2rd Exam
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Question I
The founding fathers responded to the paramount issue of political power in different ways. They believed that the government existed to execute only those services that the citizens could not provide for themselves, such as the national defense. To attain their objectives, the founding fathers proposed a national government whereby power was divided between three different branches: The Executive, the Legislative, and the Judiciary. It is referred to as the separation of authorities whereby every branch has its own rules, responsibilities, and powers. The founding fathers, the establishers of the Constitution, sought to establish a government that did not permit one individual to have a lot of powers, authority, or control (Chevrier, 2018). Having this in mind, the Founding Fathers wrote the Constitution to facilitate the separation of powers or three separate branches of government.
James Madison, who is among the Founding Fathers who worked with Hamilton to fight for the new Constitution to the public in the Federalist Paper, transcribed in Federalist 10 that among the functions of a well-constructed Union ought to be its propensity to break and direct the violence of faction (Davis, 2020). One of the founding fathers called Patrick Henry, was at first differing the Constitution’s very idea. He desired to maintain the Articles of Confederation. He later fought hard for its ratification when an arrangement was made to include a “bill of rights” to the Constitution. Thomas Jefferson believed that it was wrong not to provide for different party-political parties in the new regime.
The Founding Fathers replaced the Articles of Confederation with the Constitution because the Articles of Confederation did not provide the federal government enough power. It seemed ineffective that is why the Constitution was created. Under the Constitution, unity and stability increased in the state. The Founding Fathers gave the powers of delegated, expressed, or enumerated to the Articles of Confederation. This included the authority to control business, coin currency, declare warfare, launch a post office, and raise and maintain armed forces. A lot of the United States Founding Fathers were at the Constitutional Convection whereby the Constitution was hammered out and ratified. One of the examples is George Washington, who presided over the Constitution. On the other hand, James Madison, who was also there, wrote the text that shaped the model for the Constitution. Those Founding Fathers who were not present at the Convection also made significant contributions in several ways.
In the ratification argument, the Anti-Federalists were against the Constitution. They complained that the new systems threatened liberties and did not protect peoples; rights. The Anti-Federalists were not exactly a united group but rather involved numerous elements (Chevrier, 2018). The issue that our Founding Fathers debated in the early years of the government was that a strong central government would be essential to the state’s prosperity and survival. In contrast, the opponents maintained that most of the nation’s power was supposed to rest within the local governments and the state. The founding fathers were the most well-known statesmen of the United States Revolutionary generation. They were accountable for the liberal perceptions renowned in the Declaration of Independence, the successful warfare for colonial independence from Great Britain, and the republican form of government defined in the United States Constitution.
Question II
Slavery was so important to the Southern colonies since it was the origin of American slavery. It was so profitable to the slave owners of the South. With cash crops such as sugar cane, tobacco, and cotton, the southern society states turned out to be the growing nation’s economic engine. The Southern economies relied on people enslaved at plantations to give labor and keep the enormous tobacco and rice farms running. All over antebellum and colonist antiquity, the United States slaves resided primarily in the South. They consisted of less than a tenth of the entire Southern inhabitants in 1680 but grew to a third by 1790. In that time, approximately 295, 000 slaves resided in Virginia alone, making up 42% of all the slaves in the United States at that time (Tushnet, 2019). North Carolina, Maryland, and South Carolina each had over 100,000 slaves. When the revolution ended, the Southern slave inhabitants blew up, reaching about 1.1 million in 1810. and over 3.9 million in 1860.
The universal support for slavery by the non-slave owners was due to a number of reasons. The non-slave owners defended individuals’ legal enslavement for their toil as a benevolent, paternalistic establishment with economic and social benefits, a significant bulwark of civilization. The fear of slave rebellion was palpable. The insurrections and the formation of the black republic in Haiti threatened the non-slave owning whites. They feared the outcomes of the slave’s rebellion (Bales, 2019). As the Southerners became more isolated, they reacted by turning out to be more strident in defending slavery. Controlling the slave population was an issue that concerned both the white slave owners and the white non-slave owners.
Some individuals such as James Henry Hammond, John Calhoun, and George Fitzhugh defended slavery and gave their justifications on why slavery was not a bad thing. Hammond, who was from South Carolina, talked on the House floor about the perceived threat of abolishing slavery (Tushnet, 2019). He threw an attack on the civil rights rivals. His argument was in favor of the economic benefits to the whites of enslavement in the South. He asserted that slavery was not evil. According to him, slavery is the greatest of all blessings. On the other hand, Fitzhugh reasoned that Southern slaves had an assurance of protection, livelihood, and support from their masters. He continued by saying that if a slaveholder fails to perform his social welfare responsibilities, he could be a force to sell his slaves to a more capable master. Calhoun defended slavery, saying that black slavery was a “positive good.” He argued that never before had any black race of Central Africa attained a condition so improved and civilized, not only physically but also intellectually and emotionally.
Reference
Bales, K. (2017). Unlocking the statistics of slavery. Chance, 30(3), 4-12.
Chevrier, M. (2018). 1. The Idea of Federalism among the Founding Fathers of the United States and Canada. In Contemporary Canadian Federalism (pp. 11-52). University of Toronto Press.
Davis, N. (2020). The Founding Fathers’ Shift Towards Anthropological Pessimism: From the Articles to the Constitution.
Tushnet, M. (2019). The American law of slavery, 1810-1860. Princeton University Press.
