Expert answer:Constitutional Convention

Expert answer:Please make up somethings for answering the questions to show what you learnt is the class. I will upload a class syllabus. The class had a “mock convention” to discuss the constitution before 1877. Make up something for the evolution. No plagiarism please. 1. Our Constitution, like most others, represents a view of how to build a “just society” out of a bunch of often-conflicting values and ideas. Its creation and its implementation also reflect the complex power relations. Drawing broadly upon all the texts and your experiences this semester (including readings and class discussions, as well as Reacting), 300 wordsWhat have you learned about the nature and practice of politics? How do social, ideological, and historical circumstances affect our capacity to operate a community?2. Looking at our Reacting exercises generally, what have you learned this semester about dealing with the ambiguities and tensions in other people’s positions and relationships to one another? Why was compromise so difficult in the Reacting modules you played? What could help us to overcome differences and to make common cause for the common good? 300 words3. Consider the evolution of the intertwined issues of state vs. federal power and slavery from 1787 to 1865. From the perspective of your role in the 13th Amendment Debates, if you could go back and whisper into the ear of your character at the Constitutional Convention, what would you tell him about how to approach these issues? How would you convince him to take your advice? 300 words. My role is Francis W. Kellogg.4. . Review the article (from the Economist magazine in October this year)about the potential for a new American Constitutional Convention(which I already uploaded). Think about the potential for a new Constitutional Convention in general (i.e., you needn’t focus on the specific issues under discussion). Answer BOTH of the following. 300 words of each below- Based on your role as an original Convention Delegate, you have been asked to speak to your State Legislature in 2017. What would you testify about whether (and how) your state should call for a new Constitutional Convention? my role is William Samuel Johnson – OK, the Convention has been called and will convene in two months. Maria King (the great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great granddaughter of your role as an original Convention Delegate) is one of the delegates. Based on your experiences and studies this term, what advice would you give Ms. King about how to approach her responsibilities (e.g. attitudes, study, relationships, thinking, public relations)?
history_syllabus.docx

econ_on_new_am_const_conv__0917_.pdf

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Syllabus
Inventing our country was a messy and convoluted business. Noble and expedient, eternal
and ephemeral, legal and political: writing and implementing our Constitution involved great
minds, great principles, and great compromises. The premise of this course is that the best
way to understand what happened is to try to get inside the heads of those who wrestled with
the issues of government, society, race, money, and war and peace.
In order to do that, the largest portion of the course will be devoted to a student-driven
reenactment of the Constitutional Convention of 1787, using the historical role-playing
games model of the “Reacting to the Past” program.1 Each student will assume a specific
role—such as James Madison, Elbridge Gerry, or Charles Pinckney—informed by real
historical events and the ideas of important thinkers and political leaders. Each student will
critically analyze those ideas and circumstances and present oral and written arguments in
debates on such issues as slavery, commerce, and how to allocate the powers of government.
The course opens with a few lectures on the nature of revolutionary change and the political
and intellectual context of the 18th century Enlightenment. We will review principles of
critical thinking and effective oral and written communication of ideas. The game will be
introduced by a contextual lecture and a review of the key issues and facts (including a quiz
on the background reading). SFSU’s annual Constitution Day Conference is September 1819. There will be no class on those days so you can attend the conference. Volunteers to help
manage the Conference are encouraged! Then, the Game begins.
The Summer of 1787 was a critical moment in the history of the early American republic.
The War of Independence has been over for four years. Twelve of the thirteen newlyindependent states sent delegates in Philadelphia to reform the Articles of Confederation.
These were smart men, leaders of their communities, well-read, and many were battle-tested.
While all were “revolutionaries,” their ideas on the shape of politics and government for the
new republic ranged widely. The major issues included the shape of the legislative,
executive, and judicial branches, the separation of powers, federalism, slavery, commerce,
and the nature of a constitution. They deliberated in secret and, in September 1787,
ultimately produced the United States Constitution.
Following the America’s Constitutional Convention Game, we will also reenact the New
York State Convention which debated whether to ratify the new Constitution.
introduced by a contextual lecture and a review of the key issues and facts (including a quiz
on the background reading). SFSU’s annual Constitution Day Conference is September 1819. There will be no class on those days so you can attend the conference. Volunteers to help
manage the Conference are encouraged! Then, the Game begins.
