18th Century Constitution
According to Ashford and Ashbee (1999), the system of:
"checks and balances have created gridlock. Decisions cannot be made because there is insufficient agreement between institutions. In contrast with the countries of western Europe, the US has, [critics] argue, been unable to impose effective gun control or establish comprehensive health-care provision because decision making requires such a widely shared consensus."
This gridlock is one of the reasons that some have come to call the US Constitution an "18th Century Strait-Jacket". Of course there are various sides to this argument that must be explored before a conclusion is reached.
First, we must put
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It must be remembered that the interpretation of the Constitution will affect its adaptability. Literalists are less likely to find room for flexibility in the Constitution. For example, let us take the following extract from Article 6 of the Constitution:
"The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution".
While a literalist may believe that these people must support the Constitution on every occasion, others may suggest that while they should uphold the principles and rules of the Constitution, if they disagree with anything in the Constitution they have the right, from the 1st Amendment's "freedom of speech" guarantee, to make this public. Therefore, it can be argued that it is, in fact, the interpreters as opposed to the interpreted that makes the Constitution an "18th Century Strait-Jacket".
Critics argue that the nature of the
With the United States new found independence from Great Britain, its founding fathers realize from their historical experiences that a document of law needed to be crafted and established to preserve its new found independence, while maintaining order. However, the first document crafted by the founding fathers, the Articles of Confederation, did preserve the country new found independence but it did not maintain order. The Articles of Confederation described by many founding fathers to be a document that was crafted to satisfy needs of every state for its ratification, even when the document did not present a responsible democracy. The Articles of Confederation granted all national powers to the congress; however, it allowed each state
The Constitutional Convention of 1787 was held to address problems in governing the United States which had been operating under the Articles of Confederation since it’s independence from Britain. Fifty-five delegates from the states attended the convention to address these issues. The delegates consisted of federalists who wanted a strong central government to maintain order and were mainly wealthier merchants and plantation owners and anti-federalists who were farmers, tradesmen and local politicians who feared losing their power and believed more power should be given to the states. The Constitutional Convention dealt with the issue of the debate between federalists and anti-federalists. The debates, arguments and compromises
Gridlock is one of the United States leading problems, and the main reason why people find the government to be “useless” or “slow” when trying to come to a consensus on major issues. Congressional gridlock is when neither the House or Congress seems to be able to respond with solutions to our nation’s pressing problems, and fails to enact any meaningful legislation to fix national issues. Gridlock mainly occurs when the president and the majority in one or both houses have different political beliefs and are in different parties. You hear everyone talking about gridlock and how it needs to be fixed, but you never actually see our political leaders doing anything about it.
The Constitution has been operative since 1789 after the ratification of nine states (American Vision and Values, Page 52). Today many question the relevancy of a document 222 years old to our society. The Founders created a governmental framework, defining three branches and giving powers to the government and others to the states. It also guarantees the rights of the people. It took two and one-half years for the 13 colonies to ratify the Constitution. This ratification period was one of great debate and produced a series of essays complied into The Federalist. Authored by John Hamilton, James Madison and John Jay during the ratification debate in New York, they tried to get public support for the Constitution. Thus began the first
In 1787 at the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, the framers of the Constitution of the United States of America worked together to identify the best way to elect the President (Patterson, 2013). The ideas suggested varied and ranged from selection by members of congress chosen by lottery, to a popular vote of the people. By the end of the Convention the matter had yet to be settled as the framers fore saw that many of the suggestions were prone to corruption, error, and were very chaotic. The issue was passed down to the Committee on Postponed Matters, who in turn created the system that is used today and is commonly known as Electoral College (Kazin, 2011). The Electoral College was outlined by the Committee to up hold the views of the founding fathers, who were the framers of the Constitution.
The Constitution for the US has 7 Articles, and they are all very detailed. They help lead our country toward success and let us strive to be the best country that we can possibly be. It is crazy how they wrote it in the 1700’s, and we are now in the 2000’s and still obey it. The writers of it must have been genius’!
Congressional gridlock in the United States is at a high currently, doubling since the 1950s. Gridlock is the slowing of the legislative processes due to the difficulty of congressional officials to agree on certain bills and or laws. Gridlock makes the passage of legislation time consuming and hardly any progress can be accomplished. This is how Congress acquired the nickname “Do Nothing Congress.”This usually occurs when both parts of Congress, the House of Representatives and the Senate, are of opposing parties. This then makes the President have the final say.
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
“Give me liberty or give me death” were the famous words spoken by Patrick Henry in the struggle for independence (Burnett 62). He addressed the first continental congress in 1774 and started the process of American political revolt. This revolt eventually climaxed in the rebelling of Britain's American colonies and the establishment of what would become the United States of America. The Second Continental Congress accomplished independence through organization, rebellion, and finally declaring independence. This was the beginning of the American Revolution.
During the election of 1800, Thomas Jefferson succeeded in defeating the incumbent, John Adams, and assumed the presidency. In terms of elections though, the election of 1800 itself was a fascinating election in that it a heavily-contested election and was effectively the first time political parties ran smear campaigns against each other during an election. The Republican Party attacked the Federalists for being anti-liberty and monarchist and tried to persuade the public that the Federalists were abusing their power through acts such as the Alien & Sedition Acts and the suppression of the Whiskey Rebellion (Tindall and Shi 315). The Federalists, on the other hand, attacked Jefferson for his atheism and support of the French Revolution
The weakness of the Constitution was the Compromise by the North that allowed the South to have slaves as they made concessions to the South to create one unified nation. However, as time passed, the North regretted their Compromise and stated that the expansion of slavery would be prohibited in the Union. The Constitution was formed to unify and strengthen the central government, but the Compromises on slavery included in the Constitution became a source of sectional discord. In fact, the system in which the balance was kept between the free states and slave states contributed to the failure of the Union that the Constitution had created.
The Canadian Constitution Regarded as the fundamental law of the land, a Constitution is important because it sets forth the policy declaration and principles of a sovereign state. Aside from that, it accords the government fundamental powers so that the latter is able to serve and protect the people in the best possible way. Without the Constitution, a community will fall into anarchy. For the purposes of this paper, the history of the promulgation of the Canadian Constitution will be discussed. This paper will also assess the purpose of the said Constitution.
The eighteenth amendment of the United States Constitution was ratified in the year 1919. This amendment made buying, sellieng, and producing alcoholic beverages illegal. However, this amendment did not stop some on the citizens in the United States, this included some of Louisiana’s own citizens.
United States’ formal occupation of Japan began to end with the implementation of the 1947 Post-War Constitution. The new constitution, founded on liberal and democratic institutions, also called for military restriction, similar to the post-war constitution adopted in Germany. Chapter II, Renunciation of War, contains the famous peace clause, Article 9. Article 9 states, “Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as means of settling international disputes” and that “land, sea, and air forces, as well as other war potential, will never be maintained.” The geopolitical landscape at the time was already starting to revolve around the bipolar power structure of the Soviet Union versus the United States. In a region where several atrocities and war crimes committed by Japan defined the war for many, the world needed reassurance of a docile Japan and long-term stability in Asia. In 1954 with the support of the
The theme of “autonomy and responsibility” is prevalent in many major wars of revolution throughout the history of the world and especially in the events that occurred in England during the seventeenth century. Autonomy is defined as self-government and existing or functioning independently. Responsibility is having obligations or duties to something and being able to distinguish between right and wrong. In England, the political leaders drove King James II out of the country in order to end his oppressive rule as an absolute monarch. The Dutch Prince William of Orange, James’ son-in-law, invaded England to rule. Parliament gave the throne to William and his wife Mary but placed restrictions on