Constitutional Convention
What city was the Constitutional Convention held in?
Philadelphia
The Great Compromise solved the problem of how states would be represented in Congress. Name the two houses of Congress that were created.
The House of Representatives and the Senate
Under the 3/5 Compromise, how many enslaved people would count as how many free people for representation?
5 enslaved people counted as 3 free people
Name one problem with the Virginia Plan that small states like New Jersey had with it
Small states would have less power / Large states would have too much power / It wasn't fair to small states
What ended the American Revolution?
The Battle at Yorktown
What year did the Constitutional Convention take place?
1787
In the House of Representatives, how is representation decided?
By population (the number of people living in each state)
The 3/5 Compromise was about how to count __________ for representation.
Enslaved Persons
The New Jersey Plan wanted all states to have __________ representation in Congress.
Equal
The Great Compromise created two different ways to represent states in Congress. Which house—the House of Representatives or the Senate—gives more power to small states?
The Senate (because every state gets 2 senators, no matter the size)
The Constitutional Convention was called because the ____________________ had failed.
Articles of Confederation
Why were small states like New Jersey and Delaware opposed to the Virginia Plan's idea of representation based only on population?
Because small states would have very few representatives and would lose power / Large states would dominate the government / Small states wanted to protect their influence
Why did Southern states want enslaved people counted for representation?
Because it would give them more representatives and more power in government
The New Jersey Plan was proposed to protect the interests of which type of state?
Small States
Shays Rebellion took place in which state?
Massachusetts
James Madison is often called the "Father of the Constitution." Explain why the delegates at the Constitutional Convention decided they needed to CREATE a new Constitution rather than just FIX the Articles of Confederation.
The Articles were too weak to fix / The federal government needed much more power / The system of government was fundamentally broken / States had too much independence and acted like separate countries / A stronger central government was needed to unite the country
In the Senate, how many senators does each state get, no matter how big or small?
2
The 3/5 Compromise determined how enslaved people would be counted for what purpose?
For representation in the House of Representatives (or for determining how many representatives each state got)
The Virginia Plan proposed that representation in Congress should be based on what factor?
Population
What was the first governing document of the United States?
The Articles of Confederation
Name ONE specific problem that made the federal government too weak under the Articles of Confederation.
Congress couldn't collect taxes / Congress couldn't control trade between states / Congress couldn't stop rebellions like Shays Rebellion / States were ignoring federal laws / The federal government couldn't pay its debts
In the Senate, how is representation decided?
Each state gets an equal number of representatives no matter what.
Explain why the 3/5 Compromise was particularly unfair and contradictory to the ideas in the Declaration of Independence.
It treated enslaved people as less than human / It counted people who had NO rights or freedoms / The Declaration said "all men are created equal," but this compromise denied equality to enslaved people / It allowed Southern states to gain power by oppressing people / It made slavery a permanent part of the government system
Why would the New Jersey Plan have been problematic for the United States as a whole, even though it protected small states' interests?
Large states wouldn't have enough say in government / It wouldn't give the federal government enough power to be effective / It would make the government too weak / Decisions would be hard to make if every state had equal power regardless of population / It wouldn't solve the original problems that led to the convention
Many historians say the Constitutional Convention was a "bundle of compromises." Explain what this means and give an example of how the delegates had to compromise with each other.
The delegates couldn't agree on everything, so they had to make deals where both sides gave up something / Example: The Great Compromise—large states gave up having both houses based on population, and small states gave up equal representation in the House / Example: The 3/5 Compromise—Northern and Southern states disagreed about slavery, so they compromised on how to count enslaved people / The Constitution wouldn't have been created without compromises