The Summer of 1787 was a critical moment in the history of the early American republic.
The War of Independence has been over for four years. Twelve of the thirteen newlyindependent states sent delegates in Philadelphia to reform the Articles of Confederation.
These were smart men, leaders of their communities, well-read, and many were battle-tested.
While all were “revolutionaries,” their ideas on the shape of politics and government for the
new republic ranged widely. The major issues included the shape of the legislative,
executive, and judicial branches, the separation of powers, federalism, slavery, commerce,
and the nature of a constitution. They deliberated in secret and, in September 1787,
ultimately produced the United States Constitution.
Following the America’s Constitutional Convention Game, we will also reenact the New
York State Convention which debated whether to ratify the new Constitution.
This will leave us time to briefly review the key developments from 1790-1877. We will
touch on the Bill of Rights and the issues of judicial review of legislation, and the status of
native American tribes, before focusing in more detail on the interlocking issues of slavery,
states’-rights, and sovereignty which led up to and concluded the Civil War. Between the
New York State Ratification Convention and a debate on the 13th Amendment, each student
will be required to participate in a mini-moot court or congressional debate addressing an
aspect of specific issue that helped shape our constitutional structure and practice.
This will leave us time to briefly review the key developments from 1790-1877. We will
touch on the Bill of Rights and the issues of judicial review of legislation, and the status of
native American tribes, before focusing in more detail on the interlocking issues of slavery,
states’-rights, and sovereignty which led up to and concluded the Civil War. Between the
New York State Ratification Convention and a debate on the 13th Amendment, each student
will be required to participate in a mini-moot court or congressional debate addressing an
aspect of specific issue that helped shape our constitutional structure and practice.
Historical Re-enactment
During the Constitutional Convention reenacting game, the class sessions are run by George
Washington (the presiding officer). Similarly, during the Second Segment, there will be
presiding officers for each session. During the re-enactments, I merely act as the “gamemaster,” assigning your roles, preparing you to play, evaluating (grading) your work, and
occasionally intervening to advance the games as they develops.
Your job (as an individual and as a group) is not to reproduce a particular historic document
or decision, but to reproduce the process of its creation; and, because history is filled with
individual personalities and contingencies, the results are likely to vary from what actually
happened. But throughout, each of you must embody the values and circumstances
inherent in your particular role, regardless of your own 21st century views and
situation. Your immediate object in each game is to win, of course (there ARE extra-credit
points available, after all), but what “winning” looks like will vary from player to player.
You can only “win” by persuading your colleagues—orally and in writing—to support your
specific substantive goals.
Second Segment Participation
You will be assigned to present an oral argument (~5 minutes) in one of the following inclass debates (additional materials will be posted into iLearn):
 NY State Ratification Convention, 1788
 Debate on the 13th Amendment, U.S. House of Representatives, 1864-5
For those sessions in which you are not presenting arguments, you should read the assigned
material in the schedule noted above. During each re-enactment, you will be part of the
decision-making body, assessing the arguments of your colleagues and participating in the
substantive debate; then you will write a 200-250 word explanation for your decision in each
case.
Course Objectives
This course is designed so that you will learn how to analyze complicated texts and evaluate
primary sources from a number of perspectives, developing your ideas and understanding
through spoken and written assignments. In this way you will strive to answer big questions
such as:
 How should nations be governed? What are the greatest threats they face and how
are they be best preserved?
 What is a “republic”? What do we mean by “democracy,” “liberty,” and “rights”?
 How do we balance liberty and order?
 What happens when compromises and ambiguities ripen into controversies?
By re-enacting these great moments in history, you will also learn about the pragmatic nature
of politics, how to build alliances, negotiate, and trade-off some aspects of your principles to
achieve a larger goal.
Upon completion of the course you will be able to:
1. Understand key moments in the American constitutional development,inclduing the
Revolution and the Civil War.
2. Appreciate the practicalities of politics in an uncertain and contentious environments;
3. Analyze, criticize, and advocate ideas (including those with which you do not agree);
4. Construct arguments, including being able to identify and assess premises,
conclusions, hypotheses, and evidence
5. Distinguish matters of fact from issues of judgment or opinion, and construct
arguments that reach valid or well-supported factual and judgmental conclusions; and
6. Demonstrate ethical conduct in reasoning, including candor, honesty, and respectful
participation in the community of learners.
