ShmoopTube

Where Monty Python meets your 10th grade teacher.

Search Thousands of Shmoop Videos

U.S. History 1492-1877 4: The Constitutional Convention 148 Views


Share It!


Description:

Welcome to the convention where you can wig out over all things constitutional, ConstiCon. Yugh, that sounded a lot better in our heads.

Language:
English Language

Transcript

00:04

The Constitution of the United States of America it sounds like [Constitution holding thumbs up]

00:08

a big deal that's because it is not to give it a big head or anything for about

00:12

ten years post-revolution America was loosely held

00:16

together by a document called the Articles of Confederation the articles [Articles of confederation document appears]

00:20

tried hard but they just couldn't hack it

00:22

they created a federal government that was super weak like lifting paper clips [Document picking up weights at the gym]

00:26

there was a stream so 55 delegates were sent from the original 13 colonies well

00:33

nobody came from Rhode Island because they were too busy United bein Rhode

00:36

Island anyway those 55 delegates came together for what was called the

00:40

Constitutional Convention guess what they did there yeah they convened and [Delegates at a convention]

00:45

then they partied like it was 1787 and no doubt but they also conceived and

00:50

wrote the Constitution well this was not easy and many families the debate over [Man chases constitution]

00:56

where to go for dinner can get pretty ugly the gluten free faction opposes the [Family fighting]

01:00

pro spaghetti faction the barbecue advocates come to blows with vegetarians

01:04

and the fact that everyone's hungry makes everything worse now imagine 55

01:09

semi strangers trying to decide how to govern a nation total nightmare people [Strangers fighting in a cloud of dust]

01:14

one of the biggest sticking points was whose turn it was to go get the bagels

01:19

in the morning no wait actually the question of congressional representation

01:22

was probably a bigger deal in other words delegates did a lot of bickering

01:25

over the number of Representatives each state would have in Congress in one [Delegates in discussion]

01:30

corner we had the advocates of proportional representation or [Man bouncing in corner of boxing ring]

01:33

representation based on population who championed this plan and generally the

01:38

states with the most people surprise surprise in the other corner we have the

01:42

advocates of equal representation who wanted each and every state to have the

01:47

same number of Representatives no matter how tiny their population was little

01:51

states with fewer people were of course the ones that were down with this game

01:55

plan so basically everybody just wanted what was best for themselves and we [Men begin fighting in boxing ring]

01:59

think they'd come to some kind of compromise or something like maybe there [Man shoves fighter]

02:03

could be two congressional bodies what do you think one with representatives

02:07

elected according to population and one with an equal number of Delegates per

02:11

state oh wait that's exactly the compromise

02:15

they made and what we live with today with our modern house of representatives

02:20

elected by population and the Senate where each state gets two of them not

02:25

only that it was a compromise so great that they actually called it the great [Great Compromise document appears]

02:28

compromise what a great title yeah I guess that we could have done better

02:33

compromise wouldn't have had the same ring to it [Man looking sad while sitting down]

Up Next

Why Does the Constitution Still Work for Us?
5723 Views

Ever heard of a "living document"? They eat and breathe just like the rest of us! They even walk around on their own two legs. Okay, fine—maybe t...

Related Videos

The Puritans and the Division of Church and State
1280 Views

If the Puritans had gotten their way, religion would play a much larger role in lawmaking these days. Want to know more? Watch the video for all th...

Shays' Rebellion
6475 Views

What happened between the creation of the Articles of Confederation and the ratification of the current U.S. Constitution? This video analyzes the...

There's More Than One Way to Crack a Modernist Egg
539 Views

The Modernists thought the world had a lot of problems, and they were intent on fixing them—or at least talking about fixing them. Unfortunately,...

Federalism
2532 Views

This video explains Federalism and the quest for a fair balance between state and national power. It covers the progression and compromises of Fede...