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Separation of powers in the United States
Separation of powers in the United States
Separation of powers in the United States
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When the Founders wrote the Constitution, they divided governmental powers into three branches: the judicial, the legislative, and the executive. In making the legislative branch the first branch of government, the Founders envisioned Congress to also be the primary branch of national government (Lenz, 2013). Considering the events that led to the Constitution, it is understandable that the Founders would wish for Congress to be the most powerful branch of government. The Founders, having experienced the oppression of the British Parliament, were careful to craft a Constitution that would not allow for any branch of government to become so powerful as to breed tyranny (Lenz, 2013). This past experience explains the Founders’ motivations to emphasize the legislative branch over the execute branch of …show more content…
Today, that power has shifted, and the executive branch has more power than the Congress (Lenz, 2013). Though still a powerful body, the Congress is no longer considered to be the center of federal government. Parliamentary systems of government that have risen in power since the Founding of the Republic do not have this separation of legislative and executive branches. The Constitution is unique in this separation, as most of the world has rejected the concerns of the Founders, and do not see the need for a separation of the two branches (Krotoszynski, 2010). Most of the world is content in knowing that constitutional order will be maintained as long as there is some form of check on executive legislative power. It is difficult to assess if one side is right or wrong, but there are plenty of proponents who value the separation of power set by the Constitution. These individuals believe that any attempt by Congress to modify or restructure the executive branch and its functions would hurt the Constitution. This would eventually hurt the entire government, and the nation as a whole (Harrington, 2007). Luckily, the system has adapted to the needs
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 three branches of the federal government is the Legislative, Judicial, and the Executive branch. According to the federalist papers, the Legislative branch is the strongest branch since they enact laws, therefore, by cutting the legislative branch in half by creating a Senate and a House of representatives, it makes the separation of powers more of a level playing field. Furthermore, the Judicial branch is considered the weakest out of the three since it has "...no influence over either the sword or the purse... can take no active resolution whatever... neither FORCE nor WILL, but merely judgment; and must... depend upon the aid of the executive arm... for... judgments” (Hamilton, Federalist 78) This means that it has no monetary or military power and that it relies directly on the legislative and executive branches to follow their rulings which makes sure that the government does not have too much power individually. Therefore, since it is the weakest branch, the court has the power of judicial review, which is the ability to decide whether acts by the other branches are constitutional or not (Hamilton, Federalist 78). Furthermore, one should not be concerned about the use of excess of power since according to Hamilton these are good people who aren’t influenced by outside sources other than the constitution. The separation of these three branches creates a system of checks and balances in which each individual form of government is independent of one another and is able to ensure that each other do not step out of line (Hamilton, Federalist
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 farmers of our Constitution recognized the need for separate powers as well as checks and balances among the executive, legislative and judicial branches. This in turn helps to "provide for the common defense". Separation of powers prevents one branch from becoming excessively dominant over the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution of the United States of America.: In order to accede to the preamble and adhere in its goals, the Constitution ensures this is by clearly stating the authority of the Congress in Article I Section 8 and the authority of the President in Article II Section 2. These fixed powers in the Constitution clearly state that one cannot act without permission or authorization of another. It is designed to that one cannot take action without consent of the other branch. This is prevalent in Article I Section 7 that states the process of how a law is passed. The fact that there are clear steps to the initiation of a law states the importance of separation of powers so that a single dominant branch does not arise.
In conclusion, it seems clear to me that the Legislative Branch holds huge power, and in my opinion has the most power of the three. No other branch seems to screams out “We the people” like this one. No other branch offers so many checks and balances to the other branches. This is the branch that writes and passes our laws, can supersede even a presidential veto if it has enough unity from its members within. Congress decides how federal money will be spent, approves presidential appointments, and impeach the President if deemed appropriately within.
