HIST 405 Week 2 Discussion 2; Confederation and Constitution

“The Congress did not have the power to tax citizens of the United States, a fact that would soon have serious consequences for the republic” (Corbett, 2018). Two debates in making constitution were slavery and representation. Slavery leads to the issue of a slave having a count towards the vote. Slaveholders wanted slaves to be counted along with whites, calling them “free inhabitant, when determining a states total population (Corbett, 2018). The slave states were trying to argue that having slaves created a financial burden and should be looked at giving an extra vote/population. Eventually slave owners gained a tax break by getting their three-fifths compromise. This meant that three out of every five slaves were included in the population. The second debate was representation, and we needed to find a plan that would work. The Connecticut Compromise, proposed by Roger Sherman, suggested that the upper house, or Senate, have equal representation, and the lower house, or House of Representatives, would have “proportional representation” (Corbett, 2014). The Virginia Plan stated that the lower house would be elected by the people of the state and the upper house would be appointed by state legislature. The ratification process started when the Congress turned the Constitution over to the state legislatures for consideration through specially elected state conventions of the people. The proposal was passed through popular vote and five states voted in favor of it (Corbett et al., 2018). There needed to be a two-thirds vote for anything to be passed. Thank you, Erica Acevedo Corbett, P. S. [et al] (2018). U.S. history. OpenStax, Rice University. https://cnx.org/contents/p7ovuIkl@9.1:gMXC1GEM@7/Introduction Office of Historian. (2020). Articles of Confederation 1777-1781. Office of Historian, United States Department of State. Retrieved on September 11, 2020 at https://history.state.gov/milestones/1776-1783/articles