American Constitution

11 Key excerpts on "American Constitution"

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  American Government

  Conflict, Compromise, And Citizenship

  • Christopher J Bosso, John Portz, Michael Tolley(Authors)
  • 2018(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  Thus, to be an American is to be a part of a legal and political system defined by a document over 200 years old. No wonder scholars and citizens alike study the Constitution to figure out exactly what “the framers intended” in the same way that Jews consult the Torah, Christians the Bible, or Muslims the Koran. And, as befits its sacred stature, an original parchment copy of the Constitution is protected, alongside an original copy of the Declaration of Independence, behind thick glass and steel within the National Archives on Constitution Avenue in Washington, D.C.

  A POLITICAL DOCUMENT

  Americans’ faith in their political system has been a source of tremendous social and political stability in an often unstable world. Without that faith, the system, and the nation, probably would not have survived very long.

  Yet reverence can be overdone. The Constitution is not religious dogma. It does not demand unquestioning faith. It is a political document, the plan for a political system. It is a framework of rules and procedures under which citizens and their elected representatives engage in conflict and, where possible, transform that conflict into some workable compromise. In this sense any constitution is best understood as a compact among citizens that both empowers government and limits what it can do. It also provides the means by which citizens can change rules that no longer work. Nor is any constitution meant to be unchanging or eternal: It too is meant to change when it no longer serves the needs of the people.

  The Constitution of the United States did not spring suddenly from the admittedly fertile minds of its drafters. Certainly it reflects the keen intellects of a uniquely gifted set of leaders—among them George Washington, James Madison, and Benjamin Franklin—but much of its direction and substance was the product of hard political experience, sharp economic and social conflicts, and pressing necessity. The Constitution’s underlying political ideals and its formal structure of government are deeply rooted in the history of a people. The document reflects deep-seated beliefs about the rights and responsibilities of virtuous citizens, as well as acute fears about the inherent dangers of government left unchecked.

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  The United States Constitution

  Questions and Answers

  • John R. Vile(Author)
  • 2013(Publication Date)
  • ABC-CLIO

    (Publisher)

  Chapter 1 Foundations and Purposes of the United States Constitution American ConstitutionALISM AND ITS MOST BASIC PRINCIPLES What is a constitution? When Americans think about a constitution, they typically think of a written document, unchangeable by ordinary legislative means, which out- lines the major institutions of government, distributes and divides govern- mental powers among such institutions, and outlines basic protections for individual rights. Do all countries have a constitution? All governments except perhaps for those in a state of anarchy, or chaos, have a way of doing things, but not all have a single written document, like the U.S. Constitution, that serves as a guide to these practices and that can serve as a basis for legal action in cases where governments violate such guidelines. What are the alternatives to a written constitution? Leaders of dictatorial governments may prefer to operate solely according to their own wills rather than to be bound by a commitment to established procedures, but even democratic governments may not rely on a written constitution like that in the United States. The British government, for ex- ample, has what is known, not altogether accurately (since it is based in part on written documents), as an “unwritten” constitution. Britain has estab- lished relatively clear procedures for adopting laws, calling elections, and the like, but these are recognized as established customs and usages, or scat- tered in a variety of laws and decisions, rather than embodied in a single written document like the U.S. Constitution. Moreover, the English system operates according to the principle of parliamentary sovereignty, whereby whatever the established customs and usages may be, there are no fixed constitutional limits on the powers of the national legislature, or parliament.

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  Regulatory Rights

  Supreme Court Activism, the Public Interest, and the Making of Constitutional Law

  • Larry Yackle(Author)
  • 2008(Publication Date)
  • University of Chicago Press

    (Publisher)

