The Impeachment of President Clinton Essay

President Andrew Johnson assumed office following Lincoln’s assassination. Johnson had his own ideas of Reconstruction and tried to take his own course of action in putting the Union back together following the Civil War. A series of bitter political quarrels between President Johnson and Radical Republicans in Congress over Reconstruction Policy in the South eventually led to his impeachment.

The concept of power is a divisive matter in the American political system, as the actors holding it are sometimes unable to impose it as a result of their limited authority to do so. The legislative, executive, and judicial branches in the national government depend on each-others point of view. Part of the Constitution was designed with the purpose of making it impossible for either of these three to become more powerful than the others. Each of them has the ability to check and balance the way that the other two function. In spite of the fact that this system was created with the intention of preventing power from being shared unequally in the country, it sometimes serves as a tool for political gridlock, considering that the judicial branches can debate in regard to a particular topic for unlimited amounts of time before actually reaching a conclusion regarding the respective issue.

The Founding Fathers created the federal constitution during their time and this contained an intricate set of checks and balances between different levels and branches of government. This remains relatively unchanged within the US constitution. This set of checks and balances works in a way that makes the different branches of government still have independence and work on their own, but also requires them to work together interdependently. This creates better, stronger

Lastly, it is impossible for any certain branch to gain too much power because of something called “checks and balances”. With checks and balances, each branch has the power to cancel another out and keep its power balanced. “In framing a government, which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place, oblige it to control itself.” Here, James Madison is stating that first, the issue is to convince the people that they need laws for the country to run properly and smoothly, and second is to explain to the people that the educated elite will not receive too much power. This will be achieved by giving each branch the power to overrule one another. For example, the legislative branch can impeach the president and Supreme Court, the president vetoes laws and nominates the Supreme Court, and the Supreme Court declares laws and acts unconstitutional. This way, not one single branch will be the main source of government.

To prevent from one branch of government having all power, and therefore having tyranny, (Madison FP # 47) Checks and Balances was added to the defenses of the constitution. There are three branches of government: Legislative Branch (Congress), Executive Branch (President), and Judicial Branch (The Courts). These three branches work together to check one another to make sure the power is evenly distributed and balanced, hence the name Checks and Balances. The way it works is that the Legislative Branch (Congress) can check the Executive Branch (President) by approving Presidential nominations, being able to override a President’s veto, and can impeach the President, him or her, from office. The Legislative Branch can check the Judicial Branch by having Senate confirm Presidential nominations and by being able to impeach judges and remove them from office. The President can check the Legislative Branch by vetoing Congressional legislation, and can check the Judicial Branch by nominating judges. The Judicial Branch can check the Legislative Branch by declaring laws unconstitutional, and can check the Executive Branch by declaring presidential acts unconstitutional. (Madison FP # 51) All three branches of government work together to make sure no branch is abusing their limited power, by using the system Checks and

     In order to control the effects of a faction, Madison said that the government needed to have a checks and balance system. By doing this, factions are prevented from getting too powerful. This is the reason why the Americans clearly put a checks and balance system in the constitution. In the constitution, these rights are guaranteed (Ziegler 216-220).

When the framers of our revered Constitution came together to produce our governing system, they wanted to avoid the precedent of an all powerful entity that could control its citizens. They broke governments role into three important phases, which were the power to make laws, the power to interpret laws, and the ability to enforce them. To further decentralize these authority holding organizations, they created a system that allowed each of the three sections to have a say in each of the others ability to exercise said authority. This organization of overlapping power is referred to as a checks and balances system and was intended to create three equal powers to govern the United States. Over the years since its

American politics is often defined by a continuing power conflict between the executive and the legislative branches of the government. This struggle for political power between the two stronger branches of the three is inherent in the Constitution, itself. The concepts of separation of powers and checks and balances ensure that the branches of government will remain in conflict and provide a balance that keeps the entire government under control. As it was first established, the executive branch was much smaller and weaker than as we know it today. Consequently, the legislative branch was unquestionably dominant. Over the course of history, the executive branch grew in both size and power to the point where it occasionally overtook the

According to President Bill Clinton, “We have a chance to pass the toughest, the smartest crime bill in the history of the United States,” and this was the California residents ' belief at the time the Three Strikes and you’re out law took effect in 1994.The purpose of the Three Strikes Law is to punish habitual offenders upon receiving their third conviction of any felony. Initially, if an individual receives a serious or violent felony conviction, this is a first strike; subsequently, the second serious or violent felony charge is a second strike and the individual will serve double the time originally assessed for the first felony. Finally, upon the third felony conviction an individual receives a minimum sentence of twenty five to life in prison. Even though twenty-three states, including the federal government, several politicians such as, Senator Bob Dole, and President Bill Clinton supported the passage of the Three Strikes Law. Undoubtedly, the Three Strikes bandwagon happened during a time in society when fear of crime was at its peak; as a result, law enforcement and other government officials went to the extreme in promising citizens to end habitual crime. Therefore, if the Three Strikes Law is to be a fair and impartial punishment for all criminals’ committing serious and violent crimes; then the crime committed must fit the consequences. Thus, is it fair to condemn a man who has two previous serious felonies for stealing a one dollar item on his third offense,

A good example of what some argue to have been a bad presidency, would be the case of George W. Bush, which on different occasions, he thought it would be suitable to disapprove of democracy and legal norms, by acting in ways such as; ordering government representatives to bypass statues and treaties, not allowing congressional oversight and jump into unwanted actions such as starting the war with Iraq which was not favored in the Congress. Normally the constitutions contains systems in place that should be able to counterattack such actions and behaviors, like the famous division of power and “checks and balances”. As the government of America is divided into three powers; the executory, judiciary and legislative, the system of “checks and balances” gives the three divisions of government the power of checking upon each other and ability of taking action when there is an unconstitutional act from one’s side.

On August 17, 1998, exactly one year after making the statement above, President Bill Clinton prepared to deliver a speech concerning a scandal that had gripped the nation for months. It is needless to say that this was an important moment during the Clinton administration. After accusations of sexual harassment, Clinton addressed the nation and admitted to having a relationship with Monica Lewinsky. In this critical speech Clinton set out to admit to wrong-doings, provide a few reasons for his

In the United States’ democratic government, the system of checks and balances is used to ensure that no tyranny is to take place in the government. The checks and balances system is supposed to do its job by allowing the three branches to make “checks” on one another and work with one another. The checks and balances system does not work, this was proven during the Indian Removal Act, 1830, and the trial Worcester VS Georgia, 1832. One of the governing branches is the Legislative Branch. Legislative has the most power out of the three, meaning that between the three branches the power is unevenly held.

President Clinton was a man entangled in his own ruins. He went from one lie to another and eventually was so caught up in them, that he was trapped. These lies brought on his downfall as a great leader. He was flawed like everyone, yet being a representative of the people, you need to keep these flaws hidden so that weakness is not shown. His failings were revealed to the whole world and his pride and integrity fell with them. The world no longer saw a leader, but a broken man. This was his ultimate failure. However, another big failure Clinton had while in office was his failure to

There was an issue in 1998 that involved personal indiscretions with a young woman White House intern, which cause Bill to be the second U.S. President to be impeached by the House of Representatives.

The scandal between Former President Bill Clinton and his intern Monica Lewinsky is one of the most well known scandals in United States history. This scandal that took place from 1995 to 1997 had at least 10 sexual encounters involving Clinton and Lewinsky. This series of encounters, along with other things led to President Clinton being impeached.