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). The first proposals to this new plan were the Virginia Plan and the New Jersey Plan. The Virginia Plan called for a separation of powers among the government’s three branches: executive, legislative, and judicial. Some states proposed this idea and came up with the New Jersey Plan, which called for all of the states to have equal representation from Congress. In order to move forward from the deadlock of the two proposals, the Connecticut Compromise was enacted. This decided that legislature would be bicameral, which meant that there would be two houses: one would have equal representation and one would be based on state population. This unified the states under a federal system. To this day, there are three types of Fe... ... middle of paper ... ... their rulings. They do not make the laws; that is the job of Congress. Their primary goal is to interpret and decide the constitutionality of federal law. As stated previously from Section 1 of Article 3 of the Constitution about the establishment of the Supreme Court and creation of the lower federal courts, the combination of these court systems represents the original Framer’s compromise to establish a national court and allow state courts to exercise jurisdiction in disputes falling under federal law. Works Cited AShmoop Editorial Team. "Constitution FAQ." Shmoop.com. Shmoop University, Inc., 11 Nov. 2008. Web. 14 Mar. 2014. "District Courts." USCOURTSGOV RSS. N.p., n.d. Web. 14 Mar. 2014. "Structure of the Federal Courts." Federal Court Concepts. N.p., n.d. Web. 17 Mar. 2014. "Researching Appellate Procedure." Research Guides. N.p., n.d. Web. 18 Mar. 2014.
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Show MoreSeptember 17, 1787, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; during the heat of summer, in a stuffy assembly room of Independence Hall, a group of delegates gathered. After four months of closed-door quorums, a four page, hand written document was signed by thirty-nine attendees of the Constitutional Convention. This document, has come to be considered, by many, the framework to the greatest form of government every known; the Constitution of the United States. One of the first of its kind, the Constitution laid out the frame work for the government we know today. A government of the people, by the people, and for the people; constructed of three branches; each branch charged with their own responsibilities. Article one established the Congress or Legislative branch, which would be charged with legislative powers. Article two created the Executive branch, providing chief executive powers to a president, who would act in the capacity of Commander in Chief of the Country’s military forces. The President of the United States also acts as head of state to foreign nations and may establish treaties and foreign policies. Additionally, the President and the departments within the Executive branch were established as the arm of government that is responsible for implementing and enforcing the laws written by Congress. Thirdly, under Article three of the Constitution, the Judicial branch was established, and consequently afforded the duty of interpreting the laws, determining the constitutionality of the laws, and apply it to individual cases. The separation of powers is paramount to the system of checks and balances among the three branches; however, although separate they must support the functions of the others. Because of this, the Legislative an...
The founding fathers of the United States of America, envisioned a country where no one person would have too much control. This led to their writing of the Constitution. Within this document, the fathers laid out a government based on three branches: Legislative, Executive and Judicial. All three branches would have their own responsibilities and amount of power. Each branch would keep the others in check not allowing one to obtain more power than the other two. This system stuck and is still in use in our country today.
For five years after Revolutionary war each state basically governed themselves. Although there was national government in place, it held little power over the states. It soon became apparent that the Articles of Confederation needed to be readdressed to combat the increasing problems that were brewing in the country. The first attempt to redress was dismissed by many of the states. Nevertheless, a second attempt produced results with twelve of the states sending delegates to redress the Articles of Confederation. Several delegates submitted plans for consideration that would strengthen the national government two such plans were the Virginia and the New Jersey Plan. Despite much of Virginia’s plan being accepted, if a compromise had not been reached the New Jerseys plan would have been more workable because it offered: equal representation of the states, provided operational means to congress, and was not a radical departure from the Articles of the Confederation.
This task was easier said than done. The fear of creating a government with too much power was a fear that was very much alive throughout the states. Tyranny was a common factor in developing governments, the delegates were seeking to avoid this error. Two ground rules were put into place for the Convention. The first was that any and all deliberations were to remain secretive. The second was that no topic or decisions would be considered closed and could therefore be up for debate and revision at any time. Once these rules were agreed upon, business started. The two contenders were the Virginia Plan, which had the larger states rooting, and the New Jersey Plan, claiming the votes of the smaller states. Under the Virginia Plan, legislature would be two houses and would be represented based on population. Under the New Jersey Plan, legislature would be one house and each state would have equal representation regardless of population. An agreement could not be reached between these two plans, instead a compromise was made. The Great Compromise met each side with an upper and lower house. The upper house was the Senate and would provide equal representation that was elected by the lower house. The lower house was the House of Representatives and would be dispersed based on population of the states. This compromise satisfied the small and large states, giving a
The Judicial Branch was written to have very little power, it originally had a federal court and then had to be divided into lower. The President is in charge of appointing the justices, and all of the decision from congress and the executive branch have to go through the judicial branch in order for them to decide if it constitutional or unconstitutional.
In this system the Legislature would elect more than one-person to serve in the executive branch and the executive branch would elect the Supreme Court Justices. The main difference between the Virginia Plan and New Jersey Plan was that the New Jersey Plan proposed a unicameral legislature, which consisted of one parliamentary chamber (Boundless). This meant that each state would have one vote, like the articles, and would feature the same number of representatives so all states would be equal. The plan also presented that congress would have the power to regulate trade and impose taxes, like the Virginia plan. Congress would also have control to pass any law they please and the states would have to comply (Carey). Ultimately both plans had their own ideas and had their own differences but there couldn’t be two plans so they had to think of a compromise, and luckily someone
The Constitution bestowed essential powers to the nation, without which, America would crumble. Under this newly created document, three different branches of government were created: the judiciary, the legislative, and the executive. The legislative was composed of Congress, which now had the power to create a military, control interstate and international commerce, and create laws. The Judicial branch was the Supreme Court, which would review the decision of the President (in the executive branch...
