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Separation of powers explanation essay
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Tyranny is a monster, it has the power to make a country crumble and the people’s rights inside the country to be violated. The reason why this has not been seen in American since 1787 is because of our founding fathers wrote a new Constitution which placed strong safeguards against tyranny. This Constitution guarded against tyranny by establishing separations of power, a system of checks and balances, federalism, and the protection of big states and small states in government. The reason that this new Constitution was created is the Articles of Confederation was too weak. The states had more power over the National Government, which led to problems when the National Government went to collect tax money to pay off the war debt. Another problem with the Articles of Confederation was each state could use any currency they wanted. There was no main currency throughout the states which led to problems when people needed to buy things. The first safeguard is establishing a separation of powers, which is dividing the central government into three branches. In Document B it is said that for there to be Liberty the branches of government should be separate and equal. This works because the power could not fall into the …show more content…
This safeguard protects big populations from becoming too powerful over smaller populations and vice versa. They way this is achieved is by having the States represented in the House by their population. (Doc D) The way that this is equaled out is every state gets two representatives in the Senate. (Doc D) Both the House and The Senate have to agree on a law for it to pass so there for the factor of how many representatives a state has is factored out a tyranny is once again prevented from happening. This once again safeguards against tyranny because the power is equaled out among The States now allowing one population to have more say in government than a smaller
was created to make sure the sovereign power of the states was protected. The state
For weeks convention delegates have been argued over representation in congress, Large States want it based on population. Small states want each states to have the same number of votes. representative s shall be apportioned according to population. The number of shall not exceed one for every thirty thousand, but each state shall have at least one representatives. This piece of evidence relates to the argument because they said that big states has more power than small states that is why big states only need one representative.
How could the government be designed to protect the unalienable individual rights? Their first attempt at solving this issue was the Articles of Confederation, which was a failure for the most part, but not completely. After the failure of the articles, the state delegates tried to revise the articles, but instead, constructed the Constitution. There were so many changes made and very little remained the same. The thirteen states formed a Confederation referred to as the “league of friendship” in order to find a solution for common problems such as foreign affairs.
In addition, the Great Compromise guarded against tyranny by making sure the larger states would not have more power than the smaller states. The Great Compromise was an agreement to create a two-house legislature composed of a House of Representatives and a Senate. A state’s amount of representatives in the House would be based off of population, while the representation for each state in the Senate is equal.(Document D) Thus, the larger states, such as New York, would not overpower the smaller states, such as Rhode Island.
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.
The Articles of Confederation was the United States first attempt at creating a democratic government. Instead of giving power to the central government they divided it up among the states (Kelly). This fact left the Articles with many weaknesses that ultimately led it to fail. The lack of a strong central government led to economic disorganization, no central leadership and an ineffective legislative, all which led to its downfall (Brackemyre). Leaving power to the states left the nation in a state of economic disorganization. Without the national government having the power to levy taxes, it was left with the states (Murphy). The legislature only had the right to request taxes, and it was left up to the states how they wanted to raise them, but they oftentimes weren't (Brackemyre). There was also no uniform system of currency which made trade between states difficult. The fact that states instead of Congress regulated trade led to a lack...
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
James Madison writes in Federalist No. 51, “[i]n framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.” He goes on to explain his concept of “compound republic” in which two distinct governments (national and state) are further subdivided into separate departments. In each of the two distinct governments, the legislative, executive and judicial branches (departments) work like a scale to balance each other and prevent one from gaining too much power or influence. This is the “double security” for the “rights of the people.” (Federalist No.10 & 51).
The fourth way the constitution guards against tyranny is the equality of large and small states which is defined and means larger states are not controlling over small states. An example of how the equality of the state’s guards from tyranny is, the senate of the United States is made up of two senators from each of the states, and the House of Representatives are elected by population. (Document D). This is how equality of large and small states help guard our constitution against
As the first written agreement between states in America, the Articles of Confederation was bound to have flaws. The tyrannical force of Britain before the American Revolution caused Americans a sense of distrust and therefore the Articles were hesitant towards the idea of a strong national government for fear of another absolute monarchy. However it made the national government was incredibly weak therefore it created problems internally, internationally, and economically. The Constitution, a revised version of the Articles, fixed nearly all these problems.
The principle of federalism was established by the Constitution to protect the country from tyranny as well. In this case, it is said that the national government cannot over power the fifty states. In the fifty states, each state consists of two democratic representatives.
The Articles of Confederation had a lot of problems that made them fail. One reason is the federal government had no power at all to tax. They had no court systems in the judicial branch. Congress had to establish temporary courts to hear cases of piracy. The voting system was messed up. Nine out of the thirteen states had to vote yes to pass a law and each state only had one vote even if they had a really populated area. They didn’t have any power to enforce the laws only the states had the power to enforce which still wasn’t enough. The Articles of Confederation had strong state governments even though they weren't really together they were like separate countries instead of states.
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.
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.
One way that the constitution can guard against tyranny is with Federalism. Federalism is the distribution of powers between the state and the federal government. This prevents both the state and the federal government from having too much power. For example, in Doc A, it says that only states can set up schools, but only the federal government can set up post offices. This makes it