Article the First Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Article the First - Essay Example Nevertheless, the congress representative succeeded in 1791 when a three-quarters majority ratified the Bill of Rights to become the law guiding the nation (Publishing & Duignan, 2013). Although this was a major breakthrough in the US history as far as constitutional reforms are concerned, the congress failed to ratify Article the First, which became the center for debate owing to the varying reactions elicited by the divided Congress on the matter. Article the First was a proposed amendment to the constitution of the United Sates whereby it sought to determine both the minimum and the maximum number of representatives at the US hose of Congress (Vile, 2012). As a federalist, one would support Article the First of the Constitution of the US, owing to the democratic space that America enjoys today due to liberal laws besides the fact that this amendment would change history in that more American citizens would feel represented and participate fully in an all-inclusive government. In 1 789, the American representatives of the House of congress were involved in hectic constitutional amendment procedures that saw some articles incorporated into the bill of Rights that formed the constitution of the United States (Vile, 2012). However, some contentious articles did not make it to the constitution following the strong opposition to them by the antifederalists. In this regard, Article the First, which came to be the first proposed amendment to the constitution of the United States of America, did not pass the ratification test although its proponents particularly the federalists pushed hard for its ratification (Vile, 2010). Also known as the congressional Appointment Amendment, Article the First was the first, as the name suggests, of the twelve amendments that the first congress delivered on 25th September 1789 (Publishing & Duignan, 2013). In accordance to Article V of the constitution of the United Sates, the first congress submitted Article the First for ratificat ion. However, the state legislatures failed to ratify the article despite the fact that they ratifies many other articles that became the Bill or Rights that formed the constitution of the United States of America (Vile, 2012). Fundamentally, the major framework o Article the First entailed the setting of the size of representatives of the House of Congress whereby the maximum and the minimum number of Congress representatives was clearly determined by the article (Publishing & Duignan, 2013). In this case, the article contemplated a scenario whereby one Congress Representative would represent thirty thousand American citizens until the total number of representatives would reach one hundred. Thereafter, it would be the responsibility of the congress to regulate the number of representatives so as not to go below one hundred. In this regard, Wolverton (2013) reports that the Bill of Rights envisaged that: After the first enumeration required by the first article of the Constitution, there shall be one Representative for every thirty thousand, until the number shall amount to one hundred, after which the proportion shall be so regulated by Congress, that there shall be not less than one hundred Representatives, nor