  CHAPTER ONE The Documentary Constitution T here is a certain disharmony in modern thinking about the United States Constitution . In popular conception , the Constitution is a particular text. The original document is under glass at the National Ar- chives . Copies can be found at various state houses on the East Coast and at the back of most high school civics books. Justice Black used to carry a paperback version around in his vest pocket. This text is taken to be the blueprint for the political system we have . Its legitimacy is ac- cepted without question and with a fair dollop of religious zeal. David Strauss puts it well : "To many people , allegiance to the Constitution and a certain kind of respect for the Founding ... are central to what it means to be an American ." 1 The place of the written Con stitution in thi s cul- ture is so pervasive , so profound , that academicians , too , feel compelled to kiss the book . Daniel Farber and Suzanna Sherry acknowledge cer- tain propositions that virtually everyone endorses as "little more than common sense ." First among them is the idea that " [t]he Constitution is a written document , drafted in 1787 and ratified in 1789, with [twenty- seven] amendments [since]. " 2 Ronald Dworkin declares , "We have a con- stitutional text. We do not disagree about which inscriptions comprise that text ; nobody argues about which series of letters and spaces make it up ." 3 But thi s is only partially true and , in the main , misleading . Michael Moore has explained that those inscriptions exist in a basic "syntactic " sense only as so many "uninterpreted symbols " in a strin g. 4 If they are to 12 C HAPTER ONE have meaning , we must impose it on them. That meaning, in turn, is not merely a creature of language and grammar-the logical structure that distinguishes lines that human beings deliberately draw on the page (or in the sand) from those left behind by the wind and the waves.

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  Why Politics Matters

  An Introduction to Political Science

  • Kevin Dooley, Joseph Patten, Kevin Dooley(Authors)
  • 2020(Publication Date)
  • Cengage Learning EMEA

    (Publisher)

  The American Government 4 IMAGE 4.1 Some say the U.S. Constitution is America’s greatest export. The Constitution was adopted at the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia on September 17, 1787. It is the oldest living federal constitution in the world today. 81 Copyright 2021 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s). Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it. 82 STEVE MCALISTER/ PHOTOGRAPHER’S CHOICE/GETTY IMAGES Introduction: The Origins of American Democracy In this chapter, we build on the previous section by surveying how the Framers of the U.S. Constitution were influenced by ancient Greek and modern political theorists in designing the American system of government. The American government is given special emphasis in this chapter because it was the “American experiment” toward representative government that ignited democratic fires across the globe, and the lessons learned from the Constitutional Convention continue to shape today’s political landscape, such as in the Arab Spring uprisings and beyond. The power of the ideas debated at the Constitutional Convention inspired the transforma- tion of our international system away from authoritarian systems of government and toward democratic systems of government. We also believe you will be in a much stronger position to compare and understand other democratic and nondemocratic systems of government if you are able to use your own government as a helpful reference point—it is important to first understand your system of government before making comparisons to other forms of government around the world.

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  Foundations of Democracy in the European Union

  From the Genesis of Parliamentary Democracy to the European Parliament

  • J. Pinder(Author)
  • 1999(Publication Date)
  • Palgrave Macmillan

    (Publisher)

  5 The United States Constitution and its Roots in British Political Thought and Tradition Colin Bonwick Americans, like the British, think they are exceptional. They were the first rebels to succeed against a mighty empire since the United Provinces achieved their independence from Spain; in that and other respects the United States was a self-created nation which stood out in sharp contrast to contemporary anciens regimes that included Britain as well as France and the multitude of other European states. Like the British, they applaud their own constitution and consider it distinctively American and thus unique. And so, in many important respects, it is. Yet it is also clear that the state con- stitutions as well as the United States Constitution (which were all drafted during the revolutionary era and must be taken together) owe much to the experiences of other countries - and especially to the British constitution- alism from which Americans were escaping. In many ways, of course, American society after independence was different from Britain. It developed principles, institutions and practices that diverged markedly from contemporary British behaviour. Prescriptive authority, monarchy and parliamentary sovereignty were replaced by popular sovereignty, republicanism, and written constitutions drafted by specially elected conventions and then ratified by the people. The United States also constructed a federal structure within which the states and federal governments divided power between their respective lawful spheres. But the differences should not be exaggerated, for there were limits to American exceptionalism. The United States was geographically and politically an unusually extended society, even in 1776, but its structural complexity was not completely unique. Britain has long been a society of three nations, and four if Ireland can be included; it is now part of a wider union.

