Other states introduced literacy tests as criteria for voting. Literacy testes were not applied fairly and therefore even educated black people were disenfranchised. These were not explicitly racist, but both prevented black Americans from voting. These barriers, which prevented black Americans from voting, meant that black citizens no longer had a voice for their opinion to be heard. This affected how black people would still be treated as second-class citizens through white supremacy.
There seems to have been a very strong opposition towards democracy at the Constitutional Convention, although the framers were in the midst of creating democratic principles to appeal to the majority of the country. This led to the creation of democratic principles such as separation of powers, checks and balances, bicameralism, and the electoral college. Article I of the US Constitution establishes the legislative branch- Congress. Article II of the US Constitution establishes the executive branch - the presidency. Article III of the US Constitution establishes the judiciary branch - the Supreme Court.
These ideas were rejected as the framers of the constitution thought this would cause corruption and disrupt the balance of power between the branches of the federal government (Webster, 2016). Later in the convention the Committee of Eleven proposed the idea of electing the President through a College of Electors. The founders thought the selected group of electors was a better process to select the President than going with a direct voting system. The purpose of the Electoral College is to create a safeguard between the population and selection of the President, and to provide power to the smaller states. This system was then written into the Constitution and can only be altered by an
Unlike dictatorship form, democracy lets masses govern themselves and provides them the power to vote(Rawat, 2014). It is absolutely right, however, there are one thing this author did not think. During the processing through the way to democracy, can the country and its people afford the loses or the impacts brought. Wars could be caused because of votes differences. Many civil wars happened because the proposals were raised as anti-governmental proposals.
Using the sources and your own knowledge, explain what is meant by ‘democracy’? Democracy is a system of government where all eligible members of a state, vote for a leader for their country. There are 2 main types of democracy, direct and representative. Direct democracy is where the people decide on the outcome directly however this type of democracy wouldn’t work in countries such as the UK as it would be too hard to get everyone together to vote and too difficult to make sure everyone is happy with the final outcome. The other type of democracy is representative democracy where all eligible people come together to vote on a representative e.g.
Louis “copping out” illustrates a ruler who could not bare losing his authoritative power. While the people were successful at generating a feasible constitution, because of Louis XVI’s inability to reign as constitutional monarch, the entire exploit was ultimately a failure considering the aspiration of the revolution: establish a democratic state. As the Republic suffered
The Anti-Federalists’ strongest argument, however, was that the Constitution lacked a Bill of Rights. The Anti-Federalists warned that without a Bill of Rights, a strong national government might take away the human rights won in the Revolution. They had great apprehension about the potential loss of sovereignty through the power given to the national government in the proposed Constitution and the resulting horrific effects that such a loss would have on the nation and the people as a whole. The Anti-Federalist belief was that through the integrity of state sovereignty, effective restraints would be in place to keep the national government from deteriorating into a despotic government thus protecting the liberties and freedoms of the people. Anti-Federalist felt that the Constitution gave more power to central government and less to the states.
In other words, democracy requires political equality that the people have equal political influence which can be actualized through universal suffrage under the principle of ‘one person, one vote’. This implies the “principle of majority rule [that] the will of the majority…overrides the will of the minority. (Heywood 2002: 87). Another important component of democracy is the accountability of the government that it is responsible to answer the people’s will through cooperating and competing with other representatives as their political power is given by the people. However, people may doubt this system of government due to 1) inadequacy of voters, 2) existence of tyranny of the majority, 3) democratic overload, 4) administrative inefficiency and the 5) mob rule resulted.
Compulsory voting addresses the fact that people simply don't turn up to vote, which weekend voting doesn't Australia and other countries already have compulsory voting in a modern, western democracy, so the UK should follow other countries as well. Forcing people to vote does not ensure a greater democratic process. There will be voters who are voting not because they want a particular party to win but simply because they have to vote. Bullying tactics should never be used in free and fair elections because they undermine the democratic process, and compulsory voting works only when backed up with a penalty/punishment for those who don't vote. Just because it 'works' in other countries does not mean that it should be implemented here.
The Weimar Republics’ aim was to create the perfect democracy, but there were ultimately two flaws that destroyed the Republic: Proportional representation and Article 48. Proportional representation meant that, instead of voting for an MP like we did in Britain, they voted for a party, which turned out to be disastrous because there wasn’t a party strong enough t get the majority of votes, so therefore no laws could be passed. Article 48 meant that, in the case of an emergency, the president did not need the agreement of the Reichstag, but could issue decrees, the problem with this was that they didn’t state what an emergency was and, in the end, it turned out to be a way for Hitler to take power legally. The Weimar Republic faced violent uprisings from various groups, and also had disastrous economic problems. Germany between 1918-1919 was in chaos, people were starving, the Kaiser had fled, Bands of soldiers called ‘Freikorps’ refused to disband and formed private armies.