Political lens of the us constitution

Running head: HISTORICAL LENSES 1

HISTORICAL LENSES 4

Drafting of the United States Constitution

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The lens I chose is political. I have the topic, The constitution of United States began in the year 1787. This drafting occurred when there was a meeting at Pennsylvania of constitutional convention (Rutherglen, 2018). According to people who drafted the constitution, the first governing document, the confederation articles and the government did their operations like countries that were independent. In this case, the political lens can be used to show how politicians tried to write down the laws and the purpose of drafting the constitution. “Comparisons (both favorable and unfavorable) with the Philadelphia Convention and the adoption of the United States Constitution in 1787 abound.” The drafted took place after America gained its independence from the Great Britain and this is when the republic thought of having a central government that was strong for its stability (Rutherglen, 2018). Some events that led to this drafting included the start of revolutionary war, adding of tax to sugar and molasses, passing of the stamp act that made colonists deliver supplies to British soldiers and the gain of independence.

This can be political as well as historical lens.Some overall needs that were included in the US constitution include the Bill of rights which guaranteed an individual’s protection. The bill of right gave freedom of speech and religion to different states. The role of citizens during the drafting included having the power to govern it and this was not for ordinary citizens but for white Protestants who owned property. This people were the only ones allowed to vote. An economic lens has been used here to show that citizens who didn’t own property didn’t have the power to vote. Drafting the constitution by Michael lance graham

“The ten amendments made in the US constitution were referred to as the bill of rights which consisted civil liberties guarantees and state power checks.” (Mestad, 2017). This guarantees and checks were added so that the states would be convinced to ratify the constitution. Some opposition groups such as Anti-Federalists opposed constitution ratification since they thought the government would be more powerful. There is an economic lens used by the author in this scenario to show how opposition groups such as Anti-federalists had no power over ratification. Though this opposition groups were unsuccessful, they ensured the Bill of rights was implemented. Historical lenses in this picture try to study the drafting of the US constitution at different angels that why we don’t have biased decisions about the drafting (Vile, 2016). They include the political and the economic lenses.

References

Mestad, O. (2017). The Impact of the US Constitution on the Norwegian Constitution and on Emigration to America. Norwegian-American Essays, 27-44. Retrieved from https://www.duo.uio.no/handle/10852/65127

Rutherglen, G. (2018). The Framers' Coup: The Making of the United States Constitution. Retrieved from https://heinonline.org/hol-cgi-bin/get_pdf.cgi?handle=hein.journals/jlp34&section=7

Vile, J. R. (2016). Conventional Wisdom: The Alternate Article V Mechanism for Proposing Amendments to the US Constitution. University of Georgia Press.