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  American Government 3e

  • Glen Krutz, Sylvie Waskiewicz(Authors)
  • 2021(Publication Date)
  • Openstax

    (Publisher)

  They wanted and expected their new government to guarantee the rights of life, liberty, and property. Others believed it was more important for the national government to maintain order, and this might require it to limit personal liberty at times. All Americans, however, desired that the government not intrude upon people’s rights to life, liberty, and property without reason. COMPROMISE AND THE CONSTITUTIONAL DESIGN OF AMERICAN GOVERNMENT Beginning in May 1787 and throughout the long, hot Philadelphia summer, the delegations from twelve states discussed, debated, and finally—after compromising many times—by September had worked out a new blueprint for the nation. The document they created, the U.S. Constitution, was an ingenious instrument that allayed fears of a too-powerful central government and solved the problems that had beleaguered the national government under the Articles of Confederation. For the most part, it also resolved the conflicts between small and large states, northern and southern states, and those who favored a strong federal government and those 42 2 • The Constitution and Its Origins Access for free at openstax.org. who argued for state sovereignty. LINK TO LEARNING The closest thing to minutes of the Constitutional Convention is the collection of James Madison’s letters and notes (http://www.openstax.org/l/29MadisonPapers) about the proceedings in Philadelphia. Several such letters and notes may be found at the Library of Congress’s American Memory project. The Great Compromise The Constitution consists of a preamble and seven articles. The first three articles divide the national government into three branches—Congress, the executive branch, and the federal judiciary—and describe the powers and responsibilities of each. In Article I, ten sections describe the structure of Congress, the basis for representation and the requirements for serving in Congress, the length of Congressional terms, and the powers of Congress.

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  Introduction to Law

  • Beth Walston-Dunham(Author)
  • 2019(Publication Date)
  • Cengage Learning EMEA

    (Publisher)

  These standards have always been and will always be protected by the U.S. Supreme Court as long as the U.S. Constitution stands. But what has changed over time is the way in which these rights are defined and interpreted, based on changes in American society, government, culture, and law. ADDITIONAL INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS. In recent years, the Supreme Court has been increasingly asked to resolve issues that determine the rights of persons to be free from governmental intrusion into their private lives. Issues have ranged from abortion, to the rights of law-enforcement officials to search and seize persons and evidence of criminal activity, and even to the death penalty. Frequently, news reports discuss Supreme Court opinions that define the boundaries between government obligations and individual freedoms with respect to the Bill of Rights. From time to time, addi -tional language regarding these freedoms has been added through more amend -ments to the Constitution as Congress and the people have deemed appropriate. The Constitution and its Bill of Rights were created more than 200 years ago, not only to establish a new government but also to serve as the foundations of modern-day law. Every time Congress passes a statute, the executive branch enforces a law, or the judiciary interprets a law applicable to a situation or an individual, such action must be taken in accordance with the requirements of the Constitution and its amend -ments. All law created in this country must be consistent with, and embody the spirit of, the rights guaranteed in the Constitution and its amendments. The Constitution and its amendments continue to be responsible for giving definition to the rights of citizens and governments alike.

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  Barack Obama

  American Historian

  • Steven Sarson(Author)
  • 2018(Publication Date)
  • Bloomsbury Academic

    (Publisher)

  Barack Obama 102 102 is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.” If the Declaration itself was therefore an action abolishing an old government, then the drafting of the Constitution was the next action of instituting a new one. And the Founders in 1787 seemed to be following that principle perfectly precisely when they prefaced their Constitution with the words “We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.” 15 Even if the Founders of 1787 were following the logic of their recent forebears in 1776, they were nonetheless adapting to rapidly developing circumstances and newly perceived needs. And their attachment to principle didn’t prevent them from engaging in political machinations to achieve particular ends. James Madison, often called “the Father of the Constitution,” set the Convention’s early course with his reflections on what he thought was wrong with American government at the time, written up as “Vices of the Political System of the United States.” The delegates rejected some of the details of what Madison advocated, but accepted his fundamental reformulation of the American union. Madison wanted the national government to have what he called “concurrent jurisdiction” with the states. That is, for a national government to share authority and power with the state governments over American territory and people, rather than being merely a subordinate agent of the states. In other words, for the United States to be a nation, a federation rather than a confederation.

