Constitution+Project


 * ﻿ D= ﻿~Constitution Project~ =D ﻿﻿ **

**__Background Info__**

After the Revolutionary War, America's government was functioning under the Articles of Confederation. The Articles of Confederation was created during the time when America was at war with Britain. The rules and laws it created at that time period reflected what the people felt they needed. It resulted giving the Congress a very limited power in what they can do. At that time period, America didn't have a national government because its people were too afraid to have one, so the Congress was like a national government to them and America. With such limited powers, the Congress couldn't do much at all. The Articles of Confederation didn't solve any problems that America was facing at that time. Instead of solving problems, it just created even more conflicts and troubles for the country (such as the Shay's Rebellion). It left no choice, but for the Congress had to revise the Articles of Confederation. They met in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and had their Constitutional Convention. At their convention, they did more than just revise, they created the Constitution. They went through many arguments and compromises (Great Compromise, Three-fifths Compromise) to finally produce the Constitution. The Constitution was a masterpiece they created, it gave three branches to the government: the legislature, the judicial, and the executive branch. With this document, it helped give structure to the government and to the country itself, but no matter how perfect anything is, there is always a flaw in it. This flaw in the Constitution will later on lead into much bigger conflicts that America will face.

__** ﻿Wordle **__ media type="custom" key="7264719" width="150" height="150"

In the wordle, it displays that the word "states" was the word that shows up numerous of times in the Constitution. The meaning of this is because the states is what really the importance of this whole issue. Within the states, is its people, America's people. The states is like their home and their representatives in the government. Without the states, the Constitution won't function properly. The states must stay united, in order for everything in the country and Constitution to go smoothly. To America and the Constitution, the states play a very important role and so this is probably the reason why the word "states" is the biggest out of all the words. Notice how the second biggest word in the wordle is the word "united". This word has a very strong meaning to what the Constitution is about. The Constitution is created to help the country out and help it benefit. Even though the Constitution is created, if the states and people were not united and went against the Constitution, their country won't last long at all. That explains that in the Constitution, it repeats the word "united" over and over again is because they want to remind its people and those that read this document, that this country must stay united in order for everything to work out and go smoothly. It's telling its people that they aren't here to take their citizens rights and powers, they want to create a united government and country together and THEY are untied together, so there is no way that its people should fear them. Now look again and see how the following words "president" and "Congress" are the next biggest in line. Well, in the Constitution, these two words show up quite often only because those who wrote this document wanted a central government that had enough powers to keep things in America straight and organized. With a president and Congress, they can succeed in creating the government to help rule America and so it demonstrates why the words "president" and "Congress" appear so often in the Constitution.

__**Key Principles of the Constitution**__


 * The Constitution was created to give structure to the government so it can help America stay for a very long period of time and to help the country benefit and to help solve problems that the country may have. The structure that created America's government was remarkable. The Constitution provided three branches: the legislature branch, the executive branch, and the judicial branch. The legislature i where the House of Representatives and the Senates were, and they represented their states to be in the government to express what their state's view and opinions are. The executive branch was, of course, where the president ran the government. Last, but not least it's the judicial branch. The judicial branch is where the Supreme Court is and it's pretty much where all the major court cases take place when the state government can't decide. Not only that there are three different branches, but they also have different powers that they can and can't use. Like, for example, the legislature branch is in charge of making/writing the laws, the executive branch is in charge of passing the laws, and the judicial analyze and interpret the laws. All of this came out of the Constitution and it sure did give America a well-organized government to help run the country.
 * One of the most remarkable key principles of the Constitution is the checks and balance system. The system was created so that it can show its people that their government is very well-controlled and there in rarely a way for the government to become corrupted. With this system, it divided the national government's powers equally among the three branches. This system gave the three branches equal powers and they can constantly check on each other to make sure that no one branch is getting too powerful. This helped balanced the powers in the national government and so the citizens of America has nothing to fear about the national government. With this system in place, it makes it difficult for the national government to be corrupted and so this reassured the citizens of America that they shouldn't fear the government and limit its powers.
 * Another key principle of the Constitution was that it had the House of Representatives and the Senate. This was the legislature branch. At first Congress couldn't decide how many representatives to have at all. The Virginia Plan that was presented to them suggested that they should base the number of representatives on the population size, but the smaller states disagreed to this because this will only help the larger states benefit. So in the end the Great Compromise was made, where there will be two different parts in the legislature branch. There will be the House of Representatives, they are the lower house of the legislature branch: where the number of representatives were based on the population of the state. Then for the upper house of the legislature branch it will be the Senate: where there are equal number amount of representatives from each sate. The Senate had a slight more power than the House of Representatives did, so then the smaller states didn't have to worry anymore. This kept the legislature branch well-organized and created less conflicts for the states.
 * The Constitution also produced state governments within the country itself. This way there will be a national government and little state governments all over the nation. With this kind of system the national government can always get a better understanding of what the citizens of America are going through and also this helped balanced the powers of the national government. The creation of state governments was so that the national government wouldn't have too much power and it was to reassure to its people that there is a very slight chance for the national government to be corrupted. Having the state governments gave a some sort of a back up for the people of America. the state governments pretty much have the same amount of power that the national government has. So with this system going on, even if the national government does goes corrupted, the state governments can still stop it.
 * Last, but not least is the Bill of Rights that came along with the Constitution. This was a result from the Anti-federalists doings. The Anti-federalists were a group of people who were against the Constitution because it gave too much power to the national government and they were worried that the national government will become too powerful and will take all of the citizen's rights away from them. The Anti-federalists didn't want to have another government just like the one in England. But in order to pass the Constitution and for it to work, they needed the support of the Anti-federalists. The Anti-federalists will only agree to pass the Constitution if only they included a Bill of Rights in it. And so following the Constitution was a Bill of Rights. The Bill of Rights were just the natural rights that the citizens already have and the Bill of Rights was just reassuring that and so that the national government can't take these rights away from them. So the Constitution itself may seem like it's giving the national government a lot of powers, but really, with the Bill of Rights in hand it helped reassure and gave the people some sort of a back up from the national government.

