Laurence H. Tribe is a critically acclaimed author and professor of Constitutional Law at Harvard. His speech at the Ford Hall Forum was a summarization of his book “The Invisible Constitution.” In it, Tribe proposes a new way at looking at the Constitution we have come to worship. More than a tangible document, the true power of the Constitution is the series of implications that exist in it; the “invisible” aspects.…
The period from 1783 to 1788 was a critical time for the United States, during which the American people debated and ultimately accepted the Constitution. Because of its size, wealth, and influence and because it was the first state to call a ratifying convention, Federalist-dominated Pennsylvania was the center of national attention. The positions of the Federalists, those who encouraged the Constitution, and the anti-Federalists, those who resisted it, were stated in newspapers all over the country.…
The first eight amendments in the Bill of Rights were intended to protect Americans ' specific personal rights. The Founding Fathers recognized the importance of these rights and fought so that the people in the United States would have the independence that no other nation had known. These same men were well aware of the unavoidable sacrifices they were going to have to make. Listing every right that a person should possess was impossible to fit into ten amendments. Therefore, congress made the final two amendments in the Bill of Rights to be an all inclusive statute in an effort to prevent the United States government from discovering a loophole and gaining too much power. The Ninth and Tenth Amendments are the final two statutes in the Bill of Rights which outlines the limited control of the government and even more importantly the power of the people.…
The Federal Government showed to be ineffective under the Articles of Confederation. The Government lacked power, with large state governments showing to be superior. The U.S Constitution proposed a new form of government. With the addition of three separate branches of government, being, legislative, executive, and judicial, the Constitution also created a stronger Federal Government, weakening state governments. As southern states with larger populations were against the ratification of the Constitution, northern states consisting of fewer, more wealthy people, supported it. Federalists and Antifederalists took sides, prompting debate over a solution to the issue. The writings of the U.S Constitution produced major concerns at the center of the Constitutional Convention as the future of America had to be written.…
During the early stages of the United States, two political parties emerged disagreeing with each other of who should have the power and what kind of government the nation should be composed of. The Federalist party wanted a strong national government and was thought to have a loose interpretation of the Constitution through the Elastic Clause. Onthe other hand, the Jeffersonian Republican party maintained that the states should retain the power and thought that the Elastic clause allowed the national govt too much power. They were know as the strict constructionists. Although the Republicans maintained this characterization at the beginning, the two parties exchanged their roles with each other during the presidencies of Jefferson and Madison, either because of certain political and foreign circumstances or ironically to make sure that the other party loses its power.…
America is one of the most developed countries in the world and a huge reason is because of the United States government. The agreement under which the government had been operating since 1781 was the Articles of Confederation, but it was replaced by the Constitution in 1789. This change was required due to the need for a stronger Federal Government. It is astonishing that the Constitution, which was created by a group of brilliant leaders still prevails to this day and serves the purpose of running the government. These men created a government from scratch, but many people were not convinced as to how long this new government would last. However, over the years it has been proven that the Constitution has been able to adapt and provide the…
Based on a number of important principles the U.S Constitution aimed for prevention of the abuse of power. The people did want the government have too much power. Americans were afraid of their rights not being protected. These principles were according to which state or organization is governed. These principles are written down in different documents which go in the constitution.…
If the point of the Second Amendment is to allow its citizens to resist an oppressive government, would it mean that the Amendment is entirely obsolete? Modern governments have tanks that fire artillery the size of a human forearm and bombs that could misused on the peop. As gun-control advocates say, we can't fairly interpret the Second Amendment as guaranteeing the people a right to own weapon powerful enough to shoot down planes and obliterate heavy…
