Presidential Impeachment “Whenever you have an efficient government, you have a dictatorship” - Harry S. Truman. Now, whether citizens agree or disagree with Harry S. Truman, he does bring up an interesting question. How does the United States not turn into a dictatorship, with so many countries overseas so easily overthrown? The answer is checks and balances. Checks and balances are the way that our three branches of government, executive, legislative, and judicial, check each other's actions to make sure the power between the branches stay balanced. The executive branch consists of the president. What happens is the president oversteps his bounds and disturbs the balance. The judicial and legislative branch can impeach him/her. By analyzing …show more content…
The executive branch consists of the president and vice president. The legislative branch is congress and the senate. The judicial branch is the supreme court and the nine justices that serve on it. The legislative branch decides if the president did something wrong that would qualify him/her for impeachment. In a way, the legislature is checking the president’s actions, which means the executive branch is being checked. Impeachment is important because it is the only way to remove the president from office without him/her dying or resigning. During the colonial era, King George lll ruled England and the thirteen colonies. King George III was a monarch, which meant that he became king because he was born into the royal bloodline. The only way King George III could not be king is if he were to die, or give up his right to the throne. The colonies were not fond of King George III. The founding fathers would have wanted a way to remove the president to keep him/her from gaining too much power, like King George …show more content…
Impeachment starts with the House of Representatives. This House can “impeach, or vote to bring charges of serious crimes against, a president”(Holt McDougal). Once the House of Representative concludes their wishes to impeach the president, they have to inform the House Judiciary Committee. The House Judiciary Committee then decides if the president as actually done something wrong. Next, the impeachment moves to the Full House who votes to launch a formal impeachment inquiry. Then, the House Judiciary Committee investigates the allegations. The evidence that they find are called articles. Once they finish investigating, the Judiciary Committee votes on which articles will be sent to the Full House for review. The articles are then sent to the House of Representatives who vote on which articles will be presented at the trial. Once at least one article is approved, the president is formally and officially impeached. The case then moves to the Senate who appoints members of congress as the prosecutors. (The president can choose any lawyers he wishes). The trial is held in front of the Senate who pose as the jury. The Chief Justice poses as the judge. After the trial is over, the Senate decides whether or not to convict the president. At least two-thirds or 67 of the Senators must vote the president guilty for that to be the final verdict. If the president is found guilty of the charges, then he is removed
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...
Government and dictators grow by devouring the rights of its citizens. Either the people hold power or the government holds power, and our Constitution very clearly places all power in the hands of the people. Without a doubt, Barack Obama is hell-bent on usurping that power. Given another five years, he very likely will succeed.
Impeachment is the ultiomate punishment for a president. It is a long and complicated rout to removing a public official from office. The Constitutional process Article II, section 4 specifies the procedures to be used to remove a public official from office(CNN/All Politics). The constitution states that and president found guilty for bribery, treason, or other high crimes and misdemeanors. There has been a long debate on what should be considered a high crime. Different people in the House share different views. Ultimately it is up to the Hose to decide to drop the charges or further the investigation. If the public official is found guilty a two thirds majority vote from the Senate is necessary. The most recent president to face an impeachment hearing was Bill Clinton. A previous case involving Richard Nixon, Watergate, was held in 1974. Rather than facing an embarrassment with impeachment Nixon chose to resign in disgrace.
Executive Branch basic job is to sign bills into law, and then must execute those same laws. The U.S. Executive Branch includes the President, the Vice President, and the Cabinet. The U.S. Executive branch checks both the Legislative and Judicial branch through the system of checks and balances. The President can veto laws bills passed by the Legislative branch, suspend appointments made by Congress, call special sessions of Congress, and recommend laws to the Congress. The Executive branch can nominate judges to serve in Judicial branch (which then must be approved by Congress) and is allowed to grant Presidential pardons. A pardon is the right of a leader to forgive someone from a punishment --The President is given the power to grant pardons to people convicted of federal crimes. An example of checks and balances used by the Executive branch was in 1974, President Gerald Ford pardoned Richard Nixon from the offenses of The Watergate Scandal, in which Richard Nixon knew about and supposedly authorized the illegal break-in and wiretapping of the Democratic National Committee offices. The framers of The Constitution gave a way to let Gerald Ford appeal offenses against Richard Nixon as a way to not further gain the hate of the public of The United States. In this fashion, the Executive Branch checks the Judicial Branch through the power of presidential
Out of all of the current presidents in our time the most interesting president to explore was President Richard Nixon and out of all of them he was the only one in term to resign. That Richard M. Nixon, President of the United States, is impeached for high crimes and misdemeanors, and that the following articles of impeachment to be executed to the fullest extent of their nature. His poor choices and decisions led to his resignation. Although he did have some good qualities in helping the U.S. the bad however override the good. In the CRS (Congressional Research Service) It states: “ Obstruction of justice is the impediment of governmental activities. There are a host of federal criminal laws that prohibit obstructions of justice. The six most general outlaw obstruction of judicial proceedings (18 U.S.C. 1503), witness tampering (18 U.S.C. 1512), witness retaliation (18 U.S.C. 1513), obstruction of Congressional or administrative proceedings (18 U.S.C. 1505), conspiracy to defraud The United States (18 U.S.C. 371), and contempt (a creature of statute, rule and common law). Simple perjury in a federal investigation or judicial proceedings carries an extensive fine and up to 5 years in prison.” This was the first article president Richard M. Nixon was charged with by the House of Judiciary Committee. The vote was 27 to 1 for Nixon to be charged with the first article of impeachment, which was Obstruction of Justice. In denial of his liability in part taking in the Watergate scandal by saying he wasn't involved in the scandal He pointed finger at others that were involved in the break-in. However, tapes were found of conversations that proved his involvement and he was going to be impeached. Before he was charged, he made a resignat...
