More handpicked essays just for you.
Edmund burke classical liberalism
Bicameral legislature apush
The establishment of American federal government
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
When the formation of the Constitution came into play, the framers sought to form a type of branch in the government known as the bicameral legislative branch. Bicameral, meaning two of a lawmaking groups and legislative, the type of government that writes debates and passes laws; composed of two chambers or branches. Therefor America brought this concept into their system, having the United States Congress which has the House of Representatives and the Senate. Two branches of the same type of government but divided to allow a separation of power and unity. The quote “Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely”, is often used to describe the bicameral legislative branch, so the separation and different requirements, personalities, …show more content…
and duties of the two groups is necessary to accomplish the highest beneficial satisfactory for this country. The two historical reasons why the Founders created a bicameral legislature are the safety of national denomination from a specific branch in government and the compromise of people having a say so in their representatives. “History has time and again shown that unlimited power in the hands of one person or group in most cases means that others are suppressed or their powers curtailed. The separation of powers in a democracy is to prevent abuse of power and to safeguard freedom for all.” The federal government has learned from every ancient Empire that the power held by one dominate group only causes distress from others that may include, rebellion, corruption, and even annihilation of the society. When making the Constitution, the Founders wanted to keep as far away from this possibility as they could, so the obvious answer was the separation of national powers among different subunits. The government in the United States is therefore made up of the House of Representatives and the Senate. From there, the House of Representatives breaks down into three smaller subunit branches; the executive, the legislative and the judiciary. The separation of powers is an essential element of the Rule of Law, and is inscribed into the Constitution. “All Bills for raising Revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives; but the Senate may propose or concur with Amendments as on other Bills. Every Bill which shall have passed the House of Representatives and the Senate, shall, before it becomes a Law, be presented to the President of the United States” (Article 1 Section 7). The three branches under the House often approve each other’s work to make sure each branch is doings its own job. This is also known as checking and balancing, this being the key to all the groups staying intact. As James Madison argued in the Federalist Papers (No. 51), "Ambition must be made to counteract ambition." The United States’ system of separated powers is not designed for maximize efficiency; it is designed to maximize freedom for all. "I know of no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but inform their discretion." Thomas Jefferson quote is the meaning of a bicameral legislature; the people have a say in who they want to represent them and compromise is evident.
In both, the House of Representatives and the Senate, the people get to elect who they want to represent for their state. The populous states like Texas, California and New York wanted representation based on the number of their citizens. The smaller states, of course, wanted to have an equal vote so there was a compromise. The House addresses the first concern (that is, the more people you have in your state, the more representatives you can elect to the House of Representatives) and the Senate addresses the second concern (that is, no matter how small of a state you are, you get the same number of Senators – two). This agreement was part of what is called The Great Compromise which, in turn, led to the Permanent Seat of Government Act establishing the nation’s federal capital in Washington, DC. Because of this, the people of the states all got what they wanted without any major conflictions. "All government, indeed every human benefit and enjoyment, every virtue, and every prudent act, is founded on compromise and barter.” (Edmund Burke). Citizens can compromise in a bicameral legislative because they get to elect their leaders from their people in their states to represent them in their Congress. This makes sure that every state has the opinion of their people in the decisions involving our country. As Adlai Stevenson once said, “citizens of this democracy, you are the rulers and the ruled, the lawgivers and the law-abiding, the beginning and the
end." As per the Constitution, the U.S. House of Representatives makes and passes federal laws. The House is one of Congress’s two chambers, and part of the federal government’s legislative branch. The number of voting representatives in the House is fixed by law at no more than 435, proportionally representing the population of the 50 states. The bigger the state, the more representatives from that state. The Constitution requires a census to be taken every 10 years. If a state's population increases, that state's number of representatives increases also. In order to become a representative you must be at least 25 years old, a United States citizen for at least seven years and living in the state they want to represent. These representatives serve two year terms acquiring duties such as introducing bills and resolutions, offer amendments and serve on committees. There are twenty committees that representatives can serve on. These include: Agriculture; Appropriations; Armed Services; Budget; Commerce; Education and the Workforce; Ethics; Financial Services; Foreign Affairs; Homeland Security; House Administration; Judiciary; Natural Resources; Oversight and Government Reform; Rules; Science, Space, and Technology; Small Business; Transportation and Infrastructure; Veterans’ Affairs; and Ways and Means. United States Representatives are responsible for choosing the President in the event that the Electoral College is unable to provide a decision. The daily life of a House representative is extremely busy. Their day consists of early in the morning topical briefings, moving quickly among caucus and committee meetings and hearings. They vote on bills, speak with constituents and other groups, and review constituent mail, press clips and various reports. Work can continue into the evening with receptions or fundraising events. The House gets less media coverage for their work and there are more restraints or rule established without. “No Person shall be a Senator who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty Years, and been nine Years a Citizen of the United States, and who shall not, when elected, be an Inhabitant of that State for which he shall be chosen” (U.S. Constitution, Article I, section 3, clause 3). The Senate is the other leading role in the United States Congress. The Senate representatives are also elected by the people in their state. The difference between the House and Senate is that two senators are chosen to represent their state; no more, no less. The lasting term of a Senate is 6 years and the power of the Senates is more evenly distributed throughout the whole group. Senators are restricted from introducing bills that raise revenue, such as tax bills. The Senate is permitted to reject or make amendments to such bills however. While the House gets to determine the President if the votes are tied, a senator, on the other hand, may be called on to vote for a Vice President if the electoral vote are tied. Due to the high volume and complexity of its work, the Senate divides its tasks among 20 committees, 68 subcommittees, and 4 joint committees. Although the Senate committee system is similar to that of the House of Representatives, it has its own guidelines, within which each committee adopts its own rules. These include: Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry, Appropriations, Armed Services, Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, Budget, Commerce, Science, and Transportation, Energy and Natural Resources, Environment and Public Works, Finance, Foreign Relations, Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions, Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, Judiciary, Rules and Administration, Small Business and Entrepreneurship, Veterans' Affairs. A typical day in a senator’s life consists of morning staff updates, constituent meetings, detailed legislative briefing, interest group meetings, hearings, floor votes and debate, and evening fundraisers. Senators are more noticed by the media for their actions and many of them go on to try for election of presidential status or other higher up political authorities.