The Constitution of the United States of America was too vague to work. The way the constitution was written it gave power to four parts: the congress, the executive branch, the judicial branch, and the states. Because it was so vague it did not really define which powers went where (with a few exceptions).
This differed from the articles of confederation which gave every state, regardless of population, one vote in congress. Secondly, the New Jersey plan was proposed by William Patterson, and his idea had the support of the smaller states, since they had strongly objected the Virginia plan in fear of being overcome by the larger states. Consequently, supporters of the Virginia plan said that it was only fair that a state with more people would have more representatives. Similar to the Virginia plan, the New Jersey plan called for three branches but provided for a legislature that only had one house. Finally, the great compromise was proposed by Roger Sherman of Connecticut who hoped to satisfy both large and small states before the convention fell apart. His proposal called for a two house legislature with a house of representatives as the Lower house and the Senate as the upper. The House of Representatives would be elected by popular vote and the Senate would be chosen by the state
Edmund Randolph of Virginia was the first to offer a suggestion, known as the “Virginia Plan”, that addressed representation. His plan provided for a system of representation based on the population of each state or the proportion of each state’s revenue contribution, or both. This did not fly with the smaller states like New Jersey, Delaware, or Connecticut. The smaller states saw this idea as a bias towards the larger states, with the potential for domination of the legislature in a new government. This was primarily seen as a battle between the smaller merchant states versus the larger, slave owning states. In fact, this issue threatened the entire constitutional process if a reasonable compromise could not be achieved. The “Great Compromise” (also called the Connecticut Compromise), set to establish two chambers of the Congress, the Senate, and the House of Representatives, with the House being apportioned by he number of people in that state, while the Senate would contain equal representation from all states, regardless of the size or number of people from that state. This idea is also referred to as a bicameral legislature, meaning two chambers.
The Constitution of the United States was ratified in 1787 and it established the powers of the federal government. Its intended purpose was to protect individual rights and liberties. It constructed the three branches of government that we know today: Executive, legislative and judicial. These branches created a separation of powers, in addition to check and balances. Originally, the judicial branch did not have much power when the constitution was written. It was not until the case of Marbury v Madison in 1803 that it actually established the judicial review. The judicial review is what gave the federal courts a great deal of power to void acts of Congress that they deemed violates the Constitution. After this case, the Supreme Court Justices
The new Constitution of the United States, ratified in 1789 by James Madison, created an entirely new system within America, which had never been attempted before. The first consideration to make is the new institutions created by the Constitution. Before its adoption, America was operating under the Articles of Confederation This document offered us a set of universal values out of which laws and codes have emerged and have been carried out . As such, it symbolizes the essence of constitutionality—that government must be restrained by the rule of law. The constitution has succeed in its ability to encourage government by wise forward statesman, In addition the creation of the three branches has discourages the negative effect of factions and has restrain government from taking more power than entrusted to it, Additionally it has restrains itself particular from using that power to reduce individual liberty.
The framers of the Constitution realized that they could not address every single issue of the day. Therefore, they left a few provisions so that they federal government could one day sufficiently resolve these issues. For instance, the framers knew that those who were against ratification were concerned about unrestrained power in the the hands of the federal government. Thus, they created a system of checks and balances. Each of the three branches of government could restrain another branch of government, while being restrained by the other. In addition, the framers of the Constitution knew that debates concerning the relative political power of small states in relation to larger states would occur. Larger states supported the Virginia Plan, while smaller states supported the New Jersey Plan. The framers of the Constitution compromised on a two-house Congress which satisfied both sides of the debate. With these provisions in mind, the framers of the Constitution assumed the state representatives would be able to sufficiently debate those issues that were left unresolved by the Constitution and that the federal government would have the sufficient means of power of reinforcing their eventual decision. Thus, by creating a strong federal government that would be able to debate the prevailing issues of the day, the framers of the Constitution allowed for the
Trial courts, or district courts, the Appellate, or the circuit courts, and the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) which is the only court created from the constitution (Krutz, 498). The second part of this part was Judicial Review. The Judicial Branch of our government has a crucial part in making sure the other two branches, Legislative and Executive, both constitutionally follow their powers. Many of the instances, where their intentions are put into question, are through court cases (Krutz, 508). One of the main ones we discussed considering this subject matter was Murbury v. Madison during the election of 1800. While still in office, during his lame duck period, Adams knew he would lose his control of Congress, so he began to appoint judges, known as the "midnight appointed." However, one of those many he had appointed, and the Senate confirmed, William Murbury, did not get his commission. So, he began to start the journey to sue James Madison, Jefferson's Secretary of State, who was responsible for delivering the official piece of paper. Murbury tried to use a precedent to go straight to the SCOTUS; however, there are only two times when the Supreme Court will have original jurisdiction. That is only when the cases deal with foreign ambassadors and cases that have a state as a party (Krutz,
In 1787 the leaders of the states came together to establish a constitutional set of guidelines (laws), to ensure a more structured uniformed way of protecting the American people against total governmental control, and protecting the citizens rights. The constitution ensured that the branches would be serperated to detour from total control of one branch of government, Each branch of government has its own duties and responsibilities other than working along side the other branches. Below identifies the three branches of government as well as their responsibilities and process of being elected as a member.