The articles of confederation was a written document that established the functions of the national government of the United States after it declared independence from Great Britain. There are many reasons why this document is important. One of those reasons is that this document was created as a governing agreement among the 13 original colonies to fight the revolution and to establish limited federal powers, later known as checks and balances. Another reason why this document is significant was it served as the first national constitution of the United States. Those are just some of the reasons of what the Articles of Confederation were and the significance of the document.
The constitutional convention was a meeting held
between May and September of 1787 in Philadelphia. This was held to address the problems of the weak central government that existed under the Articles of Confederation. A few important men who attended this convention were James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and George Washington. The delegates elected George Washington to be the head of the convention. 70 delegates appointed from the 13 original colonies were chosen to attend this meeting but only 55 of them were actually able to be at the convention. The framers of this constitution wanted the constitution to include several main ideas to include in the document. One of those ideas was the Virginia plan brought up by James Madison which proposed that both houses of the legislature would be determined equally. The lower house would be elected by the people and the upper house would be elected by the lower house. Another idea in contrast to the Virginia plan was the New Jersey plan that proposed a unicameral legislature with one vote per state which was inherited from the Articles of Confederation. Those were just some ideas/plans presented during the ratification. All these ideas were not agreed upon by every delegate so there was debates/compromises made. One of these compromises was the three-fifths compromise that established a slave was counted as three-fifths of the population in relation to the distribution of taxes and how the members of the house of representatives appointed. Those were just some of the people, main ideas, compromises made throughout the convention.
There were multiple times in which the Constitution needed to be amended to make the doucement make it better and more useful. One of those amendments were amendment 2 in which people have the rights to bear arms. Another amendment was amendment 1 which is freedom of press, speech, and religion.