Chapter 2
Chapter 2: Constructing a Government: The Founding and the Constitution
Chapter Review
Introduction
This chapter treats the framing and ratification of the Constitution (and indeed, the American Revolution before that) as fundamentally political events that exemplify the principles of politics. Individual goals informed the actions of American Revolutionaries and constitutional framers; the difficulties of collective action and the institutions and ideas needed to overcome the impediments thereto emerge as central explanations of the Revolution and the critical period; and the institutions established by the Constitution created a path in American political history that has shaped, and continues to shape, American political development and policy outcomes.
1. The First Founding: Interests and Conflicts What were the interests and goals of American Revolutionaries and first founders? In what ways might we view the American Revolution and the critical period that followed it as essentially political events caused in part by the goals and instrumental acts of political actors? How did the Declaration of Independence and the Articles of Confederation seek to coordinate the political activities of these disparate interests?
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Colonial American society can be divided into five predominant sectors: (1) the New England merchants; (2) the southern planters; (3) the “royalists”; (4) shopkeepers, artisans, and laborers; and (5) small farmers. The disparate interests of these different groups held revolutionary sentiment in check until collective interests revealed themselves and helped most of these groups overcome their differences.
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British taxes—like the Stamp Act and Sugar Act—served to antagonize colonists and propel collective action among the various groups. That the British policies backfired is a useful reminder that the rationality principle only requires that political actors act in response to their interests as they understand them; sometimes, however, actions must be taken under conditions of uncertainty and, indeed, actors sometimes simply miscalculate.
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Colonial resistance to taxes provoked retaliation from Great Britain, which further antagonized and radicalized American colonists, eventually producing collective action, including the First Continental Congress, which assembled delegates from all parts of the colonies and, eventually, the Second Continental Congress’s Declaration of Independence.
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The Declaration of Independence, written by Thomas Jefferson and approved by the Second Continental Congress, is a remarkable document that both outlined grievances against the King of England and asserts the “unalienable rights” of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
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The Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union was the United States’ first written constitution, though it placed extraordinary limits on the power of the central government and it lacked judicial and executive independence as well as the ability to adequately secure revenue for the government or regulate commerce. Lacking these institutions and powers, the government faced great difficulties in overcoming the impediments to collective action.
2. The Second Founding: From Compromise to Constitution What were the immediate problems and key differences that confronted America during the critical period under the Articles of Confederation? How did the Framers of the Constitution address these problems during the Constitutional Convention?
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The divisions among the American states and the inability of the central government to overcome them left the United States divided and economic prey to European powers. Domestically, the democratizing spirit of the revolution threatened economic and social hierarchies in the former colonies.
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An early attempt to address these collective problems—the poorly attended Annapolis convention—produced no direct solutions, but it did produce a resolution calling on Congress to send commissioners to Philadelphia “to devise such further provisions as shall appear to them necessary to render the Constitution of the Federal Government to the exigencies of the Union.”
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In 1786, Daniel Shays led armed Massachusetts farmers in a rebellion against the Massachusetts state government to prevent bank foreclosures. At the time, Shay’s Rebellion demonstrated the vulnerability of the government to maintain order, prompting Congress to act on the Annapolis resolution. In retrospect, Shay’s Rebellion also reminds us of the importance of focal events to propel change among a resistant status quo.
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At the Constitutional Convention in May 1787, the competing interests and ideals of America’s disparate elements motivated delegates to push for a much stronger central government. To accomplish this aim, however, the Founders had to strike many compromises, including the great compromise, which settled the issue of representation between large and small states, and the Three-fifths Compromise, which postponed the slavery issue that divided northern and southern states by counting slaves as three-fifths of a person for the purposes of apportioning seats in the House of Representatives.
3. The Constitution What were the institutions and processes established by the Constitution? How were power, authority, and jurisdiction allocated among the legislative, executive, and judicial branches? How was power divided? How did these institutional choices affect the subsequent path of American political history?
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The Constitution established a bicameral legislative branch in which power was divided between a House and a Senate.
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The House, directly elected by and representative of the people, was the more democratic of the two, whereas the Senate, whose members were indirectly elected and for longer terms, was but one example of how the Constitution guarded against “excessive democracy.”
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Congress’s expressed powers included the ability to collect taxes, borrow money, regulate commerce, declare war, and maintain the armed forces, while the “elastic” (or “necessary and proper”) clause represented a potential source of expanding congressional power and national government strength.
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Article II established the president to head the executive branch. Independent of the legislative branch of government and “energetic,” the president was endowed with requisite powers to defend the executive branch from congressional encroachments. Elected, not directly by the people, but indirectly by the electoral college, the president was not to be an excessively popular leader but rather was to withstand democratic pressures.
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In Article III, the framers established a judicial branch that was both the highest court in the national government and also above state courts.
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Justices and judges were to be removed from popular politics, having been appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate, and once selected, serving lifetime terms.
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The courts’ power of judicial review was not an expressed constitutional power but was later interpreted by the Supreme Court.
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Establishing a central government that could promote national unity and power, the framers of the Constitution provided for comity or reciprocity between the states in Article IV and expressly stated in Article VI’s supremacy clause that national laws and treaties would “be the supreme Law of the Land.”
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Article V established the procedures by which the Constitution could be amended.
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To prevent the government from abusing its power, the Constitution incorporates systems of separation of powers and federalism to insure checks and balances.
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Though the inclusion of a Bill of Rights was debated and almost unanimously turned down at the Philadelphia Convention, the Bill of Rights was debated and added soon after ratification.
4. The Fight for Ratification: Federalists versus Antifederalists What institutions, interests, and ideals informed the fight over the ratification of the Constitution? Who were the Federalists and Antifederalists and what did they believe and argue?