Second, it divides power between the federal government and the states. And third, it protects various individual liberties of American citizens. The limitations placed on the federal government and each of its branches were a reaction to the tyranny of British rule, and especially the tyranny of the single monarch.
Separation of Powers. The Government of the United States, the federal government, is divided into three branches: the executive power, invested in the President, the legislative power, given to Congress the House of Representatives and the Senate , and the judicial power, vested in one Supreme Court and other federal courts created by Congress.
The Constitution provides a system of checks and balances designed to avoid the tyranny of any one branch. Most important actions require the participation of more than once branch of government. For example, Congress passes laws, but the President can veto them.
The executive branch prosecutes persons for criminal violations, but they must be tried by the courts. The President appoints federal judges, but their appointment must be confirmed by the Senate. Division of Federal and State Power. Another important function of the Constitution is to divide power between the national government and the state governments.
Powers not delegated to the federal government, nor prohibited to the states are reserved to the states or to the people. Although the powers of the federal government are limited to those enumerated in the Constitution, those enumerated powers have been interpreted very broadly.
And under the supremacy clause of the Constitution, federal law is supreme over state law. State or local laws that conflict with the Constitution or federal statutory law are preempted. The Constitution also limits the powers of the states in relation to one another. Because the United States Congress has been given the power to regulate interstate commerce, the states are limited in their ability to regulate or tax such commerce between them.
Protection of Personal Liberty. The third main purpose of the Constitution is to protect the personal liberty of citizens from intrusions by the government. A few of these protections are found in the main body of the Constitution itself. For example, Article I, sections 9 and 10 prohibits both ex post facto laws, which punish conduct that was not illegal at the time it was performed, and bills of attainder which single out individuals or groups for punishment..
Most Constitutional protections for individual rights are contained in the Bill of Rights, which constitute the first ten amendments to the Constitution. The protections of these amendments were originally interpreted to apply only against the federal government, but the Supreme Court has since ruled that most of them were made applicable to the states by passage of the Fourteenth Amendment due process clause after the Civil War.
The Fourteenth Amendment also contains the equal protection clause, which protects citizens from discrimination by the states on the basis of race, sex and other characteristics. Permanent Protections of a Constitution. In a democracy without a written constitution, such as the United Kingdom, the legislature may pass laws granting or taking away any rights, or even changing the structure of the government itself.
A Constitution is more difficult to alter, and the framers of the American Constitution made it especially difficult to amend. In Britain, the king served as the head of state, performing ceremonial functions and commanding the military, while the prime minister functioned as the head of government, providing political and legislative leadership. They created entirely separate executive, legislative, and judicial branches of government, making sure that no single branch would hold exclusive power, but each would check and balance the others.
With power so divided, the independent branches must reach some common agreement for the federal government to act harmoniously. The President serves as chief executive and commander in chief of the military. The President appoints the heads of the executive offices of the government and, with the officers he appoints, is responsible for administering the laws of the land. The President proposes legislation, and vetoes or approves bills that Congress enacts, but depends entirely on the legislature for all the funds necessary for operating the government.
As the only federal official elected by the entire population, Presidents feel they have a mandate from the people to lead in the manner they see fit and to establish the policies on which they campaigned. Presidents are elected separately from members of Congress. Their administrations do not fall if their party loses the legislative majority, unlike a prime minister whose party loses a working majority in Parliament.
Often, American Presidents have had to cope with opposition party majorities in one or both houses of Congress. Nonetheless, members of Congress feel that they are elected to represent the people of their states and districts. They often campaign on different issues than the President, even when they are members of the same party, and they often serve through several Presidential administrations. Personal ambition plays a role as well, as some members of Congress may see themselves as candidates for the Presidency in future elections.
The different perspectives of the White House and the Capitol often create tensions between the branches. Presidents have the constitutional right to name cabinet officers, agency heads, diplomats, and federal judges, but these nominations must be confirmed by the U. Over the past two centuries, the Senate has confirmed all but a very small percentage of the executive branch nominations—on the assumption that Presidents deserve to work with people of their own choosing.
But the statistics change dramatically for judicial nominations—on the grounds that the judiciary is an independent branch of the government, and that all federal judges hold lifetime appointments. Since the administration of George Washington, the Senate has blocked a third of all Supreme Court nominations.