In school, as well as throughout our daily lives, we learn in America to live by the idea of freedom and equality for all. We do not allow race, class, or creed to determine a person’s stature in the community. It may seem as if this is the standard of society, but these ideas of equality have been fought over since the beginning of written history, and even in America today, prejudice still exists. To address these and similar problems, the founding fathers of this nation created a Constitution which included laws that dealt with individual freedoms. However great the founding fathers envisioned the United States Constitution, it did not form a perfect union and justice for all. America would have to amend, or add to, the Constitution in order to serve its constituents better. The most powerful constitutional act towards equality would come with the fourteenth amendment. This amendment permanently changed constitutional law by empowering the Federal government’s jurisdiction to include local and state governments which would be required to abide by new standards of civil rights and privileges.…
I still remember being in an eighth grade U.S. History class back in my junior high years. One distinct memory of that course, perhaps the most memorable of all the projects we had, came in the first month of the school year, in the curriculum’s first unit: the founding of the United States as its own nation. As the textbook timeline approached 1787 we prepared ourselves for a daunting task: memorize and recite the Preamble of the U.S. Constitution. We as students would wait anxiously as, one by one, each of our peers would step up to the front of the classroom and begin to recite from memory. Few people could recite the Preamble smoothly, but for those who stumbled, we all seemed to remember perfectly the first and last chunks: “We the People of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union…” and “…do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.” To us back in eighth grade, that missing middle section was just a group of words to be more-or-less forgotten the next day. To our forefathers, however, that middle section was vital in creating the basis for the supreme law of the United States.…
In the Constitution’s case, the group that discusses the meaning of the law is the judiciary branch of the government, whose job is to interpret the Constitution. A Supreme Court who interprets the Constitution loosely often secures more liberties of the country’s citizens, one of the factors in the government’s role. An example of a case where this can be seen is Roe V. Wade. This case secured, in a 7-2 decision, that the right to an abortion was a fundamental right of the American people. The argument for the majority opinion was that, even though the word abortion or privacy is not found in the Constitution, "the right of privacy, whether it be founded in the Fourteenth Amendment's concept of personal liberty and restrictions upon state action, as we feel it is, or, as the district court determined, in the Ninth Amendment’s reservation of rights to the people, is broad enough to encompass a woman's decision whether or not to terminate her pregnancy”.…
What does the Constitution mean to me? That question in itself has many meanings. I personally believe that if we did not have the Constitution we would all be in turmoil and have no direction to go in. The constitution was put in place to install rules and laws to abide by as citizens of the United States of America. I can honestly say that some of those Amendments have been challenged by a lot of people throughout history and have not always ended the way that they would have wanted it to. To me the constitution allows government to be set up to succeed and without it I believe that the government would fail and society would enter multiple world wars because there would be no standards for anyone to follow as citizens.…
If it means what the judiciary interprets it should mean than it is nothing more than a blank document that holds little sway because it’s original authority of ratification is ignored. As said by Thomas Jefferson, “On every question of construction carry ourselves back to the time when the Constitution was adopted, recollect the spirit manifested in the debates and instead of trying what meaning may be squeezed out of the text or invented against it, conform to the probable one in which it was passed. ”(2) It therefore means what it means at its writing and not what the judiciary believes it should…
My first reason why i think the people have the most power in the Constitution is that they get to vote for their president. The people votes for the president so they can have the right to do the right things. Also, if we didn’t have a president, then this place would be anarchy and get out of control. Everyone in the U.S would kill and fight each other because there is no one to control them. Without a president, this place would be a disaster and unhealthy. So we need the people to vote.…
During the creation of the United States and separated from the British Empire, our founding fathers set forth to come up with a series of laws that promoted common sense and equality. With this in mind they established three important sets of documents that our country would not be the same without them today. They are The Declaration of Independence, Bill of Rights and The United States Constitution. However, when our fathers first established these laws, without giving too much thought compromised the equality of African Americans and women in particular. In a matter of time, during the mid 19th century eventually slaves and women ended up fighting for their rights and were able to ratify several amendments in the Constitution. The struggle of African Americans and women during this period were in my opinion supported under these three powerful documents. This is because in each legal document they were able to change the views of their race and gender slowly but adding and changing laws to the United States Constitution.…