The U.S. Constitution is the foundation of American governance. Since its creation in 1878, the Constitution remains as the foundation of governance for the Republic and stands as the oldest living Constitution in the world. To prevent a tyranny of the majority will – or of one part of governance – it became necessary to ensure the several branches of government remained separate. To ensure that one of these branches did not trump the other branches, the Founders crafted – within the Constitution – a set of checks and balances. Separating powers, with checks and balances, made the U.S. government unique when it emerged in 1787. The Constitution describes a system of checks and balances and sets up a separation of powers.
The Constitution separates the three branches of governance through the first three articles. Article I applies to the Legislative Branch of government, Article II refers to the Executive Branch of government, and Article III concerns the Judicial Branch of government (Unit 1A, 14). The Constitution enumerates the duties and responsibilities of the respective branches of government in the relevant Constitutional articles. Article I states, “All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States” (Constitution, Article I Section 1). This separates the legislative power from the other two branches as Congress – alone – holds all legislative powers. Article II states, “The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America” (Constitution, Article II Section 1). Thus, the Executive branch – previously denied legislative powers – finds itself vested with the executive power exclusively. As “the” is a definite article, only the Executive bran...
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...he Supreme Court proved these points. After passing through the preceding paragraphs, it is clear the Constitution describes a system of checks and balances and sets up a separation of powers.
References
American Military University Faculty. Course Materials Unit 1A: The Foundations of American Government. https://online.apus.edu/educator/student/ [the rest of the URL is deleted as it contains information tied to my student ID number, etc. in the URL and this piece of html code presents a security risk] (accessed November 22, 2010).
Mount, Steve. Constitutional Topic: Checks and Balances. USConstitution.net http://www.usconstitution.net/consttop_cnb.html (accessed November 22, 2010).
U.S. Constitution. http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/constitution_transcript.html (accessed November 22, 2010).
So they made the Constitution. The constitution protects America by, Federalism, Separation of Powers and checks and balances. Federalism helps protect America from tyranny. It lets the states and the government both have power. Doc A. -.
To start out with, the constitution divided power so no one branch or person had complete power over the nation or others. In document B it states, ¨Liberty requires that the three departments of power are distinct and separate.¨ This means that in order to prevent and guard against tyranny we must have different and separate branches holding power if there is only one or they are too similar that could create a small group with close to complete power creating a tyranny. Power must be separated into three branches so that they may check and limit each other so that no laws are passed that will harm the nation and are unconstitutional. The three branches are very separate but can
Checks and Balances. Checks and balances is a system that is a part of out U.S. Constitution. This system was put in to place so that no part of government would have too much power. The three branches: judicial, legislative and executive are constantly granting and checking the other branches actions, this is to make sure no one person can gain an excessive amount of control in government. For example according to ," the legislative branch is in charge of making laws. The executive branch can veto the law, thus making it harder for the legislative branch to pass the law. The judicial branch may also say that the law is unconstitutional and thus make sure it is not a law.The legislative branch can also remove a president or judge that is not doing his/her job properly. The executive branch appoints judges and the legislative branch approves the choice of the executive branch. Again, the branches check and balance each other so that no one branch has too much power".
O’Connor, K., Sabato, L. J., Yanus, A. B, Gibson, Jr., L. T., & Robinson, C. (2011). American Government: Roots and Reform 2011 Texas Edition. United States: Pearson Education, Inc.
After the American Revolution, America had earned it’s freedom from Britain. In order to govern this new country the Articles of Confederation was created. This document was flawed by the colonists fear of putting too much power into a central government. Knowing the document needed to be fixed a constitutional convention was called. The document created at this convention has been our constitution ever since. But even the Constitution was meet with criticism. One major concern when writing the constitution was how to protect the citizens rights. The Constitution did this through the preamble, the legislative process, the limit of presidential terms, the judicial branch, and the bill of rights.
September 17, 1787, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; during the heat of summer, in a stuffy assembly room of Independence Hall, a group of delegates gathered. After four months of closed-door quorums, a four page, hand written document was signed by thirty-nine attendees of the Constitutional Convention. This document, has come to be considered, by many, the framework to the greatest form of government every known; the Constitution of the United States. One of the first of its kind, the Constitution laid out the frame work for the government we know today. A government of the people, by the people, and for the people; constructed of three branches; each branch charged with their own responsibilities. Article one established the Congress or Legislative branch, which would be charged with legislative powers. Article two created the Executive branch, providing chief executive powers to a president, who would act in the capacity of Commander in Chief of the Country’s military forces. The President of the United States also acts as head of state to foreign nations and may establish treaties and foreign policies. Additionally, the President and the departments within the Executive branch were established as the arm of government that is responsible for implementing and enforcing the laws written by Congress. Thirdly, under Article three of the Constitution, the Judicial branch was established, and consequently afforded the duty of interpreting the laws, determining the constitutionality of the laws, and apply it to individual cases. The separation of powers is paramount to the system of checks and balances among the three branches; however, although separate they must support the functions of the others. Because of this, the Legislative an...
