1.) The Constitution is much more efficient and
better serves our needs of a country as a whole better than the Articles
did. The Articles presented many issues where as
the Constitution has a solution for all of those issues. The articles of the Confederation gave most
powers to centralized state government leaving the national government with
very little power. The Constitution
called for a bicameral congress giving us the House of Representatives and the
Senate. With the Constitution we also
gained separation of powers which gave us our three branches of government and
also put into place a system of checks and balances so that each branch had to
go through the other to prevent any unconstitutional acts.
2.) After reading the first three articles of the
Constitution that gives us our three branches of government I learned a few
things about those three branches that I didn’t know before reading the
articles. For example in the third
article, which defines our justice system and the Supreme Courts, deals with
the 11th Amendment. The 11th
Amendment limits the power of the federal courts to hear lawsuits against state
governments brought by the citizens of another state or the citizens of a foreign
country. For example, Tennessee could
use the 11th Amendment to protect itself from being sued by its
citizens, residents of another state, residents of a foreign country, or the government
of a foreign country.
3.) Marbury V. Madison had a huge impact on American
history. Marbury was appointed to be the
Justice of the Peace for the District of Columbia by John Adams. However the Jeffersonian
administration ruled that his appointment was invalid because in the last hours
of Adams’ administration the Secretary of State forgot to deliver the commission. When Thomas Jefferson’s term started as
president his Secretary of State refused to deliver the commission holding Marbury
back from claiming his title. Marbury
took his case to the Supreme Court believing that the Judiciary act of 1789
allowed the court to hear original cases involving writs of mandamus, which are
orders to government officials to undertake specific acts. However the Court
declared that the Constitution must reign supreme over the law so that the
Judiciary Act of 1789 and that this act conflicted with the Constitution
concerning the area that granted the Supreme Court original jurisdiction. Ultimately the Courts would not mandate that
the new Secretary of State give Marbury his previously promised post. The Courts did however grant itself the
authority of judicial review, which was huge power to gain and a very useful
and necessary tool. This gave them the power to strike down laws
passed by Congress on the the grounds that those laws violate the Constitution.
4.) Looking at our government today I would say that
we operate more of the way Federalists viewed government rather than the Antifederalists. Federal law trumps local or state laws in
today’s government which is the way that the Federalists believed that it
should be, the Anitfederalists disagreed with this practice. We also still
operate and hold the Constitutional law above all else. The Federalists agreed
with and supported this Constitution when Antifederalists did not.
On your first comment, the checks and balances that were instituted in the Consitution makes it extremely difficult for any of the 3 parts of government to gain to much power over the others. Reading this section of how this government came to be really showed me how intelligent the "Framers" were.
ReplyDeleteWhat you said about the 11th amendment, I didn't know that either. It's amazing how much citizens of the United States don't know about their own Constitution, isn't it? Also, in your answer to question 3, the authority of judicial review definitely is a useful and important tool. That was one positive that came out of the Marbury v. Madison case, in my opinion.
ReplyDelete