"How Democratic is the American Constitution ?", by political scientist Robert A. Dahl is a short book that questions the ethical and political issues in America 's Constitution and the structure of the United States government. The book consists of a series of abstract lectures composed by Dahl that reflects on how the American Constitution affects modern society. While this short book brings out plentiful knowledge on the American system , it does not go any deeper into those general ideas for it is only about 200 pages. However, it is still a knowledgeable book to introduce the fundamentals of American government and political science and why American citizens should uphold the Constitution. Dahl introduces the book of how the Founding …show more content…
Representation in the Senate was conducted through the agreement of the Connecticut Compromise, which supported the idea of small states having equal representation as bigger states. Each state got two senators, regardless of population. Before the ratification of the 17th Amendment, Senators were appointed by state legislatures. This became contradictory due to its basis on equal representation by the people. The 17th Amendment changed that by allowing Senators to be elected by popular vote from the state that they are representing. One of the most important power is given to the judicial branch; this is the power of judicial review, where a judge can rule over any law that seems to be unconstitutional, even if it is signed by Congress and the President. Dahl feels that the judiciary branch has repeatedly used its power over authority to change the Constitution. Therefore, the judicial branch can be also interpreted as an independent branch due to their strong use of passing limitations by the government. Federal and State Power became a very controversial debate which was limited more than the other. The Constitution reserved sovereignty between both sides. It wasn 't until the ratification of the 16th Amendment that the federal government was able to have a much greater influence over the American economy. "...citizens must also possess the minimal resources that are necessary in order to take advantages of the opportunities and to exercise their rights." (p.
Vonelle Robertson Professor Currie American National Government April 15th, 2015 Essay: Should the 17thAmendment be repealed? While citizens of each state did not directly vote in the senators of their respective states legislatures chose the senators based on the law that was adopted in the constitution in 1788.The 17th amendment came about because of the state legislature being deadlocked over the election of United States Senators. This left numerous senate vacancies lasting as long as months or even years. But this was not the first attempt to amend the constitution to elect senators by popular vote. It was first introduced in the US House of Representatives in 1826 but the amendment did not have favorable support until the late 19th century
all states were represented equally in the Senate. This made the smaller states happy. In the House of Representatives, representation was based on population. This pleased the bigger states. The Great Compromise settled the method of representation in the legislative branch.
The framers of the United States constitution decided to give more power to the federal government than the state government, the framers did this because they didn’t want to create a government with tyranny in it, they also did this to create new ideas for the states. The framers did this because they simply didn’t want the government to have complete control over the people, instead the framers wanted to have the people to have a government just not a complete power one. The framers wanted the people to be able to choose what kind of government they had, what kind of leader they had, they wanted to the people to have a choice. Some problems that the articles of confederation had is that that the articles limited the government significantly.
The federal government does not have full, complete power of the government, due to the fact the federal government has to power to tax, regulate commerce, and put laws into place if and only if laws are so called “necessary and proper.” Another thing was for each branch of government to have their own separation of powers and check and balance other branches of government. Either though, the Federalists and Anti-Federalists did not agree on ideas, the Constitution is a document of the general compromise between the two political parties. The weakness of the Articles of the Confederation was resolved through the compromise of the Federalists and Anti-federalists political
The House of Representatives and the Senate allowed the people to have a little more power. In Document D it explains how both the Senate and the House of Representatives are chosen. The House of Representatives is apportioned by population. This benefited larger states because it allowed them to have more representatives in the House. The Senate is composed of two senators (representatives) from each state this gives everyone a more equal opportunity to get what they want.
This, later know as the Great Compromise, was an idea by Roger Sherman from CT. At the time, this was called the CT Compromise, as they likely did not understand how big of a deal this would become. It was simply a combination of both the Virginia and New Jersey plans. It took the two houses from the Virginia plan, but they decided the Senate would be equal, pleasing the small states, and then House of Representatives would then be based off population, satisfying the larger states. This is so important because they created a government we would continue to use for hundreds of years to come, including
During the constitutional convention one of the first heated disagreements was between large states and the people who represented the small states. Delegates from Virginia wanted two houses to contain a biameral legislative. Based on the state's population is the number of representatives given to each state. According to page 45, “ In each state representatives in the lower house would be elected by popular vote.” Once representatives are elected by popular vote, than those representatives would be selected.
