Constitutional Convention Essay, Research Paper

The Constitutional Convention

Our country was based upon the idea that every citizen has certain rights that can not be taken away from him/her; these inalienable rights form the backbone for our democracy. Our constitution, which secures our rights and how we are governed, was not an easy task to write. It took near 16 weeks to complete, and it all started on May 14, 1787 at the Constitutional Convention, also know as the Federal Convention, in Philadelphia. The original idea was to amend the original Articles, the Articles of Confederation, but after much discussion and debate it was clear that they would have to write an entirely new set of articles.

Each of the thirteen states sent delegates to the convention to put their word in for their state. Many well know men in history attended the convention, men such as George Washington, James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, Benjamin Franklin and many other very influential people spoke their mind on the matter. Some men felt that the government should be more local, others thought it should be more central, and then the problem of state equality came into play. With many great speeches, our history was written into our Constitution, but three proposals, shapes our nation government, the Virginia Plan, the New Jersey Plan, and the Great Compromise.

The Virginia Plan was thought up by James Madison and delivered by Virginia?s governor Edmund Randolph who gave a very powerful speech on the matter. The plan called for a strong central government with three branches of government, the legislative, executive, and the judicial. Each branch was structured to check the other one so that no one branch could do something with out the other two-branch consent, this idea was