The presidency comes with vast arrays of roles and responsibilities: approving/vetoing every bill passed, making sure laws made by congress are carried out, and simply presiding over meetings of the association. But the presidents many responsibilities are constrained due to the Separation of powers, the Constitution, and Federalism. Without these constraints, the President would have all the power he wanted, essentially having a monarchy not a democracy. For instance, separation of powers creates three separate branches of government, each with their own special powers. The Constitution creates reliability, making the president co-operate with the other branches of government.
Each branch has its own powers in the government, but the system of checks and balances keeps each branch from gaining too much power and overstepping its bounds. The checks and balances were originally put in place to protect the newly formed democracy from turning into another monarchy. Though stalemates do occur, for the most part, the three branches work together to promote the will of the people. Stalemates are bound to happen with differing opinions. When the executive branch is made of a majority of one party and the legislative branch is made up of a majority of a different party.
(Doc A). Federalism helps guard against tyranny by ensuring that the federal government doesn't have much to say in what happens in the country so that they don't become too powerful and create tyranny. A second way the constitution guards against tyranny is through the separations of powers. The separation of powers is the government separated into different branches so that they could spread out the powers. Then one branch of government can have more of a say in what will happen in the decisions made for the well-being of the country.
There were other provisions in the constitution to defend against abusing power, the system of checks and balances and having three branches in the government. While there was a central government, its power was diffused into three separate branches of relatively equal power. Each branch had the power to watch over the other two branches and stop any unconstitutional actions that were damaging to the government or it's people. The three branches and the system of checks and balances allow for the government to have a large amount of power and assure that it will not abuse the power invested into it by the
As a member of the US House of Representatives, Madison reviewed the Constitution making changes were he felt was necessary. Many Representatives argued that Congress did not have the authority to make changes to the wording of the Constitution. This made the changes that Madison made to the Constitution, amendments following Article VII. The House approved seventeen amendments, those seventeen amendments were sent to the Senate where they approved twelve. The twelve amendments were sent to the states for approval.
The constitution guarded against tyranny in several ways such as federalism, separation of powers, check and balances, and the big states vs. small states. The first guard against tyranny was federalism, which meant a system of government in which power is divided between a federal government and state government. The guard of federalism is shown two ways, one of them is the government will each control each other and at the same time each would be controlled. The second way is when some responsibilities are given to the state government so that they can share the power equally. Federalism protects against tyranny because powers that are given to central and state are shared, it also ensures that the federal government doesn’t have much to say in what happens in the country so they wont become powerful and create tyranny.
These social differences caused much tension between the states. This tension was the first cause of the civil war. The second cause of the civil war was the battle being waged between state rights and federal rights. One side argued that the state needed more power to control itself and the other side argued for more control on a federal level. When things came to a crescendo, many leaders came together and secretly created our constitution.
(GCU, 2012) Responsibilities are specifies the subject-matter jurisdiction of the federal courts, requires trial by jury, defines treason and its enforcement, and states that the Federal courts have jurisdiction over cases involving disputes between states, ambassadors, and dignitaries from other countries. The three branches of government are supposed to work in harmony with each other while guarding the limited power each branch was granted by the people. The intention of these three branches is to keep the balance of power in the favor of the people. They were put into place so that not one branch has too much power and be able to run the Congress in deciding which laws are passed and are not passed. By spreading the power into three different branches, this ensures that the balance of power is equal and not all in person or a team of people’s
The Constitution Our Constitution is the supreme law of the United States. The Constitution is the framework for the organization of the United States government and for the relationship of the federal government with the states, citizens and all people within the United States. The Constitution is said to have many flaws that many can argue are relevant. The fundamental flaw in our system is not the absence of a big political majority. The problem might be structural rather than political.
What can states do to counter the power of the federal government? Power that is disseminated between the federal government and states is known as federalism. The Constitution grants the states and federal government different powers and there is supposed to be a balance between the two. The federal government has the power to control trade, collect taxes, regulate currency, declare war and maintain and army and navy. Powers not delegated in the Constitution for the federal government is given to the states.