The Rights Of The United States

The Virginia Plan was written by James Madison which was a proposed plan presented by Edmund Randolph. It was more known as the Randolph Plan, which was the plans sponsor. This plan was supported by many of the large states such as Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Massachusetts. This plan was required to have a very strong congress of two houses based on proportional representation. One of the houses would be elected by the people and the other would be elected by the first one.

The Virginia plan proposes that the National Government be made up of three branches. These are: a supreme Legislative, Executive and Judiciary. It further proposes that the number of houses in the congress to be two, the first and the second one. Members of first house of the congress are supposed to be elected by people of the different states for a term of three years while Members of the second house are to be chosen by the individual legislatures for a term of seven years.

The Virginia plan and the new jersey plan were plans on how many representatives a state received when voting. The Virginia plan proposed representation by the state's population and proposed an upper chamber to be elected by the lower chamber. With Virginia being one of the states with the highest population they would receive most of the power to govern the country over smaller states which would mean their state’s interest would overpower interest of smaller population states. Many other smaller states disagreed with this plan as they saw it as unfair and thought the needs and views of their state would be ignored.

This plan called for the number of votes each state received in Congress be based on the population of that state. This was a blatant attempt to protect the larger states interests. Rather than amending the Articles of confederation, The Virginia Plan was meant to create a new form of government with more control. The most obvious of drawbacks would be the overwhelming amount of power a state could have over another based on population size. This plan would also create a general feeling of dislike and contempt to each individual state further dividing what was meant to be a united country. There were also provisions in place allowing new states to enter The United States of America. The Virginia Plan also introduced the idea of checks and balances with the three branches of government, Executive, Legislative and

Democracy is a system of government in which the utmost influence is consigned in the individuals and implemented directly by them or by their designated representatives under a free voting arrangement. According to my research direct democracy also known as pure democracy is when all the individuals come together and make decisions by voting. They are the one who decide the regulation and guidelines through which the people will oversee. In contrast a representative democracy is when the population designate leaders who makes judgements on their behalf. There are many differences between a direct and a representative democracy and some of them are that in a direct democracy the public have authority and are responsible for decision making

Virginia plan placed a lot of power in the legislative branch, and had a system very similar to the one we use today. The branch is split up into two houses, the House of Representatives, as well as the Senate. The number of officials in these institutions would be based solely on population, or their contribution to the federation. They would be voted on by the people, for the House of Reps, and the Senate would then be chosen by government officials. This was a very scary plan to the smaller states, who much rather favored the New Jersey plan. This option outlined a very equal playing field for all states. There is a one house legislature system, with equal representation across the board. All decisions were made based on the state’s

The Virginia delegation to the convention put forward a plan (the Virginia Plan) on a new form of government. They suggested a large-state constitutional proposal for a strong congress, which included separate judicial and executive branches with two-chambers. Both arms would be based on numerical representation according to the population in each states. Thus, the more populated states would have higher number of representatives in both chambers than would the lightly populated ones.

Direct democracy can be defined as a system of democracy in which citizens participate in the majority of legislation; therefore, granting them political self-determination. A representative democracy (also indirect democracy) is a form of democracy founded on the principle of elected officials representing a group of people. A direct democracy has leaders that are chosen specifically by “The People”. There is no Electoral College, or elected officials, to cast the votes of the people, the people cast their own direct votes.

In the United States, the people matter. They are free, and can control what happens in government. The people have certain rights that allow them to do things that make them people, for example, thinking, speaking, and acting. The Founders of the US wanted to protect people’s basic rights as much as possible through the constitution. The Constitution explains, in great detail, that the people are sovereign.

When The United States came into being, the heads of the country made a great deal of emphasis in making sure the country fulfilled one requirement: the United States needed to be the living image of freedom. This image of freedom needed to exist not only as a geographical and political entity, meaning free from the English, but as a society as well, and that is why it opted for a democracy as a system to rule, to let the citizens be able to live freely. Despite the obvious issues presented in the country on that moment that we might call hypocrite, like slavery; the founding fathers knew what they wanted the country to achieve, and laid a great base for getting there, The Bill of Rights, the document that preceded the Constitution in

The first step towards ensuring their freedom was to establish how the states would be represented in the new Federal government. Some form of elected or chosen representation was needed to ensure that the states would have a direct hand in determining the laws of the new country. The original plan proposed by Virginia

“Under modern Supreme Court jurisprudence, the right to petition, along with the right to peaceable assembly have been almost completely collapsed into Freedom of Speech.” (www.heritage.com). The U.S. Constitution was written as a new set of rules for the nation in place of the Articles of Confederation. The Constitution consists of three parts known as the Preamble, the 7 articles, and the 27 amendments. Of these amendments, the first ten are referred to as the Bill of Rights. “The Bill of Rights sets limitations on the government.” (www.constitutioncenter.org). Our five most important rights are Freedom of Speech, Press, Assembly, Petition, and Religion which are all provided by the First Amendment. To understand Freedom of

Every year people from all over the world come to the United States for a myriad of reasons. Some to seek employment, some education, and others to seek safe haven from violence and oppression from foreign governments. Regardless of the reason, the beauty of the United States is that the protections afforded by the constitution apply to anyone within its territory. However, since the terrorist attack against the United States on September 11, 2001, the protections of the constitution have since become a blurred line. Legislation such as the Patriot Act, and methods in which law enforcement conduct operations to combat terrorism have pushed the limits of the constitution. Finding the balance of working within the confines of the constitution is a constant challenge. The growing challenge elicits the potential for legal, policy and ethical issues, which ultimately undermine the very purpose of what the constitution is intended to protect.

The “Move to Amend” organization has put forth a proposed twenty-eighth amendment, that if ratified to the U.S. Constitution would take the constitutional rights away from all artificial entities such as corporations, and limit all campaign expenditures including the candidate 's own contributions and expenditures. The Supreme Court has ruled on multiple occasions that according to the fourteenth amendment corporations are individuals that have constitutional rights. If corporations have the same rights as individuals, then under the first amendment they have the right to spend their money on political campaigns as they choose. I am against both parts of this proposed twenty-eighth amendment, the Supreme Court has already set precedence and I believe that the addition of this amendment would directly contradict the first amendment since political speech is at the core of the first amendment. If you set limits on campaign expenditures, you are limiting someone’s ability to effectively campaign and get their message out. If a corporation chooses to spend large sums of money on political advertising then that is their choice, most people don’t want to be told how they can spend their money and neither do corporations.