Dbq Essay On The US Constitution

The Constitution of the United States was written in 1787 at the Constitutional Convention, where it was held in Philadelphia. It was written by a group of people known as “Farmers,” or the “Founding Fathers,” and few of the most famous Founding Fathers were George Washington (The first president of the USA), Thomas Jefferson (The first vice president and the third president of the USA) James Madison (The fourth president of the USA), Samuel Adams, and Benjamin Franklin. The old government, the Articles of Confederation was not working as it supposed to be, it was vulnerable and cannot secure and defend the new born nation and for that reason the constitution of the united states saw the light.

“While the authors of the United States Constitution are frequently portrayed as noble and idealistic statesmen who drafted a document based upon their conception of good government, reality is that the constitution reflects the politics of the drafting and ratification process. Unfortunately, the result is a document that is designed to produce an ineffective government, rather than a government that can respond to issues in a timely fashion.” In support of this conclusion, the issues of slavery, The 1906 San Francisco Earthquake, and the civil rights struggle keenly demonstrate the ways in which our constitution hinders the expediency and effectiveness of America’s government. The constitution’s provisions towards voting eligibility and

A constitution is a written document that sets forth the fundamental rules by which a society is governed. Throughout the course of history the United States has lived under two Constitutions since the British-American colonies declared their independence from Great Britain in 1776. First in line was the Articles of Confederation (1789-1789) followed by the Constitution of United States of America (1789-present). The Articles of Confederation was the first formal written Constitution of America that specified how the national government was to operate. Unfortunately, the Articles did not last long. Under the words of the Article’s power was limited; Congress could make decisions, but had no power to enforce them. Also the articles stated

Based on your interpretation of the course text, explain the framers’ (framers’ of the U.S. Constitution) position on the Presidency:

One way the U.S. constitution protects us against tyranny is separation of powers. A double security rises to the rights of the people. The government's control each other, but at the same time it will be controlled by itself. The National and State governments limit each other's powers and the powers are divided between them. If all the power is in the same hands then they will have to much and there will be a tyranny. James Madison said, “Liberty requires that the three great departments should be separate and distinct.” He talks about how the branches limit each other and that the powers are divided so one branch doesn't get too much. Separation of powers

Federalism is the division of power between national and state government. Federalism was supported by Doc A, an excerpt of The Federalist Papers; A series of essays written by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay in support of the Constitution. The following quote is an excerpt from Federalist Paper #51, written in 1778 by James Madison. “In the compound republic of America, the power surrendered by the people is first divided between two distinct governments, and the portion allotted to each subdivided among districts and separate departments.” In the aforementioned quote, James Madison is referring to the national state governments. Due to federalism, power is split between local and federal governments, preventing all power being controlled by one group. As a result, the two governments each have their own powers, which prevents total rule from a national or state government. Additionally, the power in these branches are split into three more branches. This prevents any one branch of government from having total power, which guards against

In 1782 Americans won their independence from Britain in the American Revolution. After the colonies won their independence, Americans created the Constitution. Its purpose was to replace the Articles of Confederation and solve its problems and more importantly to bring the states together under a single document creating a stronger union of all the states. There was one problem though: there were a few fundamental issues that the framers could not agree on. In the early nineteenth century the United States began to split, but as the mid-century came around, people became more polarized in their views and the union started to separate drastically. During the period of 1850, until 1861 when the Confederate States of America was formed, the

Compare the strengths and weaknesses of the Articles of confederation to those of the Constitution. Which document did a better job at protecting liberties? Running a government? Explain your answer with specific examples.

The Constitution defends against tyranny by creating a compound government called federalism. Federalism is the power that is divided into two distinct governments: Central Government and power to the States. The Central Government has the power to regulate trade, conduct foreign relations, provide and army and a navy, and declare war. The power given to the states are to set up local governments, hold elections, establish schools, and regulate in-state businesses. The powers they share are the power to tax, set up courts, make and enforce laws. 'The different governments will each control each other, at the same time that each will be controlled by itself' (James Madison- Document A). The Constitution represses against tyranny

The current method of representation in the US congress was created under the Connecticut plan, or the Great Compromise. Two plans were devised at the Constitutional Convention in 1787: the Virginia plan, which detailed representation based on a state’s population, and the New Jersey plan, which called for each state to have equal representation in Congress. The Great Compromise was a mixture of those two plans and proposed a bicameral legislature with population based representation in the House and equal representation between the states in the Senate. Although the founders may have eventually came to compromise, it wasn’t a simple process. The Virginia Plan had favored large states and the New Jersey plan had favored the smaller states;

Small state vs large state is so that every state is equal when they vote. For example if a bigger state is more important than the little states then they can just vote for whatever law and win because they are bigger and more important. This stops it from happening because it makes all states equal no matter what their size is and makes it always 1 vote per state. In Document D it says "Representatives … shall be apportioned … according to … [popula- tion]… The number of representatives shall not exceed one for every thirty thousand, but each state shall have at least one representative." This is showing how they have made all the states equal by doing it by population. So like Maine might be smaller the Texas but it also might have a bigger population so they would get more

This worked out to satisfaction of the smaller states and for the larger states they were given a House of Representatives that would consist of a larger body of representatives for each state in proportion to the amount of the people in that state.

In 1997, we declared our Independence. We broke away from England to stop being controlled by the king. The king had too much power and we wanted to gain our Independence. The king of England was a tyrant towards the people of England. The Articles of Confederation were the very first set of laws for the Government , that explained the duties and powers.

The plan to divide the government into three branches was proposed by James Madison, at the Constitutional Convention of 1787. He modeled the division from who he referred to as ‘the Perfect Governor,’ as he read Isaiah 33:22; “For the Lord is our judge, the Lord is our lawgiver, the Lord is our king; He will save us.” http://www.eadshome.com/QuotesoftheFounders.htm

During the creation of the constitution the framers decided to have equal representation in the senate on the basis that small states would not concur to anything else, fearing that larger states would have more representation: “the adamant refusal of the delegates from the small states to accept any constitution that did not provide for equal representation in the senate” (13). Small states were worried that without the power of equal representation, politicians would only focus on larger states because it will yield more votes. Yet what they did not expect was that now the Electoral College results in an imbalanced voting influence to states. Representation in the second chamber, the senate, is not based of the proportion of the states citizens rather it is coming from a federal unit, each state will have two senators no matter how small or big according to the Connecticut Comprise. The Connecticut Comprise was an accord between the small and large states on evenly weighted representation among the states.