9/30/2017
America might see a new constitutional convention in a few years
Yes we con-con
America might see a new constitutional convention
in a few years
If it did, that would be dangerous thing
Print edition | Briefing
Sep 30th 2017
| MADISON, WISCONSIN AND PHOENIX, ARIZONA
THE I’s had been dotted; the T’s were crossed. The 55 delegates to America’s first
and so-far-only constitutional convention had hammered out compromises on the
separation of powers, apportionment of seats in the legislature and the future of
the slave trade. But on September 15th 1787 George Mason, a plantation owner from
Virginia, rose to his feet to object.
Article V of the draft text laid out two paths by which future amendments could be
proposed. Congress could either propose them itself, or it could summon a
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America might see a new constitutional convention in a few years
convention of representatives from the states to propose them. Mason warned that
if the federal government were to become oppressive, Congress would be unlikely
to call a convention to correct matters. To protect the people’s freedom, he argued,
convening power should instead be vested in the states. Should two-thirds of their
legislatures call for a convention, Congress would have to accede to their demand: a
convention they should have.
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constitution was signed two days later,
BRITAIN
with Article V changed as Mason had
suggested. Since then 33 amendments have
See all updates
been proposed, with 27 subsequently
ratified, a process which requires approval in three-quarters of the states (see chart
1). Whether the issue was great (abolishing slavery) or small (changing the date of
presidential inaugurations), all 33 of the proposals came from Congress. Mason’s
mechanism for change driven by state legislatures has never been used. Even
politically informed Americans often have no idea it exists.
That could soon change. In recent years the Balanced Budget Amendment Task
Force (BBATF)—a shoestring group that received just $43,000 in donations in 2015
—has been campaigning with great success for such an “Article V” convention.
There are now 27 states in which the legislatures have passed resolutions calling for
a convention that would propose a balanced-budget amendment. The two-thirdsof-the-states threshold for calling a convention is 34. And, as it happens, there are
seven states which have not yet called for a convention to propose a balancedbudget amendment, but in which Republicans control both houses of the
legislature.
The earliest all seven could plausibly make the call is 2019, because Montana’s
legislature is not in session again until then. Bill Fruth, a co-founder of the BBATF,
says that by that point he hopes to have the other six in the bag. If he does, then a
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America might see a new constitutional convention in a few years
convention would be on the cards. If his efforts falter, a bigger push is waiting in
the wings. Called the Convention of States (CoS), it promises amendments on three
topics: a balanced budget, limiting the federal government’s power and
establishing term limits for members of Congress. Led by Mark Meckler, a former
Tea Party activist, the CoS got its first resolution passed in 2014. But it has grown
fast. It is far better-funded than the BBATF and claims 2.2m volunteers across the
country; its advisers include Jim DeMint and Tom Coburn, two influential former
Republican senators. Its resolution has now passed in 12 states.
Mr Meckler, like Mr Fruth, says he aims to have 34 states signed up by the end of
2019. Outside observers take that prediction seriously. Pete Sepp of the National
Taxpayers’ Union (NTU), which has long advocated a balanced-budget amendment,
puts the probability of an Article V convention being called by 2020 at 50-50. So
does Jay Riestenberg of Common Cause, an organisation devoted to government
reform which fiercely opposes an Article V convention.
Take a bow for the new revolution
The idea has support that extends well beyond those fixated on fiscal probity.
Although the most successful Article V campaigners have been conservatives, some
on the left like the idea, too. They think the status quo is defective, that
constitutional fixes need to be applied and that a convention ostensibly called for
the purposes of a balanced-budget amendment might, once in session, be
convinced to widen its ambit and consider other amendments too. This prospect—
a “runaway” convention—persuades others that Article V is a Pandora’s Box which
needs to be kept firmly shut. It may not be much longer before it becomes clear
which side is right.
The want of any previous Article V convention in the past 228 years is not for lack
of trying. No one has a firm count of the number of resolutions that state
legislatures have passed calling for one, but it is over 500. In 1963 Arkansas even
passed a resolution calling for an Article V convention to put forth an amendment
removing Mason’s convention procedure from Article V. Today, 42 states have at
least one Article V application pending.
