The two-thirds clause for ratification of treaties in the Senate, as opposed to a simple majority, allowed the South a greater voice in these matters and assuaged concerns about the attempts to abandon navigation of the Mississippi. The Constitution does not stipulate existence of departments within the executive branch, but the need for such departments was recognized immediately. Congress passed legislation creating the Department of Foreign Affairs in its first session in , and in the same year changed the name to the Department of State after it added several additional domestic duties to the Department.
After the ratification of the Constitution in , the machinery of state had been designed, but not yet tested and put to use. The provisions for management of foreign affairs would be put to the test in , when the Senate had the opportunity to accept or reject the controversial treaty with Great Britain negotiated by John Jay.
Menu Menu. Home Milestones Constitutional Convention and Ratification, — Milestones: — For more information, please see the full notice. On May 28, , the state delegations unanimously agreed to a proposal that would prove invaluable in allowing men like Madison, Wilson, and Morris to move their plan forward.
But the rule of secrecy gave to delegates the freedom to disagree, sometimes vehemently, on important issues, and to do so without the posturing and pandering to public opinion that so often marks political debate today.
And it also gave delegates the freedom to change their minds; on many occasion, after an evening of convivial entertainment with one another, the delegates would return the following morning or even the following week or month, and find ways to reach agreement on issues that had previously divided them. The rule of secrecy helped make the Constitutional Convention a civil and deliberative body, rather than a partisan one. It helped make compromise an attribute of statesmanship rather than a sign of weakness.
It also became immediately clear that, however bold and innovative the plan may have been, there were many delegates in the room who had grave misgivings about some aspects of it. For nearly four months, the delegates attempted to work through, and resolve, their disagreements. The most divisive of those issues—those involving the apportionment of representation in the national legislature, the powers and mode of election of the chief executive, and the place of the institution of slavery in the new continental body politic—would change in fundamental ways the shape of the document that would eventually emerge on September 17, The delegates haggled over how to apportion representation in the legislature off and on for more than six weeks between May 30 and July Those from large, populous states such as Virginia and Pennsylvania—supporters of the Virginia Plan—argued that representation in both houses of the proposed new congress should be based on population, while those from smaller states such as New Jersey and Delaware—supporters of the New Jersey Plan—argued for equal representation for each state.
The compromise that eventually emerged, one championed most energetically by the delegates from Connecticut, was obvious: representation in the House of Representatives would be apportioned according to population, with each state receiving equal representation in the Senate. In the final vote on the so-called Connecticut Compromise on July 16, five states supported the proposal; four opposed, including Virginia and Pennsylvania; and one state—Massachusetts—was divided. James Madison and many of his nationalist colleagues were disconsolate, convinced that the compromise would destroy the very character of the national government they hoped to create.
In The Federalist No. In this, as in so many areas, the so-called original meaning of the Constitution was not at all self-evident— even to the Framers of the Constitution themselves.
The debate among the delegates over the nature of the American presidency was more high- toned and more protracted than that over representation in the Congress. They urged their fellow delegates to give the president an absolute veto over congressional legislation. In the end, it was compromise that once again won the day—the delegates agreed to give the President a limited veto power, but one which could be over-ridden by a vote of two-thirds of both houses of Congress.
Most of the delegates initially thought that the executive should be elected by the national legislature; still others thought the executive should be elected by the state legislatures or even by the governors of the states. James Wilson was virtually the only delegate who proposed direct election of the president by the people. He believed that it was only through some form of popular election that the executive branch could be given both energy and independence. They voted against some version of the proposal on numerous occasions between early June and early September of , only agreeing to the version contained in our modern Constitution modified slightly by the Twelfth Amendment grudgingly and out of a sense of desperation, as the least problematic of the alternatives before them.
The other obvious solution—election by members of a national Congress whose perspective was likely to be continental rather than provincial—was ultimately rejected because of the problems it created with respect to the doctrine of separation of powers: the president, it was feared, would be overly beholden to, and therefore dependent upon, the Congress for his election.
The creation of an electoral college was a middle ground, and while many delegates feared that locally-selected presidential electors would be subject to the same sort of provincial thinking as ordinary citizens, they reluctantly came to the conclusion that it was the best they could do while still preserving an adequate separation of power between the executive and legislative branches.
It was a highly imperfect solution to a real problem, but, in the context of the times—perhaps until today—there may well have been no better alternative. To date, there have been thousands of proposed amendments to the Constitution. The most recent amendment to the Constitution, Article XXVII, which deals with congressional pay raises, was proposed in and ratified in Through all the changes, the Constitution has endured and adapted.
Constitution Day is observed on September 17, to commemorate the date the document was signed. But if you see something that doesn't look right, click here to contact us! Subscribe for fascinating stories connecting the past to the present. Even before the U. Constitution was created, its framers understood that it would have to be amended to confront future challenges and adapt and grow alongside the new nation.
In creating the amendment process for what would become the permanent U. Constitution, the framers The First Amendment to the U. Constitution protects the freedom of speech, religion and the press.
It also protects the right to peaceful protest and to petition the government. The amendment was adopted in along with nine other amendments that make up the Bill of On March 6, , the U. Supreme Court ruled in McCulloch v. Maryland that Congress had the authority to establish a federal bank, and that the financial institution could not be taxed by the states. But the decision carried a much larger significance, because it helped By the late s, prohibition movements had sprung up across the United States, driven by religious groups who considered alcohol, specifically drunkenness, a threat to the nation.
The movement reached its apex in when Congress ratified the 18th Amendment, prohibiting the The Second Amendment, often referred to as the right to bear arms, is one of 10 amendments that form the Bill of Rights, ratified in by the U.
Differing interpretations of the amendment have fueled a long-running debate over gun control legislation and the The 25th Amendment to the U. Passed by Congress on July 6, , the 25th Amendment was ratified by the states Freedom of speech—the right to express opinions without government restraint—is a democratic ideal that dates back to ancient Greece.
In the United States, the First Amendment guarantees free speech, though the United States, like all modern democracies, places limits on this The 26 Amendment lowered the legal voting age in the United States from 21 to The long debate over lowering the voting age began during World War II and intensified during the Vietnam War, when young men denied the right to vote were being conscripted to fight for their Live TV.
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