More handpicked essays just for you.
The role of federalism
How did the constitution guard against tyranny checks and balances
The danger of federalists
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Throughout history, there has been countless times where a country is ran by tyranny, and countless times where tyranny negatively affects the country. Our country, the United States of America, was one of those countries at one point, but we thankfully got out of it from war. Since our country didn’t want to go back to tyranny, people had to create a system, and a set of principles that would prevent that from happening. So, the Constitution was made. Tyranny is a government ran by one person, or a small amount of people, and the United States got out of it, but we still had to establish a way to prevent it from happening again. The constitution did it’s job and protected against tyranny by the small states vs. large states, federalism, separation of power, and checks and balances. The small states vs. large state contributed to preventing tyranny because it gave a fair amount of power to each. In the House of Representatives, “the number of representatives shall not exceed one for every thirty thousand, but each state shall have a least one representative,” as stated in the document. It also states in the document that Virginia has ten representatives, and Pennsylvania had eight, the bigger states, whereas Rhode Island and Delaware only had one representative, the smaller states. In the …show more content…
Senate, on the other hand, gave each state two senators, with one vote each, no matter what size the state was. This prevented tyranny because the House of Representatives allowed the states to be ‘rewarded’ for their size, but it didn’t take away power from the small states, because they got equal representation in the Senate. This made sure that no state could feel that this was unfair, and try to break away, because all states got their fair amount of representatives, and the same amount of senates. Federalism helped protect from tyranny because it gave both the states, and the central government power. As said by the document,“The different governments will each control each other, at the same time that each will be controlled by itself.” Meaning that both governments have their own freedom, but are still regulating the other. The States had the power to hold elections, set up local governments, and establish schools, and the Central Government had the power to regulate trade, declare war, and make immigration laws. This gives each government their rightful power, which prevents against any tyranny coming about. If the States were to have too much power, the Central Government would attempt to gain more power than them, which could create a tyranny. And if the Central Government had too much power, then the states would attempt to gain more power. This balances everything out, giving both the Central Government, and the State's, power. Separation of Power influenced no tyranny because it equaled out all the power.
James Madison, a supporter of the Constitution, said,“ The accumulation of all powers… in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, whether hereditary, self-appointed, or elective, may be justly pronounced the very definition of tyranny.” This backs up the claim because it is telling us that if there was no separation of power, then there would be tyranny. The separation of power prevented any branch from getting too much power by giving each branch an equal amount of power. If one branch was to gain more power than another, then the balanced would be thrown off, and tyranny would be
set. The checks and balances system defends against tyranny by allowing each branch to have some sort of say in the other branches, and protects against too much power. In the document it says,“...the constant aim is to divide and arrange the several offices in such a manner as that they may be a check on the other…” This gives each branch their own personalized power over another. For example, the legislature has power over the Judicial branch because they can impeach judges and remove them from office. The Judicial Branch have power of the Executive Branch because the court can declare presidential acts unconstitutional. The Executive Branch has power over the Legislative Branch because the President can veto Congressional legislation. These are just a few examples on how the branches can check each other. It doesn’t let the branches go out on their own, and make bad decisions, and gain more power, but it does allow the branches to have enough freedom to prevent tyranny. The Constitution defends against tyranny by the small states vs. large states, federalism, separation of power, and checks and balances. The Constitution strongly protects us of tyranny, and if the Constitution didn’t protect us, then the country would fall back into the hands of tyranny. But, the Constitution has been doing its job since 1787, and it will continue to do so.
The fourth guard against tyranny was Small states vs. Large states which means that it separates the representatives equally for all states so they have the same chances to have votes.It says in Document D that the votes for the house are represented one for every thirty thousand but each state must have one representative.Small states vs. Large states compromise protects against tyranny because it made the number of votes fair by representing them
The separation of powers separates the central government into three branches. The three branches are the executive branch, the judicial branch, and the legislative branch. All of the different branches have power over specific things. This guards against tyranny because it doesn’t allow any of the branches to do whatever they want. In Doc B, it says that the great departments of power should be separate and distinct. This helps because if they all had the same power, they would have control over anything they wanted to.
The same things go to the three branches of government; they don't have too much power because of checks and balances. So each branch has its own powers split evenly. This is another reason why separation of powers protect America from tyranny. Checks and balances help protect America from tyranny. Checks and balances protect America because each branch can cancel out one another.
Separation of power prevents the power from falling all into the hands of one or a few and therefore having tyranny. (Madison FP # 47) It prevents this by having the U.S Government split into three branches, Legislative Branch (Congress), Executive Branch (President), Judicial Branch (The Courts). The Con...
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
In conclusion the Constitution does guard against tyranny [Tyranny was prevented by dividing the government into state and federal power when dividing each government into three branches remove the 3 branches with checks and balances.][ Also With federalism, separation of powers, checks and balances, and the Great Compromise without these four guards against tyranny and the Constitution life will be different today for example, larger states could easily rule the smaller States and the president could easily become a dictator.]* These examples show the Constitution guards against tyranny are important because they keep tyrants/tyranny out of our
In addition, the Great Compromise guarded against tyranny by making sure the larger states would not have more power than the smaller states. The Great Compromise was an agreement to create a two-house legislature composed of a House of Representatives and a Senate. A state’s amount of representatives in the House would be based off of population, while the representation for each state in the Senate is equal.(Document D) Thus, the larger states, such as New York, would not overpower the smaller states, such as Rhode Island.
Madison’s, The Federalist, No. 51 discusses separation of powers in the government and more of the Republican system of government. Madison says outright that “we see it particularly displayed in all the subordinate distributions of power, where the constant aim is to decide and arrange the several officers in such manner as that each may be a check on the other.”
The men who wrote the American constitution agreed with Thomas Hobbes that humans were naturally evil. Therefore, they agreed that in order to prevent a dictatorship or monarchy, the citizens should have influence in the government. The writers wanted a more ideal constitution, but they realized evil human motives would never change. One of the main goals of the constitution was to create a balanced government that would allow the citizens to prevent each other from being corrupt. The writers wanted to give citizens liberty, but they did not want to give people so much liberty that they would have an uncontrollable amount of power. The writers agreed that a citizen’s influence in government would be proportionate to that individual’s property.
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...
"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...
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 Constitution is important because it was expressly designed to limit powers into three co-ordinate branches, the legislative, executive, and judiciary branch; none of which was to have supremacy over the others. This separation of powers with the checks and balances which each branch was given over the others was designed to prevent any branch, from infringing individual liberties safeguarded by the Constitution. I think the U.S. Constitution was a way for the U.S. to establish government which was a negotiation between the two former governments, a monarchy and total state power. I think by creating the checks and balances, people’s rights would be safer and they would feel more secure not having one branch of government with absolute power. What I found most interesting about the Constitution was how complex and detailed the framers made it, to effectively explain and limit the individual branches of power in government. In the words of Thomas Paine, "a government without a constitution is power without right". Meaning that for power to be granted, it is necessary to establish a constitution.
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.
The principle of federalism was established by the Constitution to protect the country from tyranny as well. In this case, it is said that the national government cannot over power the fifty states. In the fifty states, each state consists of two democratic representatives.