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What Are The Pros And Cons Of A Constitutional Government

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“The Constitution is the guide which I will never abandon.”
- George Washington

The Founding Fathers didn’t want a government like Great Britain’s: Power hungry and capable of taking people’s rights. So, they envisioned a constitutional government and the U.S. Constitution divided the government’s immense capabilities into three branches. Those three being the judicial branch, Legislative branch and Executive branch. This was called the separation of powers and it’s how the Constitution limits the government’s powers.
Checks and balances balance each branch to prevent a power-hungry behavior. For example, the purpose of Congress is to come up with bills that could potentially become laws. But, they can’t approve any laws they like by themselves,
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While writing the constitution congress separated government into legislative, executive, and judicial branches in federal and state governments. According to Article 1 the legislative branch would create laws, the executive branch would enforce the laws, and the judicial branch would interpret laws. The goal of this was to ensure that the government of America did not have too much control over the people which is what Great Britain did to them in the revolutionary war. Including a system of checks and balances would ensure this to the people of America. In Federalist Paper #47 James Madison talks about how too much power would be bad.

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In Federalist 51 Madison states, “It is of great importance in a republic not only to guard the society against the oppression of its rulers, but to guard one part of the society against the injustice of the other part.” Americans believed that power that is not given is power that cannot be misused. Now the different branches have control over different parts of how our government works. There are areas of specialty, a shared power. This is the basis of which a federal system is run because the power is shared and divided.

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The United States Constitution allowed there to be a separation of power in the federal government and between the federal government and the states. This is called checks and balances. The person who came up with the idea of checks and balances was Baron de Montesquieu. Montesquieu thought that a government should be separated into little sections so that it won't become corrupt and enslave its citizens to the law. He said that the government is there to serve the people not the other way around.

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The government consists of the Legislative Branch, the Executive Branch, and the Judicial branch. These three powers guard against tyranny because the building of laws is represented to be more equal. James Madison, father of the Constitution and author of the Federalist Paper #51, wrote, "…. (L)iberty requires that the three great departments of power should be separate and distinct” (Doc B). The three groups should not be associating to have more power because it is authoritarianism.

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James Madison directly explains the purpose of dividing the powers among the three branches to protect against tyranny, “...the constant aim is to divide and arrange the several offices in such a manner as that they may be a check on the other...” By separating the powers and creating a system of checks and balances to guard against tyranny, the framers of the United States constitution directly aimed to protect the constitutional rights and liberties of individual citizens and the future of the nation. Just as the creators of the constitution sought to protect the citizens of the United States against tyranny with the separation of powers and checks and balances, the framers of the constitution also protected the rights of states with larger and smaller populations. To protect the rights of larger states and smaller states, the framers created a bicameral legislature system with the house of representatives and the senate. The members of the house of representatives are determined based on each states population, while the senate has 2 members per state, allowing for both large and small states to have equal

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This separation of powers helps to prevent abuse of power. Followed by separation of power, it is necessary for each branch to be able to limit each other so that no one part becomes too powerful. Checks and balances is also an important factor, it lets each branch limit the power of others. Legislature checks the Executive in the ability to impeach presidents and pass laws, “If after such Reconsideration two thirds of that House…” (2: Source A). It checks the judicial by impeaching justices.

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51, Madison introduces the system of checks and balances to, again, emphasize the balance between political factions, in this case, the branches, in order to protect people’s rights. The government is structured upon the will of people so that it largely depends on people. However, the three branches should remain independent from each other, which is extremely important in order to make sure that no one branch would become too powerful. This is why the legislative branch must be divided into two parts, even though all the delegates there are elected by the people. Not only the federal government is being separated into three branches, there are different levels of government as well, so that powers are distributed among state governments, city governments, and local governments.

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“The doctrine of separation of powers is based on the idea of dividing government into three distinct parts—the executive, legislative, and judicial branches”(Separation of Powers, 2003). This separation of powers system was intended to keep any one office from becoming a monarchy or a tyrant. Each branch of government was assigned a unique task that they would work to accomplish

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For example, the Executive branch, being the president, is able to veto congressional legislation, but the Court can declare presidential acts unconstitutional. This creates a balance between the three government branches where each branch ensures that no other branches is able to gain executive control over the entire nation. According to Federalist Paper #51, James Madison says “…the constant aim is to divide and arrange the several offices in such a manner as that they may be a check on the other… (The three branches) should not be so far separated as to have no constitutional control over the other.” The quote is dictating that offices should be divided in such a manner in which they should be able to check and regulate the other(s). Each branch of government keeps the other branches in line.

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The branches of Government When the constitution was written it was written so that no one person could have all the power of the government. The constitution wanted to make sure that all people could have the benefits of the federal government but still live with separate state laws. Because no man is immune from enticements of evil, none can be trusted and invested with limitless power. (Lapeer, RUsseell W. issue 6 p. 2).

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This concern was evident in the many checks and balances and the separation of powers in our federal government. Madison makes the separation of powers evident in Federalist Paper 48 because he states “power properly belonging to one of the departments ought not to be directly and completely administered by either of the other departments” (Hamilton et al. 305). This idea portatins to each of the branches having their own general duties with the Executive branch enforcing the laws, the legislative branch writing the laws, and the judicial branch interpreting the laws. Madison also demonstrates why the government needs checks on its power in Federalist Paper 51 because the government needs to be able to control the people but also it has to control itself since we are not governed by angels (Hamilton et al. 319). These ways to control the government are evident in Article 1, Section 3 as the “Senate shall have the sole power to try all Impeachments” and in Article 1, Section 7 which gives the President the power to veto bills (Hamilton et al. 546).

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The Constitution, therefore, dictated that there would be three governmental bodies: the Legislative, the Executive, and the Judicial. This was the measure that people like James Madison and John Jay took so that the states would not be ruled by one supreme government, they would instead spread the power out into three different sections of government. This is called limits on power, and the Constitution used limits on power to assure the American people that there would be no, one, overarching leader, which kept the democratic society, but with regulations so that the states would not be bound to a trust system. The Constitution instilled a greater sense of protection within the United States because of this. In the Articles of Confederation, the power was held by the heads of states, and moreover, by the central leaders of those states.

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The Constitution is the greatest document to teach “the question of how free and equal citizens check and channel power both to protect themselves from domination by one another and to secure their mutual protection from external forces that might seek their domination” (Allen 9). To do this, the Constitution created the separation of powers and the system of checks and balances so that each branch of government does not have domination over the other. Each branch of government has a specific area of responsibility and was made to not have too much power over the others, to keep an unbiased system of

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[the three branches] should not be so far separated as to have no constitutional control over each other.” (James Madison, Federalist Paper #51, 1788). This quote by James Madison shows that the Constitution basically separates powers of each branch, and gives each the right to stop the other if they feel that something isn’t fair or equal without creating a ruler or making one branch the strongest. With the concept of checks and balances, the founding fathers were able to stop soft tyranny, and keep government in a balanced and equal

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I’ve just completed reading the novel Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut and I was surprised to find myself excited to read this book every day. I decided to read this book because it was highly praised and recommended to me by my friend Clara. Normally science-fiction is not my genre of choice; however I try to read any book that is a peer recommendation. In the beginning, the story is told by an unknown narrator who is trying to write a book about his experience of the firebombing of Dresden Germany in 1945. He goes through his process of creating this novel by gathering memories from talking to old friends.

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