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The United States Constitution is founded on the principles of natural law. This law governs and transcends any political activity is a state theory based on the idea of social contract, the people are the source and basis of the authority of the rulers. The Constitution defines the principles of a federation that recognizes both levels of government based on the separation and balance of powers and the division of responsibilities between the federal state (foreign policy, defense, foreign trade and between States, etc.) and the Federated States (justice, health, protection of individual rights, education, etc.). The constitution is therefore much more than a piece of legislation because it relates to the greatest debates of American …show more content…
We must not forget that the constitution is also a historical text, accompanying the United States since their foundation and it strongly emphasizes the character its founders Indeed, the Declaration of Independence July 4, 1776 is above all an indictment against King George III, and it is the constitution of 1787 which established the American political system and defines the rights of citizens of the new country; institutions therefore have not changed since the founding of the United States, and it is only through amendments that some changes have been made. The conventional view is that the US system of federalism where the national government 's powers are strictly limited. All that is not given to the national government remains in the domain of the states. A reading of the Constitution seems to confirm this description. Article First, Section VIII lists the legislative powers of Congress. The tenth amendment emphasizes the role of States: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution and the exercise of which is not prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people". Until the twentieth …show more content…
In the United States, as in other federal countries, grants from the national government play a very important role. Yet the authority has the national government to provide subsidies was the subject of one of the great constitutional debates of the nineteenth century. The issue was finally resolved by the Supreme Court at the time of the New Deal. This is the interpretation of the Spending Clause of Article I: "The Congress shall have power to impose and collect taxes, duties, taxes and excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States ... Subsidies are found in many areas - basic education, local police, public health, etc. - Previously considered to belong to the states. And subsidies are accompanied by conditions that dictate the actions, and often the organization of recipients. It grows even - typically American phenomenon - a "subsidy law"; federal courts monitor the practices of beneficiaries. So federal grants are revealed as a powerful centralized instrument for national government as many people has feared. It is not at all surprising that these developments have led to a strong reaction against powerful national government and States are complaining more and more control or guardianship, by the national
Despite American government being characteristically dominated by cooperative feudalism, there is a persistence of national supremacy elements, state’s rights, and dual fideism. The current situation can, therefore, be regarded as balanced federalism. A cooperative relationship between state government and the national government is specifically rooted in a transfer of payments done from the national government to government in lower levels, which is referred to as fiscal feudalism (Bednar, 2009). There are mainly two types of grants which are block grants and categorical grants. This is a federal aid which is spent by states within a given policy area, although with much state discretion. General revenue sharing (GRS) was used back in the 1970s and 1980s. GRS awarded the state maximum control over policies, but gaining political support was difficult for them.
In other words, the states will have all the powers that are not appointed to the national government, by the Articles of Confederation. According to Article 9, “The national congress will have the power to declare war, negotiate foreign treaties, settle disputes between states, regulate currency, direct the operations of land and naval forces, borrow money from the states.” (Williamsburg, 2009) An elaboration of this is that, the national government is limited to the powers, that are stated above, and has no control of anything else. Since the national government had little to no control over any of the states, laws that were past inside of these states became unjust and faced little repercussions from the national government, because of the limitations that were put into place by the articles of confederation.
The year of 1776 was a time of revolution, independence, and patriotism. American colonists had severed their umbilical cord to the Mother Country and declared themselves “Free and Independent States”.1 The chains of monarchy had been thrown off and a new government was formed. Shying away from a totalitarian government, the Second Continental Congress drafted a document called the Articles of Confederation which established a loose union of the states. It was an attempt at self-government that ended in failure. The Articles of Confederation had many defects which included a weak central government that lacked the power to tax, regulate trade, required equal representation and a unanimous vote to amend the Articles, and had only a legislative branch. As a result the United States lacked respect from foreign countries. These flaws were so severe that a new government had to be drafted and as a result the Constitution was born. This document remedied the weak points of the federal government and created one that was strong and fair, yet still governed by the people.
After the American Revolution, America had earned it’s freedom from Britain. In order to govern this new country the Articles of Confederation was created. This document was flawed by the colonists fear of putting too much power into a central government. Knowing the document needed to be fixed a constitutional convention was called. The document created at this convention has been our constitution ever since. But even the Constitution was meet with criticism. One major concern when writing the constitution was how to protect the citizens rights. The Constitution did this through the preamble, the legislative process, the limit of presidential terms, the judicial branch, and the bill of rights.
