Our Evolving Government and Changing Constitution
The Constitution of the United States of America is an ever re-interpreted document that is contested daily in council rooms and in courts across the land; It was made to be that way. The constitution works because it is open to evolution. For over two centuries the Constitution has remained in force because it’s framers wanted to balance between the national government and the rights of states. The Constitution evolves to meet the needs of a world different from the eighteenth-century one in which it was created.
The United States Constitution is an outline of the laws and principles that define the rights of American citizens and sets limits on what the government can do by organizing the branches of government. The legislative branch creates the law; the executive branch enforces the law and the judicial branch decides if the law follows the constitution. There are on-going debates about what The Constitution writers meant and what rights are given. From the beginning its writers debated how the details would be framed.
The Constitution has a central place in United States law and in to some degree, the culture of the United States, certainly in the Culture of American Government. (Foner, Give me liberty pg. 268). Unlike The Declaration of Independence, it does not mention God or divine rights, rather it bars religious texts from federal office. (Foner, 270). It defined who was entitled to the freedoms as outlined in the
Contrary to, surprisingly, popular belief that the United States Constitution is outdated, it is, in fact, still relevant in today’s society on the basis of The Bill of Rights, checks and balances, and the Elastic Clause in the
‘Transformed beyond recognition from the vision of the Founding Fathers.’ Discuss this view of the modern US constitution.
A constitution is the system of fundamental principles according to which a nation is governed. Our founding fathers created the US Constitution to
“The United States Constitution is the oldest written national constitution still in use” (Confederation and the Constitution, pg. 71). After more than 200 years, the Constitution is still changing to support the next generations needs. This “living document” has many different reasons that allow it to “fit in” with the new generations.
The Constitution of the United States of America was ratified in the year 1787. Ever since that date, the document has enforced the laws set forth and created a base for the country to stand upon. The Constitution was created to provide strict, but amenable guidelines that Americans could follow, which could result in a functional country. Aside from the fact that the Constitution was written over two hundred years ago, the document is still necessary and relevant to modern times. The three branches of government, the First Amendment, as well as the Fourth Amendment, are all still present in today’s America. Many of the rules in the Constitution are still accordant to society today, primarily because of the perceptive founding fathers who created them.
When people gather together for form a society, they will automatically need a fundamental law (constitution) that will be above everything and everyone. Constitution is what actually regulates a country. It provides rights and set up obligations for everyone. The United States constitution is one of the greatest documents ever written. It provides liberty, prosperity, equality, more importantly huge freedom. However, the ratification of the U.S. constitution was not an easy task. The farmers had trouble to agree on several issues such as the representation and distribution of political powers; how to prevent excessive democracy; and the protection of individual liberties, etc.
the founding document of our nation’s laws and government. Within its texts, the Constitution outlines the operations and existence of all three branches of government, Executive, Legislative, and Judicial, as well as their functions and interdependence. The constitution also includes the Bill of Rights, and all other amendments that serve as a basis for any law created in our country at either the federal or state level. While semi-extensive, the main rights we share are those from the bill of rights, which
The U.S. Constitution is the document of the principles and system of the United States government. It covers the goals of the new government, the system and purpose of each branch, how the states will work, how to amend the constitution, the supremacy of the national government, and the process of ratification. The U.S. Constitution is the supreme law of America, that must be followed by everyone. The Constitution of the United States was established at the 1787 Constitutional Convention and signed in 1787. The Constitution is the structure of America, it tells us how everything will work in this nation of ours. Without the Constitution, there would not be any specified rules of how this country is set up and how it works. The Constitution makes us who we are today, it establishes our system of government, our rules of what we can and can’t do, what the government can do for the people, and how everything in America is set up.
There is a constitution in every country to guide the government and to govern the people. With so many struggles facing the United States of America, one thing was for sure, change was needed. A universal law was needed to fix the government and make it more functional. The US Constitution becomes important because it directly states and explains natural born rights and limits the federal government. Both the government and people are bound to obey it. The constitution contains requirements to the powers and duties of government, Americans have been concerned with their rights, the right to practice religion however they wished was one of the primary reasons the first settlers came to America from England. The right of representation and
In 1783, the Americans triumphed in the American Revolution, which granted independence from Great Britain. After their victory, it became evident that the new country would need a secure and central government to thrive. The Constitution is a document formed to aid the new republic and ensure that it would become and remain stable. It gives a complete and thorough outline of the rights that all citizens are entitled to have. However, prior to the ratification of the Constitution there had to be many debates and factors that influenced the idea of such a document that would form the basis for the United States. The creation of the Constitution was a result of America’s perseverance through certain political, economic, and social issues of the 1780s. Even through the unfavorable circumstances, America was able to devise a doctrine that would become to be known as the basis for the greatest country in the world; the US
The constitution was established by men who had experienced the dictatorships of Europe and had escaped from its grasp. They sought to establish a form of government that would never allow a dictatorship or tyrant ruler to hold power over the people like in the places they had fled. With their creation of the foundation of what our government is today they created a system where 3 branches were all of equal power and each could be overruled by another which prevented any branch becoming superior of another. The separation of powers provides a system of shared power called Checks and Balances.(2) The three branches are legislative, judicial and executive and they each have specific powers to
What exactly is the Constitution? The Constitution of the United States is the highest set of laws of the United States, which cannot be ignored without severe repercussions. The Constitution was the successor to the Articles of Confederation, which had severely failed at keeping the country together, both politically and economically, so it was abolished. Because of that, the Philadelphia Convention convened with the goal to fix the law. It was finished and signed on September 17, 1787 and it has been used up to this day.
The Constitution is the Supreme Law of the United States; however, it has its philosophical roots in the Declaration of Independence. The Constitution is the Supreme Law, one designed to enforce the principles in the Declaration of Independence. I assert that the Founders intended the Constitution to be the means by which to execute the principles in the Declaration of Independence. President Abraham Lincoln wrote, in his article Fragment on the Constitution and the Union, that the Declaration of Independence was an 'apple of gold' whereas the Constitution was the "picture of silver" framed around it. The frame would be worthless without the center picture, and the center could not be upheld without the frame.
The constitution is essential to the American way of life. “To live under the American Constitution is the greatest political privilege that was ever accorded to the human race” because of how flexible the constitution is for the changing times imposed upon society(Coolidge). From giving rights to any citizen of color or gender to the right to bear arms and form militias, the power and legal depth of the constitution has never been at stake even though the document is still malleable. Even president Roosevelt said that “the United States Constitution has proved itself the most marvelously elastic compilation of rules of government ever written”(Roosevelt). The elasticity of the constitution comes from the interpretation given by the courts
Therefore the Constitution of the United States is no longer completely viable to our modern day society and needs to be modified to our current needs, improve protections that all humans and citizens should have, and should be restructured to not have as many loopholes that politicians have become avid in taking, to get into power.