Senators therefore insist on scrutinizing all nominations and rejecting those they consider unfit. Foreign policy has provided another major arena for struggle between the executive and legislative branches. Presidents conduct the foreign policy of the United States, but Congress appropriates the necessary funds and senators hold hearings in which they interrogate State Department officials about policy developments.
In the late nineteenth century, the Senate rejected a number of significant treaties, causing Secretary of State John Hay to compare a treaty entering the Senate to a bull entering the ring. The most tragic confrontation between a President and the Senate took place after the First World War, when President Woodrow Wilson went to Paris to negotiate the Treaty of Versailles that ended the war and created a League of Nations to preserve the peace.
Republicans by then had won the majority in the Senate, but Wilson took no Republican senators with him on that mission. But Wilson fought any changes and refused to authorize Democratic senators to reach a compromise with the Republicans. Wilson took his case directly to the American people, warning that without the League of Nations the world would face another war within a generation. On his national speaking tour, Wilson suffered a paralytic stroke and could offer no further leadership.
Although the Constitution gives Congress the sole power to declare war, Congress has not passed a declaration of war since World War II. Subsequent military missions overseas were authorized by congressional resolutions, some in support of United Nations efforts.
Johnson asked Congress to enact a resolution authorizing him to use military force in response to North Vietnamese military action. Members of Congress saw their vote as an act of solidarity with the President at a critical moment, but none anticipated that he would use it as the equivalent of a declaration of war.
Yet that was exactly how Johnson used the resolution when he sent large numbers of American combat troops to fight in Vietnam. Congress later repealed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, but it had no effect on American military policy. The resolution required Presidents to notify Congress within set time periods when they sent American troops into combat, and it permitted Congress to vote to withdraw troops from combat.
The Constitution requires the President to give Congress a periodic report on the state of the union. Presidents have used the State of the Union message as a vehicle for recommending legislation to be enacted, and have therefore become the chief legislator as well as the chief executive. Jefferson chose to send his message to be read aloud by clerks in the Senate and House. Throughout each session of Congress, Presidents meet regularly with the legislative leaders of the major parties, and will often contact individual legislators to win their support on key measures.
Congress has objected when Presidents have withheld documents it sought a practice known as executive privilege , and when agencies have administered the laws in a different manner than the legislation specified. When John F. Kennedy served in the House and the Senate, he believed that the real power in the American political system resided in the Oval Office. It was only after he was elected President and faced a skeptical Congress that he realized how much power resided on Capitol Hill.
Yet, the Congress itself is divided into two very different bodies, the Senate and House of Representatives. Although the Senate has the exclusive power to confirm nominations and approve treaties, the two bodies participate equally in all legislation and appropriations.
The Constitution permits each house to set its own rules, and as a result they have grown distinctly different. The larger House, where membership reflects the population of each state, has set rules that permit the majority to prevail, so long as it stays united. Members of the House operate under rules that limit how long they can speak and reduce their opportunities to block legislation from coming to a vote. The House operates under a hierarchy headed by the Speaker, who is elected by the majority party, and a Rules Committee, most of whose members are chosen by the Speaker.
When the House leadership is ready to hold a debate and vote on a bill, the House Rules Committee determines how long the debate will last and how many amendments will be considered. Roosevelt spoke for those who believe that the U. Constitution is an elastic document, designed to grow with the times and to confer extraordinary authority in times of crisis. This is what he said:.
The National Constitution Center owns a rare, original copy of the first public printing of the Constitution. This printing was published in a newspaper, The Pennsylvania Packet and Daily Advertiser , on September 19, —two days after the Constitution was signed.
The Constitution did not go into effect the moment it was signed by the delegates. It needed to be approved by the people through the ratification process. Article VII of the Constitution established the process for ratification, by simply stating that. However, the Constitution was the result of months of passionate, thoughtful deliberation among the delegates. Other notable delegates included Benjamin Franklin and George Washington who served as president of the convention.
In , Congress authorized delegates to gather in Philadelphia and recommend changes to the existing charter of government for the 13 states, the Articles of Confederation, which many Americans believed had created a weak, ineffective central government. From the start of the convention, however, it became clear that the delegates were forming an entirely new form of government.
First and foremost, the answer is our freedom. It is, quite simply, the most powerful vision of freedom ever expressed. Our Constitution has been an inspiration that changed the trajectory of world history for the perpetual benefit of mankind. In , no country in the world had ever allowed its citizens to select their own form of government, much less to select a democratic government. What was revolutionary when it was written, and what continues to inspire the world today, is that the Constitution put governance in the hands of the people.
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