Amending The Constitution During The Progressive Era

Many elements of the constitution remain unchanged. Due to the nature of the US constitution being codified, it has required a two thirds majority in Congress to change anything and this has meant that it hasn’t been greatly changed since the time it was made. The Bill of rights had remained pretty much the same since its creation. The right to bear arms, for example, is still a part of the conversation and despite many people wishing to amend it, this has not been able to happen. This proves the ridgity that the Founding Fathers wanted to give the Constitution.

The Constitutional Convention of 1787 marked the evolution from the Articles of Confederation to the U.S. Constitution. The ratification argument led to disagreements between the Federalists, who wanted to approve the Constitution, and Anti-Federalists, who opposed the document. The latter believed that the new system forced by the Constitution failed to protect the individual rights of citizens and threatened liberties.

The Articles of Confederation and the Constitution are two very important guidelines of government that shaped the political minds of the Americans. Mainly because these guidelines limited, or expanded the powers of the executive, legislative, and judicial branch. The Articles of Confederation were a series of laws that gave more power to the state government than the federal government. As a result, the federal government could not enforce laws or levy taxes. After Shay’s Rebellion, the Founding Fathers realized that a change was necessary. So the Constitution was created. The most important change of the Constitution was that the majority of power was then shifted into the hands of the federal or central government. This allowed the federal

The Constitution had changes the United States greatly. The document, written in 1788, was a powerful representation of the government back then, and amazingly, it’s still in play today. During the 1700’s, the first political parties formed over disagreements in the government and the constitution. The two parties were the Federalists and Antifederalists. Federalists made up the people who felt that the stronger government was best for the country and supported the Constitution. The federalists had felt as if different “fiscal and monetary policies” were a weakness in the national economy. Also, the Federalists supported banking("Anti-Federalist vs Federalist"). Federalists wanted to fight for stronger governments, managing the country’s debt

The ratification of the US Constitution in 1787 sparked a ferocious and spiteful debate between two large groups of people, those who supported the ratification and those who did not. Both sides were very passionate about their ideas yet they were so divergent, as one believed that the ratification could create a more powerful, unified country, while others worried about the government gaining perhaps too much control. The supporters and opponents equally had various strong reasons in their beliefs regarding the ratification of the US Constitution, the most common for the supporters being that the current government was heading badly, and a ratification would fix all the mistakes made originally and set the course for a successful government. On the other hand, the biggest concern for the opponents was that the ratification would give the government too much power, and there would be no controlling force to keep the government in its place.

The Constitution was written in order to replace the Articles of Confederation and create a centralized government. Times continue to change, and therefore laws must be altered such to keep up with those changes. This was the sole purpose of the amending process of the Constitution. The purpose of the very first amendment was to allow Congress the authority to get involved with state powers that was not allowed at first. This article, Article 1, has been very controversial and confusing at times. It has been a part of our judicial system in judgment of laws and their necessity and still affects us today.

Though the articles did account for a President, he did hardly more than preside over the Congress, there was no power in the Presidency. The Constitution on the other hand gave power to the executive branch headed by the President to choose the Cabinet and be another check to the judiciary and legislature. The Amending document was changed as well between the two, before 13 out of 13 colonies were needed to amend an article, while later 2/3 of both houses of Congress as well as ¾ of State legislature or National Convention were needed. The representation of the States was drastically changed, under the articles each State received one vote regardless of size, in the Constitution the upper house (Senate) has two votes from each state and the lower house would be based upon population.

In 1787, the Constitution was written and submitted for ratification by the 13 states, but not everyone agreed with it. There were two groups of though. One was the Anti-federalists, who opposed the Constitution and the other group were the Federalists, who supported it. The Anti-federalists were people who supported the Articles of Confederation because they were doing well under them. They were mostly poor people from rural areas and were supported by the big states. They believed that the Constitution did not secure their rights and gave the central government too much power. The Federalists were mostly the wealthy people who lived in or near city areas and were supported by the smaller states. They believed that the separation of

The Constitution gave more power to the central government, but in the process of doing so, it took away some power from the states and the citizens . This established federal supremacy over many areas of the state governments. However, in exchange, the country got stability, and the chaos was brought down to a much more manageable level. This shows that the framers were successful in their attempts to create a functional republic. The setup of the new system of government allowed the House of Representatives to be elected directly by the people. State legislators were given the authority to choose senators and electors chose the president. The citizens were also happy because they were being represented and though states had less power than before, they were unified under a single system of government. The new Constitution provided solutions to problems that were prevalent under the old Articles of Confederation and citizens of states also had adequate protection of their rights and liberties regardless of what state they were from.

The Progressive Era electoral reform was a period after California’s constitution had been written twice intended to solve problems by reforming certain aspects of Californian politics. Predominantly, the reason why the Progressive Movement occurred was due to politics in California being influenced by the affluent big corporations at the time. Thus the progressive era electoral reform was intended to solve the political corruption caused by big corporations by adding certain democratic reforms to California. However Madison would argue that such reforms were deliberate and done for a specific reason.

When the founding fathers realized the articles were going to bring the US to chaos, they called a convention in Philadelphia to draft the U.S. Constitution as we know it. This Constitution brought popular sovereignty and republicanism, the ability to collect national taxes and proportional voting. Without these crucial aspects, our world today would be a much different place today, but not for the better. That is why if I had been a U.S. citizen at the time of both the Constitutional Convention and the state ratification debates, I would have supported the Constitutional

People had many different opinions on the ratification of the Constitution. There were Federalists and Anti-Federalists that debated on many topics of the Constitution. The main reasons were: what type of government the United States of America should have, the people controlling our government, and some of the powers they should have. The Federalists were the ones who wanted change. They wanted to make changes to the government that was originally proposed. The Federalists wanted the government to protect the people, but not abuse their powers. They wanted to have the powers divided between the national and the state governments. The Constitution also stated that the government

“The Constitution devotes the national domain to union, to justice, to defense, to welfare and to liberty” (Maier 154). This quote, stated by William Henry Seward, displays the strength and stability that the Constitution had over the nation, and the liberty and justice it supplied for all of its citizens. Although the Constitution and the Articles of Confederation have similarities, they have many differences, which proved that the Articles of Confederation were a weaker document in comparison. It can be said that the Articles were the “rough draft” to the final living document, which significantly influenced and “ruled” our government, as it still does today.

In the initial years of the United States a meeting of delegates appointed by the several states met for the sole purpose of revising the Articles of Confederation. The result of this meeting was the creation of the U.S. Constitution that would soon become the ultimate directive for both Federal and State Governments. Since its birth it has been revised, amended, and ratified in order to solidify the allocation of power between the separate branches of government. Although this may be the case, distribution of the powers has been disputed ever since the formation of the Constitution. These political, legal, and quasi-legal constitutional disputes triggered civil unrest and led to explicit acts of opposition involving nullification and

“There is no higher religion than human service. To work for the common good is the greatest creed.” (Woodrow Wilson) This quote from one of the most progressive presidents of all time, really represents what the progressives were after during their movement; during the Progressive Era, American citizens were looking for change socially, politically, and economically due to urbanization and industrialization. Although all 3 of the early 20th century presidents were progressive in their reforms, Theodore Roosevelt was the most progressive out of these because he regulated business, fought for labor reform, and conserved natural resources.