The Constitution
1
In order to justify before the world the breaking of ties between the colonies and the
mother country, Jefferson had a list of grievances against the king. Instead of fixing the existing
articles, the convention would draft an entirely new frame of government. Delegates were trying
to figure out how each state would be represented in congress, is called the Great Compromise.
Regardless of the population, the delegates set up a system where all the states would have the
same amount of congressional representatives (Martin Kelly, 2014).
In the House of Representatives, the number of representatives each state gets is based on
the population of the state. Elected by their states, Representatives serve a two-year term. In the
Senate, there are two senators from each state for a total of one hundred senators. Each Senator
elected serves a two-year term. When voting for a President, the candidates' names appear on
ballots, and the people mark who they prefer, but technically do not vote directly for the
president. Voters from each state select a slate of presidential electors. The candidate with the
highest number of votes in each state wins all the "electoral votes" of that state. The electors of
all fifty states and the District of Columbia, makeup the Electoral College. After the election, the
electors in each state gather in their capital and votes for a candidate with the largest number of
popular votes in their state. A candidate for a presidency must receive two hundred and seventy
electoral votes out of a possible five hundred thirty-eight (Martin Kelly, 2014).
Slaves and free African embraced the principles of Liberty and equality embedded in the
Declaration as their own best hope for freedom and better treatment. Clinging to their
understanding of "all men are created equal," The...