__**The Constitution**__

The Constitution was a document written to give structure to America's government. It was created because the Articles of Confederation failed to do its job in organizing the government of America and the country itself. It's adopted September 17,1787 and when it was passed the Bill of Rights was passed with it. The purpose of having the Constitution was because the Articles of Confederation failed to do its job and so the Constitution was created to help shape America. The document, not only gave shape to America's government, but it also provided a lot of nationalism to the country itself. The Constitution was the center of America, it provided a strong enough national government to help govern the country. The national government may be strong, but the powers were still in the hands of its people and the sates. The rules and laws that the Constitution established only gave the national government a very slight chance for it to be corrupted. Not only that, but the Constitution held the country together. Before, after the Revolutionary War, the sates weren't united at all and they all acting on their own separate ways. they showed no unity at all, but when the Constitution was created, it helped tie the states together and together they became one whole united nation once again. This isn't really the most main purpose of the Constitution, but it was one of the reasons that led to its creation. Its main purpose was to create a government that was well-organized and strong enough to help support America. If it wasn't for the Constitution, today's society will be completely different from now.

__**Jefferson and the Louisiana Purchase**__

Jefferson was a republican who believed that the national should have limited or less powers than the state governments. Jefferson also believed that any powers that were not stated in the Constitution, then those powers shouldn't be used at all. When Jefferson became president, he started to change the national government into his ideal national government. Then when Napoleon became the ruler of France, he wanted to created a French empire in North America, but France lost all it's land to Spain. France and Spain negotiated and Spain decided to give the lands to France. Jefferson knew about this and feared that this will affect America. But because they made the Pinckney's Treaty with Spain, they were hoping it will stay the same even though the lands were returned back to France's control. Until later on, when Americans couldn't access the Mississippi River to travel to New Orleans ports, Jefferson sent James Madison over to France to purchase Florida from it. But instead of going as planned, France offered the Louisiana Territory to America. With such great offer, it's hard for Jefferson to turn it down. With the Louisiana Territory, it can help double the size of America and help eliminated a border enemy of America. It may seem like a very simple decision to accept the offer, but it actually takes a lot of consideration and thinking to make this decision. The Constitution never stated that the president was allowed to purchase land for the country and if he accept this offer from France then he'll be going against his beliefs. But in the end, he decided to accept the offer because he said that this was all for the benefit for the country so it was okay for him to do so. This just shows and proves that the national government does need to have more powers in order to do things that can help benefit the country. This also proves that even though the powers are not stated in the Constitution doesn't mean you can't use it at all. You just have to see and evaluate when is the right time use it and not abuse it.

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__** Sources **__ ﻿@http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/constitution.html http://www.wordle.net/show/wrdl/2606888/Constitution @http://www.schooltube.com/video/fa7aa2a72dea3fdc948b/Six-Principles-of-the-US-constitution @http://blogs.iium.edu.my/ka_mokhtar/files/2009/08/checks__balances-in-the-us.gif @http://bound4life.com/blog/system/files/243/original/constitution.jpg @http://www.manlyrash.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/signing-constitution1.jpg

**~Hope you enjoyed it~ ;)**
 * Angela Ly **
 * Period 1 **
 * AP US History **