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After the declaration of independence from Britain by the thirteen American colonies on July 4th 1776, they did not have a central government courts or decide laws. In 1787, the Constitutional Convention was established to replace the Articles of Confederation with a national constitution for all states. There were Two Competing Plans for the Constitution which were the Virginia plan and the new jersey plan. Even though unicameral legislature was proposed by some state like new jersey, I found the Virginia plan very interesting because of its bicameral legislature and single executive chosen by congress proposition
I believe that the James Madison's plan, known as the Virginia Plan, was the most important plan in the convention. The Virginia Plan was a proposal by Virginia delegates for a bicameral legislative branch. In its proposal, both houses of the legislature would be determined proportionately. The lower house would be elected by the people, and the upper house would be elected by the lower house. In my opinion it is better to have bicameral legislative branch than Unicameral legislature because some state like New York have more citizen who vote than the small state like Delaware, new jersey.
One of the proposal of the Virginia plan was a single executive chosen by congress. I feel uncomfortable when I hear that the executive is chosen by congress since democracy is a system of government by the whole population or all the eligible members of a state, And allows people to hold free and fair elections and choose their desired leaders. It is inacceptable for the congress to chosen the president because different kind of people has different believe and thinking. However, I agree with this plan about single executive better than multi- person executive.
Would you have been in favor (Federalist) or opposed (Anti-Federalist)?
I would have been in favor of federalism. This is because it created a balance of power within the states. For example, state representatives were to be appointed as the population of a state. The Articles of confederations two senators and seven congressmen per state did not consider a state's population logic. This would have resulted in burdening of tax payers in low populated states. Therefore, life could have been easy for entrepreneurs under the constitution. The Constitution also stood a better chance of uniting all the states.
One of the reason to say yes in federalist in that it is good governance. For instance, A republic could best control factions. Representation would dilute the effects of factions, and then a large territory would make it difficult for one faction to become a majority, and it would be difficult for people who shared common interests to find each other. In a federal system, it is difficult to have corruption.
Would it be better or worse than the present system under the Articles of Confederation?
Articles of the confederation were enacted in 1777 but it lasted for a short while. The article is worse than the current constitution we have. Articles of the confederation which was made for all the states lasted less than a decade because of various shortcomings in the document (Daniel, 2008). First, the article lacked a centralized leadership. The laws of the articles favor the power of the state such that each state is viewed independently thus weakening the powers of the national government. The only duty of the national for government is to monitor common defense, take care of the security and general welfare. Often, the acts by the national government will be overturned.
The article gave right for states to either declare war or peace and this could be detrimental to the lives of many citizens (Daniel, 2008). The new constitution recognizes national government and actions such as declaring war or peace are highly scrutinized before being enacted. The article lacked real diplomacy as there was no real diplomacy. Economic concerns with the articles were rising. The government does not have any power to regulate trade in any state hence states will begin printing their own money. This will become a problem to the stability of US as it became difficult to trade between states. This would crush American economy hence it will be forced to borrow from other countries putting the country into a huge debt.