Program Information

Prior to the Constitution, the newly free colonies were a country in disarray. Foreign predators were hanging out, waiting for the new country to fall apart: France, England, Spain. It was insanity. Washington, Madison, Hamilton, Jefferson all bemoaned the possibility of maintaining a nation.

The United States Constitution has been the foundation for the United States government and its citizens for over two hundred years. Many people believe it is the “gold standard” for fledgling democracies all over the world. It calls for the citizens to be active and for government to be accountable to those they govern. Many historians believe the Constitution has made our nation as successful and as powerful as it is; however, many of our citizens have not read or do not understand the Constitution and the foundation of our government. “Questioning the Constitution” looks at the development of the constitution, how it has been interpreted and questions whether the constitution should be reformed. This one-hour documentary was produced by WCVE PBS in partnership with the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia.

Transcript

LANE: Prior to the Constitution, we had a country in disarray. Our foreign predators were hanging out, waiting for us to fall apart: France, England, Spain. It was insanity. Washington, Madison, Hamilton, Jefferson all bemoaned the possibility of maintaining a nation.

The Constitutional Convention is a model of compromise. And these were people as diverse, relatively speaking, as we are now. They came from different religions, which actually had meaning. They came from states that were as distant and different as nations are today. And they did not like each other, but they understood the great need to create the we so they made many compromises.

HOWARD: You have to imagine when the framers were working on the, what became our Constitution, the challenge that they were confronted. Frankly didn’t know yet what a Constitution ought to look like. How do we write this Constitution, give the government the powers that it needs, that we think it needs, to make America a, a great nation, but at the same time quiet the doubts and fears of people who said, “No, that much power is bound to be tyrannical”?

James Madison was certainly one of the key figures. He came up with a plan, and took that with him to Philadelphia. Many parts of Madison’s plan were not finally adopted, but Madison had the political sense, the tactical sense to realize that he would have to make some compromises. And the main thing was to come out of the convention with a plan that worked.

He proposed and wanted representation in the Congress to be based on population. The more people in a state, the higher the representation in Congress. Other people at Philadelphia, particularly from the small states, were worried that the big states like Massachusetts and Virginia and New York would basically swallow up the rest of them and they would be outvoted, outnumbered, and therefore they would be threatened by that kind of arrangement. So the counter-proposal at Philadelphia was essentially a plan that would have given each state equal representation. The middle ground of the sense was fairly obvious, that well, we’ll split the difference. We’ll have the House of Representatives based on population. We’ll have the Senate based on states’ equalities and therefore both the people and the states will somehow both be represented in the legislative process.

On the executive, that again was a compromise. They weren’t willing to go as far as to have a popularly elected president. This was not the mindset of 18th century framers. But they also thought they should not have the president elected by, let’s say the Senate or by Congress because that would make the executive dependent upon the legislative branch. And that would not be a sufficient separation of powers. As the convention moved along, they finally came up with what we know as the electoral college. A very cumbersome and awkward kind of arrangement. It actually made more sense at the time because smaller country leadership knew each other. And they certainly knew that the electoral college would get together. And they knew who the first president would be, it was going to be George Washington. Well, that worked alright for a time or two, but as we know today, it’s, it’s a little bit hard to explain or justify.

LEVINSON: One of the key compromises made in Philadelphia was to build in certain protections for slavery. What they realized is that you couldn’t have a Constitution in the first place unless you appeased the minority of well-placed slave holders.

EPPS: The southern states wanted to have power in Congress proportionate to their population. And they at first said, “We should get representation for all our slaves as well as free people.” Well, the northern states said, “No, absolutely not, I mean, what is, what’s the deal? Are they property or are they people? You can’t have it both ways.” Uh, they made it clear they were going to walk out.

HOWARD: Isn’t it remarkable knowing what we now know about the American history, the problem of slavery, sectionalism, the Civil War, Reconstruction.

Slavery is still with us in the Civil Rights Movement of the nine, of the 20th century. And the problems today of, it may not be slavery as such, but we still have the lingering problems of race. Given all that American history, isn’t it remarkable that when you read the Constitution, the word slavery never appears. The Constitution seems not to talk about slaves.

The framers of the Constitution agreed to what is called the three-fifths compromise. Namely that in deciding the basis of representation in the House of Representatives that you would count, not only free population, but three-fifths of other persons. “Other persons” being a euphemism for slaves. So, the southern states wanted slaves to be counted one-on-one to swell their population. Northern states would have preferred that slaves not be counted at all. And so finally they just, in effect, came up with this three-fifths compromise. So the text of the Constitution talks about three-fifths of other persons. That of course is now a, a mute point, I mean that language no longer has any legal effect because of the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments, but it’s still in there.

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