The United States government is designed with checks and balances to ensure that no one branch can become more powerful than another. Though this may be the case, it is still possible that one branch of the our government can still be more powerful than the others. The equality of power in our government has constantly changed over the course of the life of the United States. Although these changes have occurred, we still have not made all of the branches equal and the inequality has been due to meet the demands of the time. For example, in 1938 our country was facing a depression and nothing was getting done. So, Roosevelt took it upon himself to give the Executive branch more power, to then in turn, help the country creep back out of the hole it had dug itself. After the country didn’t need the reform bills and the size of the government that Roosevelt had put it, things were then downsized and put into a more stable equilibrium. Though there were attempts to make everything equal, the Legislative Branch now holds the majority of the power, and is the most powerful branch that our government has.
Impeachment is “ a criminal proceeding instituted against a public official by a legislative body.” (Impeachment). This does not mean automatic removal from office, which is a common misconception. the article goes on to explain how in the United States, the reason impeachment is so rare at the presidential level is because it is quite a long process and keep the Congress occupied for months; due to this impeachment in only employed in the gravest of circumstances. Furthermore, it is not just presidents or federal officials who can be impeached, as 49 states (all but Oregon) have an impeachment procedure in place. Impeachment is considered to be an important part of the checks and balances that make the US government unique, however due to the complicated and time consuming process it is.
The U.S. Government is made up of three branches, a branch is similar to a department, and each of the three branches is responsible for different things. These three branches are the legislative branch, the executive branch, and the judicial branch. The three branches were established so that there would be a separation of powers. The separation of power helps to ensure that no one group has complete control over the entire decision making within the government. The U.S. Constitution is the original official documentation of the three branches and from that point forward the branches have been a part of the governing system of the United States.
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.
My opinion about the trial was that Harry S. Truman was guilty for the first charge. Which was that President Truman is hereby charged with crimes against humanity. I felt that he was guilty for that charger because dropping that huge bomb, and killing all of those people just to win a war is not justified. All of those civilian people suffered from all of those things for not really a good reason. For example a worker in Japan was just at his work and then the bomb went off. He survived but, other civilians that were there working did not. I also feel that they did not have a good enough warning. Yes, some people knew about the threat that had been sent out by the United States but, those people were mostly important people in Japan. There
(A History of the Constitution) This was included in the Executive Branch. The President is allowed two four year terms, if re-elected, to be in office. The Executive Branch says that President is the commander over the military and that the President has the power to veto legislative bills. The delegates decided that the President would be chosen by an electoral college. This meant that the states would vote for electors that would then elect the President. However, the Judicial Branch has a limited amount of powers. The Judicial Branch has a Supreme Court, which is the top dog of all other courts. This branch has the power to change laws through a judicial review. Then there is the Legislative Branch which controls all the other courts. These branches balance our
Power is a very delicate force and must be distributed properly. Much like wealth, power concentrates to a select few and tends to stay in that select group. The 2000 presidential election is an example of this where George W. Bush was elected president. The film, Fahrenheit 9/11 presents a view where our 43th president, with the help of many powerful political figures, was able to ignore the wishes of many people and remain as president of the United States. America, with all its touting as a democratic state, is an illiberal democracy with all the power consolidated into the few in Washington.
It then rests with the Senate to conduct an impeachment trial and to vote on whether the official should be removed from office.
The effectiveness of our democracy lies in our protection of the separation of powers. Over time, power has slowly shifted to the executive branch. In 1933, presidential emergency powers were considered, “There were real calls…for Franklin Roosevelt to seize dictatorial powers in order to deal with the Great Depression.” (1) In this state, total power was offered to one man. Roosevelt declined the offer but still violated Constitutional laws. Clearly, our democratic system was too slow of a process and was ineffective in getting things done. But, in government, when something is done once, it becomes more acceptable. Power was given
Once the Articles of Impeachment are approved in the House, the case is then forwarded to the Senate where a trial of sorts takes place. The House Judicial Council takes on the role of prosecutor, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court acts as judge, and the members of the Senate are the jury. The defendant is required to provide their own legal counsel.