Principles of the Constitution: Popular Sovereignty - People are the source of the governments. Separation of Powers - Each of the three branches of government has its own responsibilities. Checks and Balances - Each branch of government holds some control over the other two branches. Limited Government - The constitution limits the actions of government by specifically listing powers it does and does not have. Republicanism - The people pick their political representatives. Federalism - In this government system, power…
Elected public servants, police officers, the military and other public sector employees take an oath of alliance to the Constitution and not a person when they are hired or start their jobs. Why is this important?…
Written in 1787 by James Madison, the United States Constitution was created to guard against tyranny in the new government system. In the words of James Madison, “The accumulation of all powers ... in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many (is) the very definition of tyranny.” The people of the thirteen states were afraid of tyranny due to the tyrant leading their previous country, King George III. The last thing they wanted was for their new world to be a tyranny, just like the one they escaped from, so they created the Constitution. The Constitution guarded against tyranny by separating the powers of the federal and state governments, splitting the government into three branches, and attempting to give big states and little states equal representation.…
The United States Constitution, the first constitution of its kind, was ratified on September 17, 1787, at the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia. The Constitution gave Congress the power to tax and raise an army. The American federal government was established, and certain citizens’ rights were guaranteed, but implications within the document itself garnered hefty resistance. People claimed the Constitution would frame a successful government that the Articles of Confederation failed to do, but others said that the centralization of a federal government would provide an opportunity for it to use its powers immorally. Without a government, the nation might retreat to anarchy, but with a government, the rights of the people might be…
Unlike some of the state legislatures that wrote and voted on their constitutions, the US Constitution was to be ratified by special state constitutional conventions. This virtually made it impossible for Congress to change the Constitution on an impulse or to even abolish it, leaving no room for “democratic despotism”. It also placed sovereignty with the people and not with governmental institutions. This very important principle of sovereignty was carried over from the revolution but seemingly got lost in some of the states’ legislatures. The Constitution considered the people to be the supreme authority. The Federalists were arguing that “sovereignty remained always with the people and government was only a temporary and limited agency of the people.” This principle was made even clearer by the opening words of the Constitution: “We the People of the United States”, leaving no doubt as to where sovereignty rested, and considering the people the “only source of just authority.” With the debate of sovereignty finally put to rest the Constitution was ratified, strengthening the union of thirteen states by embodying republican…
At first, some of the first people in America didn’t want to have a federal government that had too much power. The Founding Fathers created the Constitution of the United States of America after the Articles of Confederation failed. There are numerous documents in the Constitution that limit the federal government in many ways. For example there is a system called Checks and Balances that gives certain powers to each branch. In the United States, there is something called the Separation of Powers which also limits the federal government. It keeps one branch of government from becoming too powerful against the other branches. Furthermore, the Bill of Rights also limits the federal government. Also known as the first ten additions or amendments to the Constitution, the Bill of Rights protect individual liberties. As you can…
The birth of a nation was sparked solely from the tyrany Great Britain showed towards the colonies in the years leading up to our nation declaring it's independence. Ten years later our Founding Fathers saw us heading in the same direction. A sense of that same tyrany could eventually be found in the formerly written Articles of Confederation; which was specifically created to erase the tyrany our nation's citizens had loathed for so long. To say that the Founding Fathers scrapped the Articles of Confederation solely for personal gain is leaving out so many variables. If I were a delegate to the Convention, and upon arriving I heard the reasoning for writing a new Constitution, yes I would've stayed. To truly answer this, one must objectively…
The federal convention or intense political debate followed. Similar to Rakove, some people believed the Constitution could give people clearer rules to tell them what they were supposed to do or not. In addition, the Constitution could also prohibit the government from what they should not do. The government needs to guarantee freedom for people, and what rights belong to people couldn’t be violated. The Constitution also remains above the government; while maintaining above the people, it's like a barrier to prevent the government from expanding. The Constitution could guarantee justice and equity for what the government sometimes did, like being secretive, and corrupt, which violates and ignores the Constitution by following the money of corporations, lobbyists, and bankers that are destroying our country, freedoms, economy, and our way of life. It provides a set of hard-fast rules for…
Why did the Constitution divide and distribute power within the government so intricately? The new country was afraid of someone or a group of people having sovereignty alike the country they had just won a war against. Britain had a tyrannical ruler with power to do whatever he wanted without the people’s consent. The Convention in 1787 created the Constitution to protect and distribute power to the government. The Constitution divided and distributed power between the branches, the states, and the people to create a secure and safe government with no tyrannical ruler.…
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.…
The Preamble to the Constitution is saying that the people in America need to unite to have peace, and to defend and provide common defense. To have peace in our nation for us and our generations to come. We must respect and follow the laws. We need to help the people in need.…
The United States Constitution manifest the principles of both republican and democratic forms of government when the it speaks of protecting the rights of people, and that all men are created equal. The founding fathers also thought that without law there could be no freedom.…
The Preamble of the US Constitution is similar to the thesis of an essay. The Preamble gives the reader an overview of what the Constitution hopes to accomplish. The five principles stated in the Preamble are expressed throughout the Constitution. I believe that the Constitution lives up to the bold goals stated in the Preamble.…
The role of a constitution is to provide scope for good government, while at the same time placing limitations on the powers of the governors.…
There are many concepts that make our Constitution a “living document”. These concepts include Checks and Balances, the Elastic Clause, and the Amendment Process.…