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
Senate... senate shall be composed of two senators from each state”, Stated document D. This clearly explains that Representation in Congress should be based on population in the House of Representatives and equality in the Senate by sending two senators from each state no matter the size of the state.*The Great Compromise guard against tyranny by Hensing a double security by having two systems within the
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...
As I stated earlier each state wanted to be represented according to different factors. The states with bigger populations wanted representation to be based solely off of population. The states with smaller populations wanted there to be a fixed number of representatives per state, regardless of size or population. The Connecticut Compromise resolved this issue by forming the two houses that we have today.
Luckily, a compromise was reached. The outcome of this compromise was that the House of Representatives is to be based of the population size of the states, which, of course, benefited the larger states. But, the Senate benefited the smaller states, all states from Virginia to Georgia having equal representation.
Our Legislative Branch has two chambers or as some will call it bicameral. The chambers consist of the Senate and the House of Representatives just like the National Legislative Branch. In our Senate we currently have a total of 31 members and there are 150 members in the House of Representatives. Senators hold their seat for 4 years and their election years are spread out while the House of Representatives are elected for two-year terms. In our Texas Legislature we have a few authority figures. “The Texas Constitution provides that the lieutenant governor shall serve as president of the senate, the presiding officer of that body. The lieutenant governor is elected statewide by voters of Texas and is the second-highest ranking officer of the executive branch of government”. (Texas Medical Associaton) In the House of Representatives we have a Speaker of the House who is chosen in each time a new legislature starts by its own members. “The speaker maintains order during floor debate, recognizing legislators who wish to speak and ruling on procedural matters.” (Joe Straus Speaker) There are also many committees who act as important gatekeepers and shape the proposed legislation. (University of Texas at Austin). The main pu...
"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.
American politics is often defined by a continuing power conflict between the executive and the legislative branches of the government. This struggle for political power between the two stronger branches of the three is inherent in the Constitution, itself. The concepts of separation of powers and checks and balances ensure that the branches of government will remain in conflict and provide a balance that keeps the entire government under control. As it was first established, the executive branch was much smaller and weaker than as we know it today. Consequently, the legislative branch was unquestionably dominant. Over the course of history, the executive branch grew in both size and power to the point where it occasionally overtook the legislative and today rivals the legislative in a much closer political battle. Today both branches have major factors that contribute to their power, but on the whole the legislative remains the lastingly dominant branch.
There are only a few things keeping the Legislative branch from getting out of control and that is its size and the implied powers that they have given to the other branches. Currently the United States congress is comprised of two houses, The Senate, and The House of Representatives. In which the senate is made up of one hundred people, fifty from each state. And the House of Representatives is made up of four hundred and sixty five publicly elected officials. With so many conflicting ideologies, because of geography and other factors, it is hard to please enough people to sway into deci...
The legislative, executive, and judicial branches represent the constitutional infrastructure foreseen by the Founding Fathers for our nation 's governing body. Together, they work to maintain a system of lawmaking and administration based on checks and balances, and separation of powers intended to make certain that no individual or embodiment of government ever becomes too controlling. America is governed by a democratic government or a democracy which is a government by the people, in which the power is established in the people themselves. The people then elect representatives who carry out their power in a free electoral system. The United States government’s basic claim is to serve the people and only through a combined effort can we
Bicameral Legislature Bicameral legislature- A congress made up of two houses. In the U.S. it is the senate and the House of Representatives. Constitutional convention agreed to a bicameral legislation.
Explain the differences in between unicameral and bicameral legislatures. What are their virtues and vices?
The purpose of the two branches is to divide power and not have one branch fully have power and control; both, the governor and the legislative work together to create laws and overseeing each other. Yet this is not perfect and not always is follow. Conflict between the two branches is a built-in feature of American government. Our nation's founders created a system that divides authority among the legislature, governor and courts to eliminate concentrated power in one place. But separation of powers is not absolute, and the conflicts that arise are usually resolved through the political process.