The Founding Fathers were the political leaders who took part in the American Revolution and won American Independence from Great Britain in 1776. They also participated in framing and adopting the Constitution in 1788. They are known in our history books as “The Framers” and are responsible for putting the new government, outlined in the new Constitution into effect. The framers were afraid of majority rule, so they created three separate branches of the government; Legislative, Executive, and Judicial. Each branch had their own powers, along with the ability to have some control over the other branches. The three branches ultimately work together to give us the government we know today. The following will explain the responsibilities and restrictions each branch of government are given, and how they ‘check and balance’ each other.
"This inquiry will naturally divide itself into three branches- the objects to be provided for by a federal government, the quantity of power necessary to the accomplishment of those objects, the persons whom that power ought to operate," writes Alexander Hamilton in the Federalist #23 in reference to the separation of powers. The basic concept here is the idea of the federal government being divided into three separate branches that would balance excessive democracy through a system of checks on each other. The three branches, respectively known as the legislature (Article I), the executive (Article II), and the judiciary (Article III), were designed to entice the opponents of the Co...
MARTIN KELLY, Overview of United States Government and Politics Foundation and Principles, 2011, retrieved February 21st 2011 from http://americanhistory.about.com/od/governmentandpolitics/a/amgovoverview.htm
Our Constitution establishes three branches of government and defines their very existence. The reason for the three branches is to separate the powers. The phrase “separation of powers” isn’t in the constitution, but it best explains the intention of the Constitution. It is essential that the assignment of lawmaking, enforcing and interpreting be spread out among the separated powers to ensure that all power doesn’t fall into the lap of one group, or even a power-hungry individual. The powers of which I’m speaking that were intentionally separated by way of the Constitution are the Legislative Branch, Executive Branch and finally, the Judicial Branch.
The founding fathers of the American Constitution divided the government up into the following three branches to prevent the majority from ruling with an iron fist; legislative, judicial, and executive. The three braches were created by the Constitution: Article 1, Legislative branch made up of the House and the Senate, collectively known as Congress; Article 2, Executive branch, or President; Article 3, Judicial branch, made up of the federal courts and the Supreme Court. This was done in efforts to distribute power amongst the three so that one would not have more power than the other. Each branch has the ability to check the power of the other branches. This power check of the other branches is referred to as the checks and balances, better known as the Separation of Powers. This was to prevent tyriny.
The principle of separation of powers is laid out in Articles I, II, and III, in effort to avoid tyranny. It is a part of a system called check and balances. The check and balances play the roles of the three branches of government. This system was made so that no one branch will over power the other. The three branches come together and help one another by being independent of the other. The legislative branch consists of the Congress, the judicial branch consists of the courts, and the executive branch consists of the president. For an example, when a bill is in progress and the chief executive (president or governor) does not approve of it, he can reject legislation and return it to the legislature with reasons for the rejection. This is a process called veto power.
Before the adoption of the United States Constitution, the U.S. was governed by the Articles of Confederation. These articles stated that almost every function of the government was chartered by the legislature known as Congress. There was no distinction between legislative or executive powers. This was a major shortcoming in how the United States was governed as many leaders became dissatisfied with how the government was structured by the Articles of Confederation. They felt that the government was too weak to effectively deal with the upcoming challenges. In 1787, an agreement was made by delegates at the Constitutional Convention that a national judiciary needed to be established. This agreement became known as The Constitution of the United States, which explicitly granted certain powers to each of the three branches of the federal government, while reserving other powers exclusively to the states or to the people as individuals. It is, in its own words, “the supreme Law of the Land” (Shmoop Editorial Team).
Between 1787 and 1791 the Framers of the US Constitution established a system of government upon principles that had been discussed and partially implemented in many countries over the course of several centuries, but never before in such a pure and complete design, which we call a constitutional republic. Since then, the design has often been imitated, but important principles have often been ignored in those imitations, with the result that their governments fall short of being true republics or truly constitutional. The Framers of the Constitution tried very hard to design a system that would not allow any one person or group within the government to gain too much power. Personally, I think they succeeded. In order to guard against what one of the Founding Fathers called an "excess of democracy," the Constitution was built with many ways to limit the government's power. Among these methods were separating the three branches, splitting the legislature so laws are carefully considered, and requiring members of Congress to meet certain criteria to qualify for office. The Founders did leave a few problems along with their system.
A constitution is the system of fundamental principles according to which a nation is governed. Our founding fathers created the US Constitution to set specific standards for our country. We must ask ourselves why our founding fathers created the Constitution in the first place. America revolted against the British due to their monarchy form of government. After the American Revolution, each of the original 13 colonies operated under its own rules of government. Most states were against any form of centralized rule from the government. They feared that what happened in England would happen again. They decided to write the Articles of Confederation, which was ratified in 1781. It was not effective and it led to many problems. The central government could not regulate commerce between states, deal with foreign governments or settle disputes. The country was falling apart at its seams. The central government could not provide assistance to the state because there wasn’t a central army. When they realized that the Articles of Confederation was not up to par, they held a convention, known as the Constitutional Convention of 1787. As a result of t...