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Tyranny Dbq Analysis

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“The accumulation of all powers...in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many (is) the very definition of tyranny.” (Federalist Paper 47). What is tyranny? It is simply that. It is harsh, absolute power in the hands of an individual or individuals, such as a king or dictator. The Constitution is a group of ideas/laws that make up a central government. This Constitution was written in May of 1787 in Philadelphia. It was made because the Articles of Confederation were failing for these reasons: no chief executive, no court system, and no way for central government to force a state to pay taxes. The Articles of Confederation was first used to set laws made by representatives of each of the colonies and was the initial government …show more content…

“The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self-appointed, or elective, may be justly pronounced the very definition of tyranny…(L)iberty requires that the three great departments of power should be separate and distinct.”(Document B) The main idea of this quote is that if all of the branches are in the same hands of a person or group, they will get power hungry and it will turn into a tyranny, which is what the colonies are trying not to do. Madison thinks that 3 branches of government is a good system because each has different people that wouldn’t gain too much power. If a person was in more than one branch of government, he thinks it wouldn’t work because then they could gain too much power and they would turn into a tyrant. Even if they had a democracy, it wouldn’t work because then the people would have all of the say and they would get all of the power. The quote connects back to the thesis because it is about if all of the power was in the same hands, then it’s not a separation of government, it is a combination of …show more content…

The four ways that the government protected themselves from tyranny were the creation of federalism, the separation of government, the checks and and balances system, and creating a balance of power between large states and small states. Each of these reasons had a way of checkings itself so that it worked. Federalism checked itself by having the central government and the state government have their own things that they were in charge of, and had some things that they were both in charge of. The separation of government checked itself because it made no group of people have more power than another. It didn’t allow a person or group of people be in more than one branch of government because it would make them more powerful than others and would turn into a tyranny. The checks and balances worked in a way that each branch of government checked another so that one didn’t have more power than another. The big states vs small states checked each other by having government a way the larger states liked it and having the government a way that the smaller states liked it. The larger states liked to have the government based on population and the smaller states liked to have the government based on representation. Every one of these reasons wouldn’t be able to function without each thing in it. If you took one thing out of each of them, then the government on

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