Origination, Drafting, and Ratification of the United States Constitution - Essay Example

It involves clarifying who makes collective decisions, as not all people can make rules thus someone has to make them on their behalf. These fundamental rules are critical for a nation’s governance as they verify the motivation composition within a nation and its prospect of improvement.

A constitution is the backbone of a nation’s governance, as it is the key legal, political institution of a country containing the collective decision-making conventions specifying the allocation of political power within the nation. The U.S constitution was formulated to have a constitutional order allowing people to participate in decision-making through democratic elections. The decision-making in the U.S constitution is based on a representative form of governance where the citizens elect a candidate of their choice to represent their interests in decision-making processes.

This representative nature of government was established in the U.S, before its first draft in 1787. It dates back to the nation’s beginnings and parliamentary representation government in Britain during the colonial period. Therefore, political representatives in the U.S as well as the founding fathers formulated the constitution and voted for its ratification in the conventions of the 13 initial states. However, the citizens did not directly vote or design for the adoption of the constitution2.

In 1787 fifty-five delegates from 12 of the 13 states met in Philadelphia led by George Washington as the chair and Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton as well as James Madison in attendance. Although this group had early assembled to revise the Article of confederation, they later moved to the development of a novel structure of administration. There arose several objections among the large state and small state plans. They were advocating for a proportional representation based on population, and equal representation based on one state, one vote system respectively.

However, a perfect compromise was established, which allowed for a proportional number of seats in the House of Representatives to each state’s population and each representative elected directly by the citizens. In the Senate, each state was to have two autonomously voting senators that were to be picked by the state parliament3. The slavery issue was also resolved as the state's population was determined by the Whole number of free persons and three-fifths of all other persons given to the slaves.

However, the delegates did not outlaw slavery as they settled that escapee slaves should be returned to their masters. The constitution needed to be ratified by at least nine states to become law. Arguments by anti-federalists convinced delegates in a number of conventions to support the constitution as well as to suggest amendments to correct defects. Several states ratified it starting with Delaware, and New Hampshire was the ninth to ratify. However, it was when the pivotal states of New York and Virginia that the plan was enforced as Rhode Island ratifying it last in 1989.

James Madison and Thomas Jefferson were democratic-republicans who did not have faith in the central government while George Washington, John Adam, and Alexander Hamilton had a strong belief in the central government where decisions and resources trickled in an up-down model4.ConclusionThe U.S constitution is among the most representative constitutions in the world. It provides for freedoms and rights of the inhabitants and making the nation a land of opportunities. It was necessary to replace the Article of confederation with a more permanent and binding document that was inclusive of all states and representative of all citizens.