The rules are to protect them from harm or something bad. Government protects its people from harm as well. Government sets guidelines for its people and they are expected to follow the law. Government comes from the consent of the people. We pay taxes and the government does things for us for instance Police, schools, roads, etc.
A Democracy is a form of government in which eligible citizens may participate equally either directly by voting for the passing or rejecting of laws or running for office themselves, or indirectly through elected representatives. The United States has become more democratic from 1607-1900. The Democratic Party was formed in 1792, when supporters of Thomas Jefferson began using the name Republicans, or Jeffersonian Republicans, to emphasize its anti-aristocratic policies. It adopted its present name during the Presidency of Andrew Jackson in the 1830s. In the 1840s and '50s, the party was in conflict over extending slavery to the Western territories.
In order for a country to be a true representative democracy it needs to fulfill three major criteria. The first is to establish political equality where all citizens are equal before the law and all citizens have equal access to government. The second criteria declares that the country should operate under popular sovereignty and majority rule whereby the people decide and their ideas can only be approved and considered valid by a greater than fifty percent majority (or rejected by a greater than fifty percent majority). The third and final criterion declares that citizens have individual freedoms that are to be protected by the law and from the law. If the US Constitution were to be thoroughly analyzed, it would be discovered that the Constitution lacks essential components a true representative democracy.
Separation of powers prevents tyranny. According to the Constitution of the United States of America, the government was divided into three articles. Article 1 is the legislative part of the government, otherwise known as Congress. Article 2 is the executive part or the president. Article 3 is the judicial part or Supreme Court.
Federalism, combined with the three governing branches, allowed for the states and central government to balance equal but separate power. Within this paper, I will attempt to explain the three branches of government, discuss the history and the formation of branches, provide their interactions within the system, discuss their successfulness, the characterizations of the branches then and now, and present possible ideas for a more efficient constitution. Before one can completely understand the sole purpose behind why the forefathers of the United States were compelled to form and divide a new government into three separate branches, one should become familiar with the meanings and functions of each branch. The Executive branch of the government is responsible for enforcing the laws of the land (USA.gov 2000-2012). The functions of law under the Executive branch, is administered and enforced by the United States President, who is first elected by the citizens of the country.
The emancipation of slaves in the South posed a serious problem for large landowners who had previously relied almost entirely on slave labor for their incomes. The rules of racially-based second-class citizenship in the South had a number of key components. The most obvious, of course, were the laws which effectively denied blacks the right to vote. Typically these took the form of literacy tests which were much more strictly enforced against blacks than against whites, but at various times and places in the South other
Heywood also identifies two types of democracy. Representative and direct democracy. Representative democracy is known as the “indirect and limited form of democracy which operates through elected representative's to speak for or act on behalf of the electorate”2. One of the main examples of representative democracy is the process of voting. Direct democracy is a “form of democracy that is based on the direct and unmediated and continuous participation of citizens in the tasks of government.”3.
Popular sovereignty is the idea that the people govern themselves, meaning that the people choose who they would like to be in charge of the country or state as stated in Madison’s report of the Debates in the Federal Convention speech, the members of the first branch of the National Legislature will be elected by the people and that the second branch will then be elected by the members of the first branch. This shows that the people were part of the whole election process from the start and that those who were chosen in the first branch were trusted enough to be put in charge. It gives the people freedom of choice and to choose the authority whom they can depend on to get the job done. The Constitution begins with “We the people” and it continues with “ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.” referring to the people who put it together, but in those times it included only those free, people who owned property and clergymen whereas now it includes all legal residents of the country. Therefore the principle of popular sovereignty is declared.
"And to the Republic" means a republic is a country where the people choose others to make laws for them. The government is for the people. "For which it stands," mean the flag stands for the country. "One Nation" means a single country. "Under God" means the people
According to Madison’s notes it’s because “the delegates thought it wrong to admit in the constitution the idea that there could be property in men (Spalding, pg. 463). Washington a slave holder was even against slavery, he wrote “there is not a man living who wishes more sincerely than I do, to see a plan adopted for the abolition of slavery” (Spalding, pg. 461). America was not the only country of course that practiced slavery; there were many countries that had practiced slavery before.