The United States Constitution is a national government that consist of citizen’s basic rights and fundamental laws. This document was signed on September 17, 1787 in Philadelphia by the majority of representatives. Today, the United States Constitution’s purpose is to supply a strong central government. However, before the United States Constitution was developed, many citizens did not support the constitution due to the fact that they found it contradicting and detached from the original goals of the Declaration of Independence. These citizens were known as anti-federalists. Fortunately, George Washington was a supporter of the constitution and had an enormous impact in the public support of the constitution. With a few adjustments, some
The United States government is based around our Constitution. One of the most important pieces to U.S. Constitution is what lies in Article. I. Section. 8. Here is a list of powers granted to congress through the Constitution, known as the Enumerated Powers or Granted Powers, stating what congress can enforce on the nation as a whole. Examples of these powers include, the ability to lay and collect taxes, to pay debts, provide common defense/ declare war, provide for the general welfare, and the power to regulate commerce. Valuable topics to understand when reviewing the Enumerated Powers that are granted to the United States Congress are how federalism and Federalists are tied into congress 's constitutional powers and the meaning and
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.
The plan to divide the government into three branches was proposed by James Madison, at the Constitutional Convention of 1787. He modeled the division from who he referred to as ‘the Perfect Governor,’ as he read Isaiah 33:22; “For the Lord is our judge, the Lord is our lawgiver, the Lord is our king; He will save us.” http://www.eadshome.com/QuotesoftheFounders.htm
In my opinion, the relationship between the Federal government and the States is unclear whether which institution has the authority to implement legislations. The vagueness of the American constitution particularly in the 10th Amendment of the Constitution that quote ” The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” The ambiguous of the American Constitution may be the main cause of the over power of Federal government.
Whereas the six functions of government, as articulated in the Preamble remain the same, the functions have extended to govern issues not a factor during the 18th century. However, the primary function of the government to maintain order has remained unchanged. Demonstrated through various avenues, these functions are open to interpretation. Throughout time, the government continuously adapted itself to provide various services and regulations to the public that it views as beneficial for the public good. Such services have grown to include food standards, consumer protection, health, and education among others. Examples of governmental function expansion since ratification of the constitution can be seen in the Department of Agriculture, the Department of Energy, FEMA, and much more. Through FEMA, the federal government provides disaster relief funding to help communities struck by floods and tornadoes and other natural disasters. The Department of Agriculture put out the food pyramid, which helped people develop a healthy diet. The Department of Energy provides funding for research on wind energy. Clearly, food pyramids and wind energies were ...
During the construction of the new Constitution, many of the most prominent and experienced political members of America’s society provided a framework on the future of the new country; they had in mind, because of the failures of the Articles of Confederation, a new kind of government where the national or Federal government would be the sovereign power, not the states. Because of the increased power of the national government over the individual states, many Americans feared it would hinder their ability to exercise their individual freedoms. Assuring the people, both Alexander Hamilton and James Madison insisted the new government under the constitution was “an expression of freedom, not its enemy,” declaring “the Constitution made political tyranny almost impossible.” (Foner, pg. 227) The checks and balances introduced under the new and more powerful national government would not allow the tyranny caused by a king under the Parliament system in Britain. They insisted that in order achieve a greater amount of freedom, a national government was needed to avoid the civil unrest during the system under the Articles of Confederation. Claiming that the new national government would be a “perfect balance between liberty and power,” it would avoid the disruption that liberty [civil unrest] and power [king’s abuse of power in England] caused. The “lackluster leadership” of the critics of the new constitution claimed that a large land area such as America could not work for such a diverse nation.
The document I chose to write about is the United States Constitution. When the thirteen British colonies in North America declared their independence in 1776, they laid down that “governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.” The “colonies” had to establish a government, which would be the framework for the United States. The purpose of a written constitution is to define and therefore more specifically limit government powers. After the Articles of Confederation failed to work in the 13 colonies, the U.S. Constitution was created in 1787.
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).
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.
A constitution is the system of fundamental principles according to which a nation is governed. Our founding fathers created the US Constitution to set specific standards for our country. We must ask ourselves why our founding fathers created the Constitution in the first place. America revolted against the British due to their monarchy form of government. After the American Revolution, each of the original 13 colonies operated under its own rules of government. Most states were against any form of centralized rule from the government. They feared that what happened in England would happen again. They decided to write the Articles of Confederation, which was ratified in 1781. It was not effective and it led to many problems. The central government could not regulate commerce between states, deal with foreign governments or settle disputes. The country was falling apart at its seams. The central government could not provide assistance to the state because there wasn’t a central army. When they realized that the Articles of Confederation was not up to par, they held a convention, known as the Constitutional Convention of 1787. As a result of t...