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Constitutional Convention: United States
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The Constitutional Convention of 1787 was called to revise the ailing Articles of Confederation. However, the Convention soon abandoned the Articles, drafting a new Constitution with a much stronger national government. Nine states had to approve the Constitution before it could go into effect. After a long and often bitter debate, eleven states ratified the Constitution, which instituted a new form of government for the United States.
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The Constitutional Convention of 1787 produced the most enduring written Constitution ever created by human hands. Though the United States existed prior to the ratification of the Constitution, it was a nation held together by the tenuous threads of the Articles of Confederation, a sometimes contentious, and often ineffectual national government. The men who were at Philadelphia that hot summer hammered out a document that was the result of dozens of compromises and shaped by the failures of the Unites States under the Articles as well as the failures of all well-known European governments of the time.
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In recent years Constitutional Conventions have been held in both Afghanistan and Iraq, following the overthrow of the previous governments by coalition military forces led by the United States and Britain. Furthermore, more than two centuries since the Convention at Philadelphia in 1787 have seen many state applications to Congress submitted by the respective state legislatures calling for the "Convention for proposing Amendments," authorized by Article V of the U.S. Constitution.
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At the turn of the century, a call, led by the Democrats, was made favoring a Constitutional Convention for election reforms and a cleansing of the state government. The main goal of the convention was to disfranchise African Americans legally. Republicans and illiterate whites were afraid that they would be politically disfranchised along with African Americans.
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A Constitutional convention is an informal and uncodified procedural agreement that is followed by the institutions of a state. In some states, notably those Commonwealth of Nations states which follow the Westminister system and whose political systems are derived from British constitutional law, most of the functions of government are guided by constitutional convention rather than by a formal written constitution. In these states, the actual distribution of power may be markedly different from those which are described in the formal constitutional documents. In particular, the formal constitution often confers wide discretationary powers to the head of state which in practice are used only on the advice of the head of government.
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College students want the Alabama Legislature to give citizens a chance to vote on whether a constitutional convention should be held for rewriting the Alabama Constitution. They plan on going to the statehouse to urge lawmakers to tackle the issue. Representative Demetrius Newton has a bill proposing a statewide vote on whether a constitutional convention should be held. The bill was passed out of committee and awaits action before the full House. Lenora Pate, Co-chair of Alabama Citizens for Constitutional Reform, Inc. will discuss the issue with and take call in questions. Bob Martin from the “Montgomery Independent,” Sebastian Kitchen from the “Press-Register,” and Dana Beyerle of the “New York Times Regional Newspapers” will be the three Alabama journalists talking about the events of the past week and talking with Pate about rewriting the Alabama Constitution.
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