislavery societies. On August 21, 1787, a bitter debate broke out over a South Carolina proposal to prohibit the federal government from regulating the Atlantic slave trade. Luther Martin of Maryland, a slaveholder, said that the slave should be subject to federal regulation since the entire nation would be responsible for suppressing slave revolts. He also considered the slave trade contrary to America's republican ideals. "It is inconsistent with the principles of the Revolution," he said, "and dishonorable to the American character to have such a feature in the constitution." John Rutledge of South Carolina responded forcefully. "Religion and humanity have nothing to do with this question," he insisted. Unless regulation of the slave trade was left to the states, the southern-most states "shall not be parties to the union." A Virginia delegate, George Mason, who owned hundreds of slaves, spoke out against slavery in ringing terms. "Slavery," he said, "discourages arts and manufactures. The poor despise labor when performed by slaves." Slavery also corrupted slaveholders and threatened the country with divine punishment: "Every master of slaves is born a petty tyrant. They bring the judgment of heaven on a country." Oliver Ellsworth of Connecticut accused slaveholders from Maryland and Virginia of hypocrisy. They could afford to oppose the slave trade, he claimed, because "slaves multiply so fast in Virginia and Maryland that it is cheaper to raise then import them, whilst in the sickly rice swamps [of South Carolina and Georgia] foreign supplies are necessary." Ellsworth suggested that ending the slave trade would benefit slaveowners in the Chesapeake region, since the demand for slaves in other parts of the South would increase the price of slaves once the external supply was cut off. The controversy over the Atlantic slave trade was ultimately settled by compromise. In exchange for a 20-year ban on any restrictions on the Atlantic slave trade, southern delegates agreed to remove a clause restricting the national government's power to enact laws requiring goods to be shipped on American vessels (benefiting northeastern shipbuilders and sailors). The same day this agreement was reached, the convention also adopted the fugitive slave clause, requiring the return of runaway slaves to their owners. Was the Constitution a proslavery document, as abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison claimed when he burned the document in 1854 and called it "a covenant with death and an agreement with Hell"? This question still provokes controversy. If the Constitution temporarily strengthened slavery, it also created a central government powerful enough to eventually abolish the institution. |
| Ratifying the Constitution | The Constitution
encountered stiff opposition. The vote was 187 to 168
in Massachusetts, 57 to 47 in New Hampshire, 30 to 27 in New York, and
89 to 79 in Virginia. Two states, North Carolina and Rhode Island,
refused to ratify the new plan of government. Those who opposed the adoption of the constitution were known as the Antifederalists. Many feared centralized power. Many doubted the ability of Americans to sustain a continental republic. Some Antifederalists were upset that the Cosntitution lacked a religious test for officeholding. Others were concerned that the Cosntitution failed to guarantee a right to counsel and a right not to incriminate oneself in criminal trials, or to prohibit cruel and unusual punishments. Several arguments were voiced repeatedly during the ratification debates: * That the Convention had exceeded its authority in producing a new constitution; Some Antifederalists saw no need for the Constitution's intricate system of separation of powers. Some wanted to know whether the elastic clause would sanction a broad interpretation of national powers at the expense of the states. From October 1787 to March 1788, Madison, Hamilton and John Jay wrote a series of 85 essays that appeared in New York newspapers. In these essays, they argued that the powers of the national government distributed and balanced in a ways that would sustain limited government. They also argued that there were sufficient guarantees to ensure that the national government respect the boundaries of state authority and that individuals would be secure against federal encroachments. In the end, even some of the most outspoken Antifederalists, like Melancton Smith of New York, ultimately voted for the Constitution. They feared that the only alternative to the Constitution was the breakup of the Union. |
| Why has the Constitution survived? How has the constitutional system changed? | At the end of the
Constitutional Convention, George Washington said, "I
do not expect the Constitution to last for more than 20 years." Today,
the United States has oldest written constitution in the world. Why has
the Constitution survived? The framers of the Constitution established the broad structure of government but also left the system flexible enough to adapt to changing conditions. A document of less than 6,000 words, the Constitution is not overly detailed. Over the years, Congresses, presidents, and the courts have reinterpreted to document to meet the needs of the moment. |
| Source: Digital History, "The
U. S. Constitution and Bill of Rights" |
© Kahne Parsons 2008-09