Enumerated Powers

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The federal system divides the political powers and the different responsibilities between the national and the state levels of government. The founders knew the way they built the government structure would impact the United States eternally. The founders divided the government into three separate branches: the executive branch, judicial branch, and the legislative branch. The President of the United states administers the executive branch and carries out the laws the legislative branch creates. The judicial branch is controlled by the Supreme Court and they decide what the law means according to the constitution. The Legislative Branch create laws for the President to carry out. The founders wanted a limited government, so they created Checks …show more content…

Inside the Constitution gives three different powers to the national government: enumerated powers, implied powers, and the reserved powers. The enumerated powers give the national government the power to declare war, maintain the military, and to levy taxes according to Section 8, Article I of the constitution. The implied powers are not very clear in the constitution. They can be interpreted into anyway the government needs it to in order to make a law. Reserved powers are meant only for the states. They are not necessarily listed inside the constitution, but are ensured by the tenth amendment. Some common examples of reserved powers are establishment of a local government, elections, and state trading. While the powers are meant to be separated, there are times where the powers can meet such as borrowing money and making laws. By making these separate powers, the founders ensured their government would not fall due to tyranny and anything else that was common within the English …show more content…

Plessy versus Ferguson and Brown versus Board Education was the starting point of the Civil Rights Movement for African Americans and shined light on the problem of segregation. The Plessy versus Ferguson case started out in Louisiana. Louisiana had passed a law requiring railroad stations to provide “separate but equal” seating places for African Americans and Whites. A man named Homer Plessy decided to go against the law and tried to stay in a decided white seating area. Plessy was arrested and his lawyer tried to help justify his actions by saying the law went against the “separate but equal” fourteenth amendment. In the end of this case, the court decided Louisiana had done no such thing because the whites were just as separated as the blacks. Justice Henry Billings Brown said, “The object of the fourteenth amendment was undoubtedly to enforce the absolute equality of the two races before the law, but in the nature of things it could not have been intended to abolish distinctions based upon color, or to enforce social, as distinguished from political, equality, or commingling of the two races upon terms unsatisfactory to either” (Landmark Cases of the U.S. Supreme Court). This man saw the contradictions being proposed inside the court room. Nonetheless, equality would not get better until Brown versus Board of

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