The Origins and Growth of Power Since the Birth of the American Constitution

The endless pursuit of power by individuals is an unavoidable characteristic of the human existence. This trait is unavoidable because it is instilled within us through our biological makeup as well as through societal conditioning. It is a common theme among living systems to amass energy, resources, influence, productivity, efficiency – Power. This concept is the driving force behind the theory of evolution that life has progressed and will continue to progress unless acted upon by an outside force (extinction, depletion of resources, alien invasion etc.). Humans have taken this idea of evolutionary progression and created a microcosmic, parallel concept called human advancement or humanism. Thus, it is only natural that humans have evolved the pursuit of power from a solely biological (nature) ordeal into a conscious, societally-based (nurture) mission to achieve power. The non-biological urges to achieve power are societally-based because the definition of power or status is dependent upon various social factors including: geography, social values, accepted norms, age, gender, etc. Like resources, power is scarce, therefore, competition among humans for power is to be expected and those in the seat of power will do everything in their power to widen the gap between the powerless and the powerful; power is the prize in the competition of life and everyone wants to be the winner. The dynamics of a power struggle (competition for power) can be clearly outlined in the States’ rights vs. Federal rights debate that preceded the ratification of the United States’ Constitution; however, before one can dissect a power struggle, it is necessary to analyze the context of said struggle, in this case, the events leading up to the 1789 Constitutional Convention. The birth of the conflict of States’ rights vs. Federal rights can be delineated as the period between May of 1776 – September of 1787; for our purposes this period of time will be analogous with the pregnancy of