The US Constitution is the framework for how the American government works. It's been that way for more than 200 years, so it's hard to imagine how the system could be any other way. But when that framework was hammered out at the Constitutional Convention in 1787, there was no blueprint for a nation to govern itself. A number of ideas were proposed by our Founding Fathers that didn't make it into the Constitution or any of its Amendments. Some representatives were wary of the idea of a president, because one man leading the country sounded too much like a king. Alternative ideas included having three presidents at once, or a council of 12 with equal powers. They also toyed with the idea of having no states at all, or else treating the states like lesser entities, for which the federal government would appoint governors. And the very first proposed Amendment would have set a constant number of constituents for each congressional representative. If it had been adopted, we would now have a House of Representatives with 6600 members! Read about the ideas that were floated for our Constitution that never made it into the final version at Mental Floss.
(Image credit: Junius Brutus Stearns)
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