Within the Constitution, there are many features that are absolutely vital to the success of not only the longevity but success of the government it established. Certain features prevent one aspect of government becoming tyrannical in its power, and some establish the role of constituent states in policy making. While each of these is different, each with a similar role, each must be examined for the reasoning behind their addition to the Constitution. These specific additions are checks and balances, the separation of power, and Federalism.
The first feature, checks and balances, came to be out of fear on the part of the founders. During the Revolutionary War, America fought against a tyrannical monarchy, under which they had little freedoms or choice. This was still quite fresh in the minds of the founders, as they did not want to establish a government that was all-powerful and at the same time still effective in its role in
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governing the nation. What transpired was a discourse on the role and limitations of each branch of government, from the legislative to the judicial. These limitations formed the basis of the checks and balances system that is present to this day. It was in the nation’s best interest to place limits on the power of every branch of government so as to not weaken one in favor of strengthening another. In addition, it was the responsibility to prevent an abuse of power by the two branches not privy to it, to protect the constituents of the nation. “Therefore, measures are established to guarantee all people potentially affected by the decisions of an individual or group have (1) an input in the decision, (2) veto power over the decision, or, (3) legal protection from injury as a result of the decision” (New World Encyclopedia, 2015, para. 9). So, during the drafting the Constitution, it was wholly important to create an equal distribution of power within the government, and the ability to prevent an abuse of power from any branch. The next necessary feature within the Constitution is the separation of powers.
What this term means is that within the government of the United States, each branch of government, whether judicial, executive, or legislative, has certain roles they fulfill in governmental proceedings, and as a result, each branch is limited from becoming too powerful. Why this particular addition is necessary to the Constitution is an extension of the founding fathers goal in preventing a concentration of power within any one branch of government. Each branch of government has its powers and its limitations to facilitate not only the functioning of the government but its success. In fact, it is the separation of powers within the government that allows it to function despite the powers that each branch holds. “Separation of powers serves several goals. Separation prevents concentration of power (seen as the root of tyranny) and provides each branch with weapons to fight off encroachment by the other two branches” (Separation of Powers, n.d, para.
3). Finally, and perhaps the most significant addition to the Constitution, is the system of Federalism. Federalism is a system where power rests between a higher government, the federal government, and a lower government, the state and local governments. Why this is particularly essential to the Constitution, is what it functions as. This system takes the failure under the weak confederation formed from the Articles of Confederation, which was still very present on the minds of the drafters, and creates a balance of power within the two levels. It was evidently clear to the drafters that the current system, a weak confederation, could not survive, and yet they did not want to create a unitary system like which they had fought against for freedom. “The United States combines a bit of both: the size of the continental United States made a unitary system unwieldy, and the diverse interests of the states made confederation impossible” (U.S Constitution, 2010, para. 4). So, it was necessary to create a governmental system that found a balance between the federal and state governments and could still create a unified nation. The Constitution has within it many necessary features that create a government that is balanced in its power, and yet effective enough to govern such a large nation as America. Though the fears and concerns of the founding fathers, they created a document that has truly stood the test of time, and created a nation that is both diverse and unified. Checks and balances, the separation of power, and Federalism are all necessary to achieve the success that it has become, and without these features, the Constitution truly could not limit the power of government from becoming tyrannical.
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.
In May of 1787, 55 white wealthy males drifted into Philadelphia to work on the Constitution.
In conclusion this is why tyranny and federalism, separation of power, checks and balances and big and small states all mean that they are important to know also the branches are a big part especially in the separation of
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
The separation of powers keeps any one branch from gaining too much power by creating 3 separate, distinct branches power can be shared equally among. According to Madison, “Liberty requires that the three great departments of power should be separate and distinct.”(Document B) In other words, to avoid tyranny and achieve liberty, the three branches of government (executive, legislative, and judicial) must be separate and diverse. The purpose of a separation of powers is to divide the powers of the government so there is not only one central source of power. The three branches must be as distinct as possible to avoid falling into the hands of one individual leader. There are also checks and balances between these three branches. Checks and balances are a system of each branch monitoring an...
separation of powers, which means that the government is separated into separate branches so that they can spread out the power so that one branch of government can have more pull in what happen in the decisions made for the well-being of the country. One way that the documents show the way that the constitution uses the separation of powers to guard against tyranny is when it has the people in the government that make the largest decisions able to serve for a term of only a few years. The separation of powers protects against tyranny because it makes sure that one branch of government can be more powerful and have more say than another so that there can 't be any tyranny. This means that the Legislative Branch should be completely different from the Executive or the Judicial Branch. This would separate all the powers needed into three separate parties. The different branches could have different viewpoints to make sure that almost everyone is pleased with the government. This may prevent tyranny by making people not want to try to take over the government because they think it is in good hands and the three branches of government are hard to take over, since there are three whole branches. In conclusion, the Constitution, may protect us from tyranny in this
The Constitution of the United States is one of the most iconic and important documents of all time. However, when it was first generated, its writing and ratification caused some major concerns. The purpose of the Constitution was to address the great number of issues of a new nation. To be more specific, the Constitution was meant to resolve the political, economic, and social problems of the country. Nevertheless, the document spurred much discussion and concern over people’s rights, the economy, and political corruption.
The United States of America is one of the most powerful nation-states in the world today. The framers of the American Constitution spent a great deal of time and effort into making sure this power wasn’t too centralized in one aspect of the government. They created three branches of government to help maintain a checks and balance system. In this paper I will discuss these three branches, the legislative, the executive, and the judicial, for both the state and federal level.
The United States' Constitution is one the most heralded documents in our nation's history. It is also the most copied Constitution in the world. Many nations have taken the ideals and values from our Constitution and instilled them in their own. It is amazing to think that after 200 years, it still holds relevance to our nation's politics and procedures. However, regardless of how important this document is to our government, the operation remains time consuming and ineffective. The U.S. Constitution established an inefficient system that encourages careful deliberation between government factions representing different and sometimes competing interests.
"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 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.
Federalism was majorly influenced by Alexander Hamilton, who was the dominant author of the Federalist Papers. Hamilton did not want to repeat the mistake that Great Britain made and believed that spreading the power to multiple sources of government, along with checks and balances would abolish tyranny. Furthermore, it would aid the people to be heard and their concerns to be resolved faster and with attention from their government. Federalism is when a nation has two sources of government instead of one, the two levels are national and state/local. Similar to many American qualities, having a federal government has its advantages and disadvantages. Three positive factors of federalism are that there is a more orderly system to dispute and
In May of 1787, in the city of Philadelphia, the delegates from all of the thirteen states held a meeting in order to make a better union. The end result was the Constitution of the United States. The delegates discussed which form of government would be the best suited for both the security, and the freedom that many had wanted to add to this new government. The delegates had denied both the confederal and the unitary forms of the new government for the new form which is called Federalism. Which was to be described as the constitutional relationship between the United States and the Federal government. Federalism is different from the other two types of government, unlike the unitary form of government, which is ruled by the central government,