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  The Bureaucrat Kings

  The Origins and Underpinnings of America's Bureaucratic State

  • Paul D. Moreno(Author)
  • 2016(Publication Date)
  • Praeger

    (Publisher)

  CHAPTER 1 The Roots of the Founders’ Constitution T he effort to limit human government under constitutionalism or the rule of law is the oldest problem in human political history. The first written law codes in the ancient world were efforts to take discretionary power out of the hands of a priestly or patrician elite, to be able to hold them accountable to the law by putting it in writing. This was the origin of the first Athenian Constitution, Draco’s law code of the seventh cen- tury BCE. Similarly, the Twelve Tables of ancient Rome attempted to limit the arbitrary power of the patrician class. The American colonists followed a similar pattern of insisting on the rule of law. The Puritan settlers in Massachusetts Bay demanded to see the charter that the colony’s magistrates had taken with them. In 1641, they secured the Body of Liberties to limit the discretion of the magis- trates. In response to these demands for a more democratic government accountable to the people, Governor John Winthrop warned that the rule of law could not mean a particular prescription for every possible contingency, that some degree of discretion was inescapable. “All com- monwealths have had some principle, or fundamentals, from which they have framed deductions to particular cases, as occasion has required,” wrote Winthrop in 1644. “No commonwealth ever had, or can have, a particular positive rule, to dispense power, or justice by, in every single case.” 1 Chief Justice John Marshall and Abraham Lincoln later made similar points in their accounts of constitutional interpretation. As no constitution can completely do away with the need for political interpre- tation, no legislation can completely obviate the need for some adminis- trative discretion. The American Founders were most familiar with the great constitu- tional crisis of the 17th century, the English Civil War (1642–1649), and 2 The Bureaucrat Kings Glorious Revolution (1688–1689), which were recent events for the Founders.

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  Ancient and Modern Democracy

  Two Concepts of Liberty?

  • Wilfried Nippel, Keith Tribe(Authors)
  • 2016(Publication Date)
  • Cambridge University Press

    (Publisher)

  All this is held together by a deep-seated belief, a form of civil and religious cult, in the constitution, and lasting veneration of the Founding Fathers – this is something typical of the public realm, and not necessarily reflected in academic historical scholarship, one strand of which has definite patricidal tendencies. The Federalist Papers were originally conceived as a means in the struggle to establish the federal constitution, but they have in time become an authoritative source of commen- tary on the constitution, in the twentieth century even being referred to by the Supreme Court – although this also involves the disputed role of this court in the development of the constitution through interpretation, which in turn has arisen because of the almost insuperable barriers to constitutional change. Republic and Democracy Although frequent reference was made to ancient Greece and Rome, there was in fact a clear break made with ancient models in both practical and theoret- ical constitutional matters. Looking back in 1816 Thomas Jefferson summed this up: that while the value of personal freedom was recognised in antiquity, there was no conception of a form of government that might best secure such freedom. The new principle of representative democracy realised in America robbed ancient political theory of any practical significance, so that one no longer even missed the gaps in our knowledge of it. 141 In 1839 the United States Magazine and Democratic Review formulated this idea as follows: America was a nation oriented to the future, embodying human progress; all that could still be learned from antiquity was the mistakes to be avoided.

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  New Democracy

  The Creation of the Modern American State

  • William J. Novak(Author)
  • 2022(Publication Date)
  • Harvard University Press

    (Publisher)

  N E W D E M O C R A C Y 28 document—the first amendments since the earliest years of the republic. Though the substantive legal implications of the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments have been the subject of over a century of debate and interpretation, there is no argument that they profoundly changed the American legal-political landscape. Charles Merriam under- stood the import of altering the founding document: “For two genera- tions the Constitution remained unamended, and finally came to be con- sidered an end in itself instead of a means, a thing in itself, rather than an instrument designed for a purpose, a terminus rather than a starting point.” The Civil War forever changed this dynamic. 8 A new, active American Constitutionalism—what Harold Hyman dubbed an “adequate constitution”—became a bold new source of legal innovation and public legitimacy. 9 As the new amendments seemed to indicate, this was a law more public, more democratic, more instrumental, and more connected to the development of the modern nation state than the settled, judge-made principles of an ancient common-law tradition. Indeed, the formal amend- ment of the original constitutional settlement was but the initial step in a broader legal reconstitution of the nation as a whole—as great changes in constitutionalism gave way to even broader transformations in legislation, regulation, administration, police power, public utility, and public service. What Robert Kaczorowski described as the constitutional effort to “begin the nation anew” was but the inauguration of this larger revolution in American public law. 10 Though these changes seem simple and self-evident, together they initi- ated a great transformation in the overall nature, power, and reach of Amer- ican governance. They ushered in a new era in the history of the American state—a new governmental regime.

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