How Did The Constitution Guard Against Tyranny

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When our country’s founding fathers first came together, they disagreed on many things. However, there was one thing they all agreed on. They had to protect against tyranny. Tyranny is when a person or a group of people, deny rights to another group of people. For examples, Britain taxed the colonies without their representation, which took away some key unalienable rights, which are rights that everyone is entitled to. So in all, the government of Britain held a reign of tyranny over the colonists. Because the colonists had such a bad background with tyranny, they wanted to set the brand new stage so that tyranny could never overtake America, and so they put systems in the Constitution to protect against tyranny. The Constitution guarded …show more content…

In Federalist Paper #51, James Madison argued for the Constitution by explaining checks and balances, saying “…the constant aim is to divide and arrange the several offices in such a manner as that they may be a check on the other….”. What he means when he says this, is that the three branches all have certain powers which make them pretty powerful, however the other branches have certain powers that allows them to check on one another, which in turn, balances out the power, and makes sure that one branch of government never becomes too powerful, which could lead that branch into tyranny. Also, in that same Federalist Paper, James Madison also states, “ [The three branches] should not be so far separated as to have no constitutional control over each other.”James Madison adds to this thought by pretty much saying that these checks and balances also ensure that they work together, and aren’t far from each other, because through this they are able to check each other’s work, which would make sure that every branch is working, and they would be able to balance the responsibilities of a certain task easier. Also, according to the chart on Document D, an example of checks and balances would be that while a president can nominate people to the cabinets, the Congress would still have to approve these people. As the Legislative branch (Congress), checks on the Executive

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