today we're looking at the constitutional convention
hello welcome to the daily bell ringer please don't forget to subscribe and take a look at
the questions down in the description also check out in the description the link to the worksheet
that goes along with this video available at dailybellringer.com the constitutional
convention takes place in 1787 and is in response to a clear need for the united states to draft
a new constitution now if you've looked back and watched a few other bell ringers with the
articles of confederation and shae's rebellion you have an idea of why we needed a new constitution
but real quickly here's a quick recap of why the article's confederation which was the constitution
that the nation had been operating under during and after the american revolution was very weak
and gave most of the power to the states and not the federal government additionally under
the articles the federal government could not collect taxes then we had shae's rebellion which
occurred in early 1786 and proved just how weak the federal government was when they couldn't
really do anything about the problems that were occurring in western massachusetts so in february
of 1787 the continental congress called for a meeting to start writing a new constitution
they called for each state to send delegates to philadelphia to start working and debating
on what this new constitution should look like the convention officially began on may 25th 1787 which
was actually one week after when it was supposed to have started the the states had agreed to start
the convention on may 14th but only the delegates from virginia and pennsylvania showed up on that
date once all of them were there and they did convene the first order of business was to elect
a president of the convention not the president of the united states that office would actually
be created at the convention but as no surprise they elected george washington to be the president
of the convention washington of course had already demonstrated his leadership through the revolution
so he was very trusted they then began to set out some basic ground rules for the convention
with one of the biggest ones being that their discussion and debates in the convention
must be kept secret there were 74 delegates that were invited to take part in the convention
but only 55 delegates showed up and of that 55 only 39 actually signed the constitution when
they were finished some familiar faces there at the convention was the oldest delegate at
81 years old benjamin franklin which this would be kind of his last major appearance in american
history as he would die just a few years later at the age of 84. also in attendance was future
president james madison who was responsible for much of what ends up being in the constitution
and also alexander hamilton who of course would go on to be the secretary of the treasury
but surprisingly there are a few notable founding fathers who were not there such as john adams who
at the time was serving as a foreign minister to britain also not there was thomas jefferson the
primary author of the declaration of independence he was in france also serving as a foreign
minister on behalf of the united states others that weren't there included samuel adams john
hancock and patrick henry who had all refused to attend arguing that they were concerned that
this new constitution might create too strong of a federal government or even a monarchy
in fact the state of rhode island flat out refused to send delegates at all because of their concern
of a too strong of a federal government being created but nonetheless over the next few months
of 1787 the delegates presented new ideas and plans for how to organize the government
they spent weeks arguing and debating the best course of action and what should be included in
the constitution by september 17 1787 they had finished the constitution which not all of them
necessarily agreed on but they accepted that it was probably the best that they could do
the constitution was then sent to the states to be approved or ratified which many states
insisted on there being a guarantee of rights for citizens before they would approve it and
that's of course where we get the bill of rights that will be added to the constitution which i'll
cover in another video but on june 21st 1788 new hampshire became the ninth state to approve the
constitution which they agreed that they needed nine of the thirteen colonies for the constitution
to be officially ratified on march 4th of 1789 the constitution went into effect as the governing
document of the united states and it's been that to this day making it the oldest constitution
still in use in the world so with that hopefully you learned something and thanks for watching
you