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Lesson 12: How Did the Delegates Distribute Powers between National and State Governments?
Lesson Purpose
The relationship between national and state powers, more than any other issue, explains the need for the Constitutional Convention. This relationship was at the core of the first major debate, the one between supporters and opponents of the Virginia Plan. After forging the Great Compromise, the delegates worked out a series of other regulations and compromises that defined what the national and state governments could and could not do. Several of those compromises involved the question of slavery, the most potentially divisive issue among the states.
Lesson Objectives
When you have finished this lesson, you should be able to
- describe the major powers and limits on the national government, the powers that were specifically left to states, and the prohibitions the Constitution placed on state governments,
- explain how the Constitution did and did not address the issue of slavery, as well as other questions left unresolved in Philadelphia, and
- evaluate, take, and defend positions on how limited government in the United States protects individual rights and promotes the common good and on issues involving slavery at the Philadelphia Convention.
Lesson Terms
bill of attainder
bill of attainder
An act of the legislature that inflicts punishment on an individual or group without a judicial trial.
ex post facto law
secede
supremacy clause
tariff
Lesson Biographies
Homer Simpson (1989 CE-Present)
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Lesson Court Cases
Lorem v. Ipsum (2025)
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Lesson Primary Sources
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