But people still need to recognise we have an institutional responsibility to do oversight on the President” Garry Bass, Congress. This quote supports my view on the Congress being a watchdog. If the Congress is a lapdog, the President can have a free ride on running the country how he wishes and not represent the people’s view. However that is not the case as the President cannot do everything which pleases him. However, looking at the statistics such as Bill Clintons presidency, in the first 2 years which was a united government, Congress exercised limited oversight, and when needed to, asked softball questions, however , when Republicans took over Congress, things got much harder as they seek to hold the President to account, and after a while, impeach.
DBQ: The Alien and Sedition Acts "Although the Alien and Sedition Acts, created in 1798, spurred great dispute, they were created under constitutional guidelines. The acts helped to protect the government of the United States from potential threat." Using the documents and your knowledge of the period, evaluate this statement. Document A Source: Thomas Jefferson, Draft of Kentucky Resolutions, 1798. Although Congress passed for bills known as the Alien and Sedition Acts in 1798 intending to help protect the government of the united states from potential threats, they did not truly protect Americans from their foreign enemies.
Prior to the Spanish American War, America was isolated in its affairs, and did not intervene with global politics. America was preoccupied with their domestic issues themselves. After the Civil war, there was much controversy on how to rebuild the nation, as well as issues over the land of the Native Americans. Pretty much, Americans stayed out of foreign intervention since the War of 1812 when George Washington stressed the importance on non-alliance. After that, Americans focused on expansion within their lands, fulfilling what they called the Manifest Destiny, belief held by the white Americans that they had the right according to their superior race, and that it was their destiny to stretch from “sea to shining sea”.
President Woodrow Wilson wrote “the he Constitution of the United States is not a mere lawyers’ document, it is a vehicle of life and its spirit is always the spirit of the age.” One must keep this fact in mind when comparing the Constitution and the Articles of Confederation. There was a vast difference in the “spirit of the age” when these documents were drafted. Coming on the heels of the Declaration of Independence and the war against England, and afraid of a dictatorship or a government that did not listen to its people, the Articles of Confederation (which will be referred to as AoC) were written it a way that gave more power to the states. The problem with this type of government was that it was too difficult to enact or enforce laws and the government could not collect enough taxes to support itself. I believe the Constitution did a better job of protecting liberties, specifically in the areas of the federal court system, representation of the people, and the levy of taxes.
The guard of federalism is shown one way in the Constitution when they set up the compound government to make sure that the federal government doesn’t get too much power. 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 it ensures that the federal government doesn’t have too much to say in what happens in the country so that they don’t become too powerful and create tyranny. The second guard against tyranny was the separation of powers which means that the government is separated into separate branches so that they can spread out the power so that one branch of the government can have more pull in what happen in the decisions made
Many members of congress believed that individuals should have these rights regardless of having it formally written and didn’t want to create a Bill of Rights. In fact, some believed that implementing personal rights might actually take away rights (UMKC, 2012). These people were called federalists. James Madison had a different agenda though. The anti-federalists sought after a proposal that focused on passing laws, which protected the people as well as the government.
It involves the actual behaviors towards groups such as excluding or restricting members of one group from opportunities that are available to another group; which began during and even after Andrew Johnson’s presidency. The Constitutional amendment became the primary vehicle for changing toward a more equal nation. In simplest terms, an amendment is a formal process that adds to, or takes something away from the U.S. Constitution. While the Constitution itself established a democratic system of government, because of the necessity of compromise, it left several important issues vague or undefined. Examples included voting rights and citizenship, and the founders passed this to the states to decide.
The title Commander and Chief represents the elected civilian authority over the military that ensures all military forces are subordinate to civil power. The framers of our Constitution understood that a situation could arise where the President may need to use military power without hesitation to defend the nation from foreign attack. They drafted provisions that allowed for immediate defense of the nation from foreign attack but restricted offensive actions to Congressional approval. The precedent of Congressional war powers approval was established by President George Washington in 1793 as described according to Fisher (2012)” President Washington took great care in instructing his military commanders that operations against Indians were to be limited to defensive actions. Any offensive action required congressional authority.
In suspending the writ, Lincoln relied on the constitutional authorization that the framers had perceptively included years before in Article I, Section 9 (which reads, in part, “The privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it”). However, the Constitution implies that congressional action is required for such suspension. Despite the fact that Congress was in session at the time, Lincoln did not request its approval but personally authorized General Winfield Scott to suspend the writ along the railroad from Philadelphia to Washington, believing that his duty was to protect the
Laws can be change because later on we analyze that it wasn’t a positive thing to the government and the nation. The need for laws goes back when humans first were on this earth. It gave a sense of order for the way things should be. Amendments are important to keep the constitution relevant to the current times. When they wrote the original Constitution over 200 years ago, they could not possibly foresee how society would change.