The Constitution and Debtors and Creditors

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James Madison argued for proportional representation in the senate. If he'd got his way, it could have meant that today, california would have 60 some Senators to one for wyoming. The constitution gave the states equal representation, two senators per state. That was a key compromise demanded by the small states who likely would have bolted the convention if the big states hadn't buckled.

In the summer of 1787, fifty-five men got together in Philadelphia to write a new Constitution for the United States, replacing the new nation’s original blueprint, the Articles of Confederation. But why, exactly? What problems were the framers trying to solve? Was the Constitution designed to advance democracy, or to rein it in? And how can the answers to those questions inform our crises of democracy today?

By producer/host John Biewen with series collaborator Chenjerai Kumanyika. Interviews with Woody Holton, Dan Bullen, and Price Thomas. The series editor is Loretta Williams.