Given that Article V says Congress must call a convention once two-thirds of the
states have asked for one, why has it not? One answer is that no one with standing
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America might see a new constitutional convention in a few years
has gone to court and asked it to. Another may well be that, without conscious
deliberation on the subject, Congress has decided that it needs 34 applications not
just for any old convention, but for a specific convention: applications that share a
topic, wording and the like. This is what the BBATF and CoS are trying to provide.
They are not the first to make such a push. In the
1970s the NTU began a campaign to pass state
resolutions for a convention on a balanced-budget
amendment. By 1983 the project was on the brink
of success; 32 state legislatures, some of them
Democratic, had signed up, and California and
Montana were set to hold ballot initiatives that
would have forced their legislatures to add to those
applications. But state courts ruled the two ballot
initiatives unconstitutional, and the effort stalled
(see chart 2).
With the amenders’ momentum sapped, their opponents gained the upper hand.
Somewhat surprisingly, the most effective response came from the right. The John
Birch Society, a far-right fringe group, launched a counter-campaign; the Eagle
Forum, a conservative group best known for its fight against an amendment
guaranteeing women equal rights to men, led a similar charge. By the late years of
Bill Clinton’s presidency the budget was in surplus, taking further wind out of the
movement’s sails. Many states which had passed resolutions rescinded them.
But under George W. Bush the deficit returned, and in 2009 the financial crisis
drove it up to levels not seen since the second world war. “When I saw [the Federal
Reserve] printing currency, that’s when I got motivated to work on this,” says Mr
Fruth. “I became frightened as a citizen.��� One year later, Republicans swept
the midterm elections. Democrats lost hundreds of seats in state legislatures.
Because 2010 was a census year the newly empowered Republicans were in a
position to oversee redistricting, and thus in some places able to cement their new
advantage. In 2009 there were 14 states where Republicans controlled the whole
legislature. By 2017 there were 33. The landslide of 2010 opened a purely partisan
path to a convention.
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Since 2010 the BBATF has helped get resolutions passed in 15 states which
previously lacked them. But its opponents have swung back into action, too. They
fall into two camps: those who fear that an Article V convention will do what its
advocates want it to, and those who fear that it will not. The first cohort consists
primarily of liberals, who see a balanced-budget amendment as a vehicle for rightwing dreams of rolling back America’s welfare state. “The right is very frustrated
with Congress’s inability to cut these social-safety-net programmes, and this is
their backdoor way to do it,” says Chris Taylor, a Democratic assemblywoman in
Wisconsin. At a conference held in 2013 by the American Legislative Exchange
Council, a group that writes model conservative bills for state lawmakers to
introduce, Ms Taylor remembers hearing delegates talk about “the purpose being to
kneecap the federal government and prohibit it from regulating and spending in
every area except national defence.”
A larger group of critics, whose strange bedfellows include the Birchers, the
American Civil Liberties Union and Common Cause, has focused on the risk of a
runaway convention veering off into non-budgetary topics. The opportunity to
propose amendments without the normal hurdle of getting them past two-thirds
majorities in both the House and Senate might prove hard for ideologues to resist.
Would conservative delegates really vote against, say, a separate amendment
asserting that the protections of citizenship start at conception?
Arguments like this have worked in some more
liberal states. Delaware, which passed an
application for a balanced-budget amendment in
1976, rescinded it last year; New Mexico, Maryland
and Nevada followed suit in 2017. But that tactic
seems to have run out of room; none of the
remaining 27 states looks likely to rescind. Instead
the focus is now on the seven states with
Republican-controlled legislatures that have yet to
request a convention: Idaho, Kentucky, Minnesota, Montana, South Carolina,
Virginia and Wisconsin. In some of these states, opponents are putting up a strong
enough fight that a convention is not a foregone conclusion. In March the Idaho
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America might see a new constitutional convention in a few years
Senate, where Republicans hold a 29-6 majority, shot down an Article V
application.
Virginia’s House of Delegates approved an Article V application in 2016, but Richard
Black, a Republican state senator, has helped stymie the resolution’s progress with
warnings of devious Democrats hijacking a convention. “They could change
freedom of religion to say certain teachings from the Bible are hate speech,” he told
supporters by e-mail in 2015. “They could take away our right to own a gun.”
And there are indeed people on the left who like the idea o …
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