Constitution Position Paper

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The falls of this country are due to the Articles of Confederation and a weak centralized government. To correct this, a strong national government will need to take its place. The majority of this delegation wishes to accept the Constitution as the new federal government of the United States.
Many good arguments were brought up during the proceedings such as William Paterson’s view of revising the Articles and proposing the union of the states as merely federal. Alexander Hamilton’s idea of a supreme executive serving during good behavior or life with veto power over all laws. Both of these were rejected. Paterson’s plan because there are too many faults with the Articles and Hamilton’s idea because it is too close to a form of monarchy. The most accepted idea was by Edmund Randolph and James Madison. In it they proposed the government be broken up into three branches: legislative, executive, and judicial; and each branch to check and balance each other’s power. This centralized government would have the power to veto laws enacted by state legislatures. The majority of the delegates voted on a supreme power national government over the federations being an agreement resting on the good faith of its members.
The many problems in the Articles of Confederation that led us to throw it away rather than to amend it were its inability to tax, no national court system, no executive to enforce acts of Congress, lack of regulation of foreign and interstate commerce, amendments with consent of all states, and the fact that the articles are only a firm league of friendship that is non-binding. There are too many changes to me made to have the state legislatures vote on it. The result would be no changes for the legislatures stand to loose power. The only way that changes will be made if we start new.
Many new issues came up with the Constitution and they were settled. The issue of legislation was fixed with a bicameral legislature with two houses where one is represented equally by each state is allotted two votes while the other is based on population. How slaves would be counted was settled where every five slaves counted as three persons.

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