Constitutional Convention Video 2

What were the Articles of Confederation?

• A rule of law still used by the United States today

• A newspaper article written about the Declaration of Independence

• A weak framework for a federal government agreed to by the 13 states

What were the delegates trying to decide?

• Who would be in charge of the government

• How strong they wanted to make the central government

• How to win the war against England

How was the Virginia Plan different from the Articles of Confederation?

• It proposed a stronger national government that had more power than the states

• It proposed a weaker federal government that had less power than the states

• It proposed that the states and the national government would have equal power

How many votes would each state get with the New Jersey Plan?

• Each state got one vote

• States got a different number of votes depending on how many people lived there

• States got a different number of votes depending on the size of their land

What is the "middle ground" that Tim is talking about?

• A place for the delegates to finish their work

• A compromise for who would be in charge of the federal government

• A compromise on how to structure the legislature

What was the Three-Fifths Compromise?

• A solution for how to count enslaved people for representation

• An agreement on how many Southern states could vote

• A decision about how much an enslaved person's vote would count

Why is the Constitution called a "living document"?