...nd executive branches have yet to realize that neither reshuffling power nor changing rules is the answer. It is pointless to take a process that needs to be restructured and add new layers to it. Despite the many changes, its use as a political tool has remained. It is an instrument of control and subject to the politics of the President and Congress.
...ny of a branch by setting controls on each branch set by the other branches. Fairly equalizing representation in Congress protected the power of small states overall while preserving that of larger states. However, the framers may have mistakenly given the power to prevent tyranny to the government, not the people. The framers crafted a delicate system, but one that focused on creating strong inter-governmental relations. Since the first Constitution was drafted, power slowly began shifting to the national government. If the branches wished to control more, it would not matter if they controlled each other because they would all move together. The focus on creating a government as far away as possible from despotic in a group of white, mostly wealthy, and educated landowners may have prevented the creation of the sort of tyranny-free system the people wished for.
It has been said that the U.S. Constitution is deliberately inefficient because of it forces the other branches to check the powers eliminating one becoming more dominant than the other two. The three branches of government are legislative, executive, and judicial. The legislative branch enacts federal laws on a national level in Congress, which is comprised of the House of Representatives and the Senate. The executive bran...
...utive branch to gain an amount of power it had never had before. Despite this, Congress retains the benefits of that original constitutional favor and the battle for supremacy between the legislative and the executive branches has become a close one. The legislative branch, however, has a stability of power stemming directly from the Constitution that allows it to remain steadily powerful regardless of circumstances. The executive branch is much more susceptible to the effects of the times and the nature of the people elected to the office. This stability of power makes Congress unquestionably the lastingly dominant branch of American government.
In conclusion, The Legislative Branch is the most powerful branch of the United States government not only because of the powers given to them by the Constitution, but also the implied powers that Congress has. There is also Congress’s ability to triumph over the Checks and balances that limits their power. The only thing truly holding The Legislative Branch back from gaining all the power, is the large amount of people involved in the process and their difference and ideologies, and that Congress is split into multiple houses, with public opinion and elections affecting half of the branch of government. Therefore, The Legislative Branch is the most powerful branch of the United States Government.
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).
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
The United States government braces its power among three powerful branches, legislative, executive and judicial. These branches interact with one another to establish authority that is strong, yet equal to have power over the country. Each branch pursues certain responsibilities and duties to operate in an efficient and effective manner in which society upholds. The executive, legislative and judicial branches all interact amid each other to validate accuracy of the nation’s most powerful law of the land, the Constitution. It is important to know how these branches interact with each other to learn how a bill becomes a law. Reflecting on how the three branches promote a balance of power that is constructive to include the agendas and electoral roles that also plays a vast part in the government’s operation.
Under the Articles of Confederation, the legislative body possessed all authority, but this national authority was very weak. Since the early Americans distrusted the centralized British Government, they were hesitant to model it (Milkis, 5). This loose legislative body under the Articles of Confederation was regarded as a “league of friendship,” where all states had equal representation and they reserved major decisions for the state governments (Milkis, 5). The executive function at this national level was a committee-like group composed of legislators; the legislature would delegate certain representatives to execute certain laws (Milkis, 5). This proved to be a very inefficient and slow process because decisions required deliberation between more than one person and the legislature was not always in session. In sum, this was reflective of America’s distrust of any single executive authority, so the easy answer was to root the executive function in the legislative body where it is more accountable to the
In the second discussion, we broke down the functions of our three branches, legislative, executive and judicial. The primary function of the legislative branch would be to make and pass laws and creates budgets, while the executive branch enforces laws, and the judicial branch ensures that the constitution is followed. The legislative branch would remain mostly the same, being bicameral. House representatives would serve up to five terms of two years each while the term limits for the senate remain the same. The executive branch is similar to the United States as the term limits are the same, but in regards to military action, as Chief Commander, the president is allowed 180 days to propose a war to Congress or bring the troops back. The judicial department would be the same as the United States, except there would be a degree requirement of some form of government context to be in the Supreme Court, which has a life-long term