The Constitution Synthesis
The Articles of
Confederation were nothing more than a failure. Had the nation
continued to use it for reference, the United States would have
dissolved and formed separate smaller confederacies. The weakly set
up national government prevented it from imposing taxes and forced it
to rely on state donations, leading to a desperation for funds. The
national government had an army and navy, but couldn't draft
soldiers. In the end, Congress had to dismiss its army in order to
save money. After the framers of the Constitution cast it away to
adopt the much better and revised Constitution, there were still many
questions on how exactly the government should operate. Obviously,
the Articles had given the states too much power and weakened the
federal government to the point where it could do almost nothing.
However, many people feared a strong national government since would
mean having a situation that was almost a duplicate to the reign of
Europe over the colonies. The public did not want their rights
abused, as it would result in a second war that for the same reasons.
In this case, the goal of the framers was to find a government with a
balance in the middle.
In order to officially
break away from Great Britain, the Declaration of Independence was
written in order to formally establish the separation. The
Declaration paraphrased many main components of John Locke's
definition and description of natural rights. For example, the words
“Life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness” were another way of
saying, “Unalienable rights.” If the government were to fail to
protect the rights of the citizens, the people had every right to
overthrow the government. In addition, the Declaration listed the
various reasons for the separation, including taxation without
representation, unjust trials, and quartering of soldiers.
Once America was officially
its own nation, there was the question on how the nation's government
should be set up. The framers of the Constitution held an idea that
the new government should be a mix between limited government, where
limits are placed on power so people's natural rights aren't
threatened, and self-government, where people are the ultimate source
of governing authority. Since the having a nation completely ruled
through separate state governments did not work out, the framers
aimed for a reduction in state power and increasing national
government power that wasn't too dominating. This was done with
various checks and balances on power.
For example, when deciding
on the structure and representation of Congress, the Virginia Plan
proposal and New Jersey Plan proposal clashed. Since the Virginia
Plan stated that Congress representation should be proportional to
state population size, the bigger states, such as Virginia, would
have more representatives and a domination in Congress. The New
Jersey Plan proposed the idea to given each state equal
representation in order to balance out power and makes things fair.
However, this plan wasn't well met by the larger states. In the end,
Great Compromise fixed this conflict by creating a two house
Congress, one having representation based on population (HOR) and the
other giving each state two votes (Senate), in which each house would
keep each other in check.
In order to fully establish
the idea of a limited government, several factors are necessary. The
most basic and blatantly obvious option would be the use of grants of
power. The national government's power is limited to control over
taxes, borrowing money, declaring war, creating an army/navy, etc.
Any power not granted to the government by the Constitution is denied
the branches of government also had to be put into check as well. The
powers of the government are split into three branches that share
various powers in order to prevent one branch from dominating: the
executive, legislative, and judiciary.
The legislative branch is
composed of Congress, House of Representatives and Senate, and has
the main powers to make laws, collect taxes, regulate coin money and
commerce, establish post offices, declare war, raise an army and
navy, define and punish piracy, establish federal courts, and
establish a national guard. At the same time, the legislative
branch's power are limited since it needs a majority vote in order to
for a legislation to be passed (HOR and Senate can cancel each other
out). In addition, executive branch has right the to veto acts of
Congress, recommend legislation, and call special sessions of
Congress and the judiciary's right to interpret disputed acts of
Congress and use judicial review.
The executive branch is
composed of mainly the president and the Cabinet and has the main
powers to sign or a veto legislation, act as the commander in chief
of armed forces, grant pardons, call special sessions of Congress,
and appoint ambassadors and justices. However the executive branch is
still very limited in its power since most of its actions, such as
treaties and appointments require the approval and funding from
Congress. In addition, Congress can impeach and remove the president
from offices if he/she commits an crime and the judicial branch can
declare the president's actions to be unlawful.
The judicial branch's major
power lies in the “judicial power that extends to all cases, in law
and equality, arising under this Constitution, the law of the United
States, and the treaties made...”, or judicial review. Over the
time the importance and strength of of judicial review has grown
since it has the ability to determine whether if actions go with or
against the Constitution. For example, in the case of Marbury v
Madison, William Marbury did not receive his judicial commission
after the end of John Adam's presidential term since president
Jefferson had told Madison not to give it to him. When Marbury took
the case to court, Marshall stated that Marbury had every right to a
commission, but the Supreme Court could not give him the mandamus
(court order allowing the act) since it did not the constitutional
authority to do so. To fix this, Congress tried to create a law that
gave the Court such power; however, Marshall stated that the
Constitution only allows Congress to expand Supreme Court authority
through a constitutional amendment and deemed such an action as
unconstitutional. Marshall used power of judicial review to support
Marbury's right and show Jefferson had failed in his constitutional
duty to execute laws faithfully.
However, even as the
Constitution began to gradually progress and address the various
worries of the people, there were still many citizens who opposed the
ratification of the Constitution. These type of people were called
Anti-Federalists. Since the Anti-Federalists were made up of mostly
the common class farmers, they were afraid that their rights as the
people would be forgotten and ignored by the government over time.
Their counterparts, the Federalists, or Constitution supporters,
stated that the Constitution did the exact opposite and ensured the
protection of the minority by balancing governmental power among
sections. Despite knowing this, the Anti-Federalists insisted on
ratifying the Constitution only until it has an official Bill of
Rights that listed the actual natural rights of the people.
The Bill of Rights are the
current first ten amendments of the Constitution. Originally, the
delegates found including a Bill of Rights to be unnecessary since
the Constitution already stated that the government could not engage
in activity not authorized by Congress, meaning that they couldn't
establish any acts/laws that would hurt the state's rights in any
way. However, after much urging and demand from the people to include
the Bill of Rights anyway for protection, the delegates eventually
added it in. The Bill of Rights include certain inalienable rights
such as the right a jury trial, religion, civil liberties, and
speech.
Even after the Constitution
was ratified, there were still complaints and demands for
alterations. These changes are known as the Amendments. Many people
were questioning the power of the majority and wanted more power
reserved for the people. For example, the 14th amendment limits the
state governments' power by prohibiting them from making laws that
deny the equal protection for its citizens. The 17th amendment
altered election of public officials by allowing people to directly
elect senators instead of having the state legislatures choose. The
22nd amendment limited the power of the president by limiting the
number of terms a president can serve. Since president was chosen by
electors rather than the actual people, President Andrew Jackson
urged states to award their electoral votes to the candidate that
wins the popular vote in order to have a vote that accurately
represented the opinions of the public. Normally, the popular vote
determines the winner in most elections. In addition, during the
Progressive period, the ideas of initiative and referendum (allows
people to vote directly on legislative issues) and recall election
(allows people to petition officeholder to reelection before the end
of his or her term) were also established.
When the Constitution was
first ratified in 1787, the nation was based on a constitutional
democratic republic. Constitutional meant that power was used in
accordance with law and respected individual rights, democratic stood
for majority rule, and republic represented institutions that
moderated the powers of others. Today; however, the United States is
based more on a model of self government since the U.S holds
executive and legislative elections more than any other democracy and
relies on primary elections
rather than party organizations for the selection of party nominees.
Popular majorities must work through barriers to power such as
divided branches and staggered terms of office, as opposed to
European democracies, where legislative and executive power is not
divided, but checked by judiciary. Over the years, the nation has
gradually changed its ideals and goals. Although America is still
slowly determining what is the best for its people and learning from
its mistakes, the Constitution still keeps the nation running with
the government it set up over two hundred years ago.
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