After the countless debates, the Great Compromise was what the convention would come into agreement with representation by population in the House of Representatives “The number of Representatives shall not exceed one for every thirty thousand, but each state shall have at least one Representative. ”(add footnote) The smaller states were pleased with equal representation in the Senate “The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senates from each state and each Senator shall have one vote.”(add
Between 1860 and 1877 the Civil War began, presenting the people and politicians of the United States with a great number of constitutional challenges, which had been mounting for decades. Despite the efforts made, many changes in social conditions remained unjust and were disregarded. The constitutional changes that occurred contributed to a revolution but did not directly connect to any revolutionary social developments. The constitutional changes that occurred were far more revolutionary than social developments, through their changes in states’ rights, African Americans rights, and the federal government's influence in the social sphere.
The minute immersion of reading Woody Holton’s Unruly Americans and the Origins of the Constitution takes place, the reader is quick to notice this book is written differently from most other books written about the same time. Holton, takes on the status quo in regards to how the Constitution was founded, and who was involved in the creation of the Constitution. Most students of history have been taught to believe that the Constitution was written to encourage democracy and protect civil rights. However, Holton’s arguments are different, as he claims that what advanced the Constitution was a struggle between the haves and have-nots which spiraled from a nation of excess democracy to one of less, meaning taking direct power away from the people
The main purpose of this chapter is to determine the Founding Fathers’ motives for creating the Constitution by analyzing a secondary source by Woody Holton, and several primary sources. Frist, I will begin with the secondary source, “Unruly Americans and the Origins of the Constitution” by Woody Holton. Mr. Holton’s main purpose was to locate the motivation behind the Constitution in developments in the states (page 90). Mr. Holton addressed several grievances for possible motives of the Founding Fathers’. First, the excessive democracy that acerbated many Americans, the runaway inflation caused by the farmers who were allowed to satisfy their debt to creditors with property and good instead of hard currency, and the Revolutionary War that
The foundation of the United States of America has been regarded as the grandest democratic experiment. The citizens of early colonial America wanted what they believed were their God given rights and to be free from the weight of the oppression of the crown. This country was founded on simple principles, by common ordinary people, with the premise of “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”, (Jefferson, Declaration of Independence) a true democratic republic was born. A government built by the people and for the people, has withstood the test of time, 241 years later. The Revolutionary war began as a matter of principal, with the idea being they could have more and be more than was being awarded to them by their despotic Mother Country, there was an idealistic society that would grant liberty to all.
The Leonore Annenberg Institute for Civics video titled “Key Constitutional Concepts” explores the history of the creation of the United States Constitution in addition to key concepts crucial to the document. Two central themes explored in the video include the protection of personal rights and importance of checks and balances. The video strives to explain these concepts through Supreme Court cases Gideon v. Wainwright and Youngstown v. Sawyer. To begin, the video retraces the steps leading up to the Constitutional Convention in Virginia in 1787. It opens by explaining the conflict that led to the Revolutionary War and the fragility of the new nation.
In Sanford Levinson’s book, Our Undemocratic Constitution, he formulates an argument on why certain elements of the US Constitution are undemocratic. Ultimately, Levinson wants to inform his readers on the 200-year-old constitution and that its structural issues need to be addressed in terms of being democratic. Three important constitutional provisions—bicameralism, the Electoral College, and the Good Behavior Clause—are argued throughout his book in detail to show certain democratic flaws. Levinson failed to bring forth solutions to these so-called undemocratic elements; however, his overall argument does not become infringed. In a later book, Levinson goes on to talk about these solutions, making it irrelevant in this particular book.
The Judicial branch, just like the other branches, have to provide checks and balances on the other branches. The Judicial branch's check on the Legislative branch is to as stated previously, remove any laws from order if they are deemed unconstitutional. This means that the Supreme Court will review the law, check all aspects of it to the constitution, and from here a law can now go two ways. It can be deemed constitutional and be left alone, or it can be deemed unconstitutional and be overridden.