ShmoopTube
Where Monty Python meets your 10th grade teacher.
Search Thousands of Shmoop Videos
U.S. History 1877-Present Videos 173 videos
Have you ever told one of your siblings to stop poking you, only to have them do something like hold their hand right in front of your face instead...
John D. Rockefeller. Greasy robber baron, or philanthropic saint? Why not both? Boy, that's a weird combination...
Today we'll learn about plans to assimilate the American Indian population after reconstruction. If you've ever seen Star Trek, you'll know that fo...
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.
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
Full Transcript
- 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]
Related Videos
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...
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...
What happened between the creation of the Articles of Confederation and the ratification of the current U.S. Constitution? This video analyzes the...
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,...
This video explains Federalism and the quest for a fair balance between state and national power. It covers the progression and compromises of Fede...