You are here. Affordable Care Act. Democratic Faith Working Group. Voter Empowerment Act. A Better Deal. The United States Constitution is an amazing document. A bold experiment in democracy more than years ago, it has proved both stable and flexible enough to survive and remain effective in a world totally different from the one in which it was written. The Constitution has three main functions. First it creates a national government consisting of a legislative, an executive, and a judicial branch, with a system of checks and balances among the three branches.
Second, it divides power between the federal government and the states. And third, it protects various individual liberties of American citizens. The limitations placed on the federal government and each of its branches were a reaction to the tyranny of British rule, and especially the tyranny of the single monarch.
Separation of Powers. The Government of the United States, the federal government, is divided into three branches: the executive power, invested in the President, the legislative power, given to Congress the House of Representatives and the Senate , and the judicial power, vested in one Supreme Court and other federal courts created by Congress.
The Constitution provides a system of checks and balances designed to avoid the tyranny of any one branch. Most important actions require the participation of more than once branch of government.
For example, Congress passes laws, but the President can veto them. The executive branch prosecutes persons for criminal violations, but they must be tried by the courts. The President appoints federal judges, but their appointment must be confirmed by the Senate. Division of Federal and State Power. Another important function of the Constitution is to divide power between the national government and the state governments.
Powers not delegated to the federal government, nor prohibited to the states are reserved to the states or to the people.
Although the powers of the federal government are limited to those enumerated in the Constitution, those enumerated powers have been interpreted very broadly. And under the supremacy clause of the Constitution, federal law is supreme over state law. State or local laws that conflict with the Constitution or federal statutory law are preempted.
The Constitution also limits the powers of the states in relation to one another. Because the United States Congress has been given the power to regulate interstate commerce, the states are limited in their ability to regulate or tax such commerce between them. Protection of Personal Liberty. The third main purpose of the Constitution is to protect the personal liberty of citizens from intrusions by the government.
A few of these protections are found in the main body of the Constitution itself. For example, Article I, sections 9 and 10 prohibits both ex post facto laws, which punish conduct that was not illegal at the time it was performed, and bills of attainder which single out individuals or groups for punishment..
Most Constitutional protections for individual rights are contained in the Bill of Rights, which constitute the first ten amendments to the Constitution. The protections of these amendments were originally interpreted to apply only against the federal government, but the Supreme Court has since ruled that most of them were made applicable to the states by passage of the Fourteenth Amendment due process clause after the Civil War.
On March 6, , the U. Supreme Court ruled in McCulloch v. Maryland that Congress had the authority to establish a federal bank, and that the financial institution could not be taxed by the states.
But the decision carried a much larger significance, because it helped By the late s, prohibition movements had sprung up across the United States, driven by religious groups who considered alcohol, specifically drunkenness, a threat to the nation.
The movement reached its apex in when Congress ratified the 18th Amendment, prohibiting the The Second Amendment, often referred to as the right to bear arms, is one of 10 amendments that form the Bill of Rights, ratified in by the U.
Differing interpretations of the amendment have fueled a long-running debate over gun control legislation and the The 25th Amendment to the U. Passed by Congress on July 6, , the 25th Amendment was ratified by the states Freedom of speech—the right to express opinions without government restraint—is a democratic ideal that dates back to ancient Greece. In the United States, the First Amendment guarantees free speech, though the United States, like all modern democracies, places limits on this The 26 Amendment lowered the legal voting age in the United States from 21 to The long debate over lowering the voting age began during World War II and intensified during the Vietnam War, when young men denied the right to vote were being conscripted to fight for their Live TV.
This Day In History. History Vault. Constitution The Preamble outlines the Constitution's purpose and guiding principles. It reads: "We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, 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.
Articles of Confederation. Recommended for you. History Shorts: Who Wrote the U. Freedom of Religion in the U. Constitution ratified. Freedom of Speech. The Constitutional Amendments Even before the U. McCulloch v. Maryland On March 6, , the U. Second Amendment The Second Amendment, often referred to as the right to bear arms, is one of 10 amendments that form the Bill of Rights, ratified in by the U. Freedom of Speech Freedom of speech—the right to express opinions without government restraint—is a democratic ideal that dates back to ancient Greece.
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