The Articles of Confederation was a complete failure, which is why the Constitution was written. In 1787, fifty-five delegates gathered in Philadelphia to write the Constitution, fixing the weak government under the Articles of Confederation. Those delegates faced a challenge while writing the Constitution; it was to create a strong central government without letting any one person, or group of people, get too much power, or to prevent tyranny. According to Federalist paper #47, “the accumulation of all power… in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many (is) the very definition of tyranny.” The Constitution guarded against tyranny by separation of powers, checks and balances, and state representation(big states versus small states). Separation of powers prevents tyranny.
Some supporters say that a state should have more power than the federal government and then there are others who say the Federal government should be the ruling body alone. You have a central government that functions to keep the country working as a unit, but also works to keep the states from encroaching on individuals and becoming too intrusive. The same works for states. The states have a lot of control over what their citizens should be subject to. For example, criminal laws, property laws, contract laws...etc are decided by the state, not the federal government and they aren’t allowed to govern those areas.
The separation of powers is the separation of the legislative, executive and judicial functions of governments. In the US the separation is reached by extensive checks and balances. The most significant operation in the separation of personnel meaning that no member can be part of more than branch which differs from the UK where for example the Prime Minister is part of the executive and the legislative branch. It helps the system in a way that the separation of powers is a safeguard against tyranny as no individual or group is able to dominate the political system through control of more than one branch. It also means that members of Congress are not elected on a joint mandate as members of a prospective government, as would be the case in a parliamentary system, but to represent the interests of their districts and states, and on a separate mandate from the president.
James madison said "hence a double security arises to the rights of people the different government's will each control each other ,and at the same time each will be controlled by themselves" which simply states that Federalism prevented tyranny by dividing the power between the nation and the state. With no one power having control over the other tyranny was prevented ,once delegates decided that Federalism would be the base of our government they went to work and decided that a separation of powers was the next step. ("Wikianswers.com") In the beginning stages of fixing this issue it was said that "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 justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny." (James Madison)("Wikianswers.com"), which in a nutshell means that to much power can not be placed in the hands of an individual or a group because either way it's tyranny. In oder to prevent this separation of powers was brought into play with a set of checks and balances that prevented the legislative, executive, and judiciary each power over the other.
Explain the principle of the separation of powers found in the US Constitution. The separation of powers is the main underlying principle of the US Constitution whereby political power is distributed amongst the three branches of government – the legislature, the executive and the judiciary. The branches act both independently and interdependently. The idea was originally of French political thinker Baron de Montesquieu, it was then incorporated by the Founding Fathers into the 1787 codified document. The principle was adopted by the Founding Fathers due to their fear of totalitarianism.
This proposal suggested that the lower house would be represented by the state’s population, but in the upper house the states would be presented equally with two member from each state. This proposal became known as the “Great Compromise.” This compromise was accepted on July 16, 1787. Another issue that had to be dealt with was slavery. A constitutional convention was held in Philadelphia regarding this issue. Northern states did not want to count slaves at all, arguing that they
This form of democracy ensures that each person of the country is conscious and acknowledges the government’s decisions, as well as being part of the decision-making. The quote strongly opposes the ideology of democratic liberalism, but identifies with classical conservatism as well as elitism. Therefore, the concept of elitism contrasts the ideology of democratic liberalism. The second source addresses a neutral comparison of democratic liberalism and classical conservatism. The author of the quote, Louis Brandeis, states that by both ideologies cannot coexist in the same society.
The Articles of Confederation played an important part in the American Revolutionary War. The purpose of the Article was to provide a general government for the 13 colonies that had won their freedom from British rule. However, the Confederation government was weak and the Article was a failure because the states tended to ignore and paid little attention to acts passed by Congress. In the late 1780s, more and more American leaders concluded that the Articles of Confederation needed improvements. Discussion at the Annapolis Convention of 1786 led to a convention in Philadelphia in 1787.
More’s true focus does not even lie in power, but in the seeking of ideals. A second comparison that one could make is that the types of governments also have inherent qualities within them concerning power. In the Prince, the government is either a theoretical monarchy or dictatorship. Mach focuses on the manipulation of the people to main-tain power. The minor details do not matter.
The Constitution created a strong national government. It also divided the U.S. government into three parts, or branches, each with its own powers and responsibilities. To keep any one branch from becoming too powerful, the Constitution included a system of checks and balances. Under this system, each branch limited the power of the others. There are three branches of the federal government, the executive, the judicial, and the legislative.