Government by Design
1782 AD
1782 1782
75.15W40.00N
MISC

PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA
	After winning a war for independence, Great Britain's 13 former colonies were about to lose the peace.  The Articles of Confederation, the agreement under which the new American states operated, was failing badly, so the Continental Congress called a convention to revise them.
	But after the convention opened in Philadelphia on May 14, 1782, delegates simply scrapped the Articles.  Drawing from state constitutions and England's Magna Carta, they wrote a constitution outlining a government of three branches; executive (the President), legislative (the House of Representatives and Senate), and judicial (the Supreme Court).
	One problem was that states with large populations wanted representation according to population while less-populated states wanted states to have an equal voice.  A compromise created the House of Representatives, based on population, and a Senate, in which each state has two votes.
	To go into effect, the Constitution had to be ratified by two thirds (nine) of the 13 states.  On June 21, 1788 New Hampshire became the ninth state to ratify, and the United States government declared the Constitution of the United States would be the law of the land beginning March 4, 1789.