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An essay on the importance of a constitution to the nation
An essay on the importance of a constitution to the nation
The importance of the US constitution
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In my opinion “The Constitution must be stable yet flexible” gives a foundation of guidelines rules but also gives room for the adoption of laws. The U.S. Constitution was an experiment in democracy more than 200 years ago, it has proved both stable and flexible enough to survive and remain effective in a world totally different from the one in which it was written. Moreover, the creators understood that the constitution was the framework for a new government. The delegates to the Constitutional Convention in 1787 focused their primary attention on the question of how to represent the various states in one central government and how to elect representatives to a central legislature fairly.
The Founders were mindful of the dangers of Tyrannical
In document C says, ¨The constant aim is to divide and arrange the powers in a manner that they may be a check on one another.¨ This tells that the constitution is written so that the three branches of government are constantly checked by one another because a law is unfair, biased, or unconstitutional. This also makes it to where the branches of government can't make whatever law they want allowing them to have complete power to do whatever they please thus preventing tyranny. If the branches couldn't check each other they would be able to easily pass laws that only benefit themselves and they could make laws that would put people in harm's way, being able to check each other and putting that in the constitution was a very insightful task. Being able to check each other prevented any one branch from gaining and holding complete control over the
James Madison once said,” All men having power ought to be distrusted.” Through these words, Madison made the statement that not all government officials use their authority for good; some abuse that power and use it to gain more for themselves rather than vesting it within the people. This issue may lead to tyranny. Tyranny is when all powers belong to only one person or group. In May of 1787, the Constitutional Convention was held in Philadelphia to draft a better constitution. One of the topics that concerned many was how the constitution would guard against tyranny. Madison and the other delegates wanted a Constitution that would be strong enough to unite the states and the people together without letting there be one person or group gain too much power. They achieved this in several ways. Today, the U.S. Constitution guards against tyranny by including a separation of powers, federalism, and the fair representation of states.
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.
Robert Dahl's book How Democratic is the American Constitution, reminds us that the American Constitution wasn't the only possible base for a democratic system in America. In this book Dahl explains some of the democratic and undemocratic aspects of the American constitution. He also explains what should be changed to improve it.
In this excerpt from Democracy in America Alexis Tocqueville expresses his sentiments about the United States democratic government. Tocqueville believes the government's nature exists in the absolute supremacy of the majority, meaning that those citizens of the United States who are of legal age control legislation passed by the government. However, the power of the majority can exceed its limits. Tocqueville believed that the United States was a land of equality, liberty, and political wisdom. He considered it be a land where the government only served as the voice of the its citizens. He compares the government of the US to that of European systems. To him, European governments were still constricted by aristocratic privilege, the people had no hand in the formation of their government, let alone, there every day lives. He held up the American system as a successful model of what aristocratic European systems would inevitably become, systems of democracy and social equality. Although he held the American democratic system in high regards, he did have his concerns about the systems shortcomings. Tocqueville feared that the virtues he honored, such as creativity, freedom, civic participation, and taste, would be endangered by "the tyranny of the majority." In the United States the majority rules, but whose their to rule the majority. Tocqueville believed that the majority, with its unlimited power, would unavoidably turn into a tyranny. He felt that the moral beliefs of the majority would interfere with the quality of the elected legislators. The idea was that in a great number of men there was more intelligence, than in one individual, thus lacking quality in legislation. Another disadvantage of the majority was that the interests of the majority always were preferred to that of the minority. Therefore, giving the minority no chance to voice concerns.
The preamble of the Constitution lays out six reasons for its establishment of which two reasons standout, the establishment of justice and providing for the common defense. The national security of the United States was of paramount importance to our founders and remains so today after over 200 years. While there is no clear answer on how to achieve security, our constitutional system of government provides the framework for seeking its ends. The Constitution itself, in its ambiguity and deliberate requirement for interpretation, along with the elements of division of power and the rule of law, play key roles in how our government provides the blanket of security for our nation. This paper will explore how these elements complement and contrast one another in providing our government leaders the tools to achieve national security.
The scenes in creation being intellectual, the put together of constitutional democracy was very empirical. The Constitutional Convention was convened to formulate the constitution. What had to be clear was that the only way to assure a functioning constitutional democracy was the public's discussion. In philadelphia the delegates compromised. The outcome was to integrate states with large populations and states with small populations with a bicameral legislative branch. Also compromises that guaranteed say from both slave owning states and non-slave states could be listened to. The Bill of Rights
Upon the opening words of the Constitution, "We the People do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America," one must ask, who are these people? While the American Constitution provided its citizens with individual rights, many members were excluded. Elite framers manipulated the idea of a constitution in order to protect their economic interests and the interests of their fellow white land and slave owning men' by restricting the voices of women, slaves, indentured servants and others. Therefore, the Constitution cannot truly be considered a "democratic document." However, because it is a live document, malleable and controllably changeable according to the interest of congress, it has enabled us to make reforms overtime. Such reforms that have greatly impacted America, making us the free, independent nation that we are today.
The Constitution is the basis of the U.S. government. The Constitution is termed as the supreme law of the country. The Constitution was written in 1787 for the purpose of recommending changes in the old government. The Constitution came into effect in 1789. Establishing the laws of the country, a convention had to be held from important men from different states as well as aspects to debate out rules ensuring equality and unity in birthing America into a solid country. Every country 's laws are based on that society 's values. The foundation of those values is the morals of that society, and religious beliefs are the basis for those morals. At the time in history, the values, attitudes, and beliefs held within the country are introduced to us the same as our present day because we as a country still base our freedom and ways of life through political terms within the Declaration of Independence. We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal; equal in religious liberty, social duties, and natural
The Constitution is important because it was expressly designed to limit powers into three co-ordinate branches, the legislative, executive, and judiciary branch; none of which was to have supremacy over the others. This separation of powers with the checks and balances which each branch was given over the others was designed to prevent any branch, from infringing individual liberties safeguarded by the Constitution. I think the U.S. Constitution was a way for the U.S. to establish government which was a negotiation between the two former governments, a monarchy and total state power. I think by creating the checks and balances, people’s rights would be safer and they would feel more secure not having one branch of government with absolute power. What I found most interesting about the Constitution was how complex and detailed the framers made it, to effectively explain and limit the individual branches of power in government. In the words of Thomas Paine, "a government without a constitution is power without right". Meaning that for power to be granted, it is necessary to establish a constitution.
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.
The main similarity was that both factions recognized the Constitution as the guide that must be followed in running the new nation. The difference was on how they thought it guided us.
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
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...
Throughout history, there has been countless times where a country is ran by tyranny, and countless times where tyranny negatively affects the country. Our country, the United States of America, was one of those countries at one point, but we thankfully got out of it from war. Since our country didn’t want to go back to tyranny, people had to create a system, and a set of principles that would prevent that from happening. So, the Constitution was made. Tyranny is a government ran by one person, or a small amount of people, and the United States got out of it, but we still had to establish a way to prevent it from happening again. The constitution did it’s job and protected against tyranny by the small states vs. large states, federalism, separation of power, and checks and balances.