James Wilson: Constitutional Convention

As being a signer of the Declarations of Independence, I say that everyone including the commoners should have the right to vote for their leaders. Let them decide what is best for them and our country as it will promote the well – being of our country by allowing the people to speak more freely and bring fairness to the individuals as well as the government. In this convention, I fight for what is right and what is fair in order to bring justice to our country.

I do not think that anything should be preserved from the Articles of Confederation into the new constitution because it favors the government more rather then the people. The issue of power in the national government has gathered my attention and should include different branches with equal power to check and rely on each other to perform different government tasks. The national government should not be more powerful than the state governments because the states should be able to decide if the national government had passed an unconstitutional law and be able to provoke it. I think the national government should be able to share the power to promote or decline a law and also be able to bring up new laws to be checked by other state governments and the national government. States should also be able to veto national laws also if they do not think it is appropriate for their state.

Over all, my decision for a new government would be with the Virginia Plan. The benefits of the Virginia Plan is that it is able to solve the problem of the national government by dividing it into three equal branches to perform s single duty and be able to work together in union. Being a larger state I support the plan because it gives my state a greater representation in the two houses. As for the New Jersey Plan, I had opposed it because the drawbacks were that it was very similar to the Articles of Confederation. It also gave only one vote per state, which doesn’t give the people an equal representation in the vote for leaders. A form of executive power that should exist would be a fair and honest system that doesn’t just approve things for the government but for the people. When it comes to electing a leader for our country, proper procedures must be set that would be able to benefit the people and the government. I suggest that each state should have more than one vote and the votes should be decided on the people’s decision. To enforce these new laws that come into effect, there needs to be a stable judicial branch to interpret the laws into the community. The best way to do this is to make a court system that will approve or disapprove laws that violate the constitution. Being a larger state I don’t think slavery and immigration should be allowed throughout the rest of the country. Slaves are people just like the rest of us and should be treated with equal rights. For the states wish to keep their slaves, they should be able to count slaves as citizens as they give greater representation in the legislature. This would also favor toward direct taxes, as the slaves would be counted to the population, which makes up for the greater representation. The national government should be able tax people of different states because it allows the government to conduct research and promote the military for the benefit of the people.

This concludes my speech on my opinions of the Articles of Confederation and what our new government should include to allow fairness and justice to all.