Federalism Principles Of The Constitution

two.3 Constitutional Principles and Provisions

Learning Objectives

After reading this department, you should be able to reply the following questions:

What is the separation of powers?
What are checks and balances?
What is bicameralism?
What are the Articles of the Constitution?
What is the Neb of Rights?

The Principles Underlying the Constitution

While the Constitution established a national government that did not rely on the support of u.s.a., it limited the federal government'due south powers by listing ("enumerating") them. This practice of federalism (as we explain in item in Chapter iii "Federalism") means that some policy areas are exclusive to the federal government, some are sectional to the states, and others are shared between the ii levels.

Federalism aside, three key principles are the crux of the Constitution: separation of powers, checks and balances, and bicameralism.

Separation of Powers

Separation of powers is the allocation of three domains of governmental action—law making, law execution, and law adjudication—into 3 distinct branches of government: the legislature, the executive, and the judiciary. Each branch is assigned specific powers that just it can wield (come across Table 2.1 "The Separation of Powers and Bicameralism as Originally Established in the Constitution").

Table 2.1 The Separation of Powers and Bicameralism equally Originally Established in the Constitution

Branch of Government	Term	How Selected	Distinct Powers
Legislative
Business firm of Representatives	ii years	Popular vote	Initiate acquirement legislation; bring manufactures of impeachment
Senate	6 years; iii classes staggered	Election by state legislatures	Confirm executive appointments; ostend treaties; endeavour impeachments
Executive
President	4 years	Electoral Higher	Commander-in-chief; nominate executive officers and Supreme Court justices; veto; convene both houses of Congress; issue reprieves and pardons
Judicial
Supreme Court	Life (during good behavior)	Presidential date and Senate confirmation (stated more or less directly in Federalist No. 78)	Judicial review (implicitly in Constitution just stated more or less directly in Federalist No. 78)

Effigy two.6

Plan of the City of Washington between the Potomak River and it's Eastern Branch

In perhaps the most abiding indicator of the separation of powers, Pierre Fifty'Enfant's plan of Washington, DC, placed the President's House and the Capitol at reverse ends of Pennsylvania Artery. The plan notes the importance of the ii branches existence both geographically and politically distinct.

This separation is in the Constitution itself, which divides powers and responsibilities of each branch in 3 singled-out articles: Article I for the legislature, Article Ii for the executive, and Commodity Three for the judiciary.

Checks and Balances

At the same time, each branch lacks full command over all the powers allotted to it. Political scientist Richard Neustadt put it memorably: "The Constitutional Convention of 1787 is supposed to have created a regime of 'separated powers.' It did cypher of the sort. Rather, it created a government of separated institutions sharing powers" (Neustadt, 1960). No branch can deed effectively without the cooperation—or passive consent—of the other ii.

Most governmental powers are shared among the various branches in a organization of checks and balances, whereby each branch has ways to respond to, and if necessary, block the actions of the others. For example, only Congress can laissez passer a police force. But the president can veto it. Supreme Court justices can declare an act of Congress unconstitutional through judicial review. Figure ii.7 "Checks and Balances" shows the various checks and balances between the three branches.

Effigy 2.7 Checks and Balances

Checks and Balances as they refer to the Legislative Branch (The Congress), The Executive Branch (The President), and the Judicial Branch (The Courts)

Adjusted from George C. Edwards, Martin P. Wattenberg, and Robert 50. Lineberry, Authorities in America: People, Politics, and Policy (White Plains, NY: Pearson Longman, 2011), 46.

The logic of checks and balances echoes Madison's skeptical view of human nature. In Federalist No. 10 he contends that all individuals, fifty-fifty officials, follow their ain selfish interests. Expanding on this point in Federalist No. 51, he claimed that officeholders in the iii branches would seek influence and defend the powers of their corresponding branches. Therefore, he wrote, the Constitution provides "to those who administer each department the necessary constitutional means and personal motives to resist encroachments of the others."

Bicameralism

Government is made notwithstanding more circuitous past splitting the legislature into two separate and distinct chambers—the Firm of Representatives and the Senate. Such bicameralism was common in land legislatures. 1 chamber was supposed to provide a close link to the people, the other to add wisdom (Wood, 1969). The Constitution makes the two chambers of Congress roughly equal in power, embedding checks and balances inside the legislative branch itself.

Bicameralism recalls the founders' doubts about majority rule. To cheque the House, directly elected by the people, they created a Senate. Senators, with six-yr terms and election past land legislatures, were expected to piece of work slowly with a longer-range understanding of bug and to manage pop passions. A story, possibly fanciful, depicts the logic: Thomas Jefferson, dorsum from France, sits downwards for coffee with Washington. Jefferson inquires why Congress will have two chambers. Washington asks Jefferson, "Why did you pour that coffee into your saucer?" Jefferson replies, "To cool information technology," following the custom of the time. Washington concludes, "Even so, we cascade legislation into the senatorial saucer to cool it" (Fenno Jr. 1982).

The Bias of the Organization

The Us political organization is designed to prevent quick agreement within the legislature and between the branches. Senators, representatives, presidents, and Supreme Court justices have varying terms of offices, distinctive means of selection, and dissimilar constituencies. Prospects for disagreement and conflict are loftier. Accomplishing any goal requires navigating a complex obstacle form. At any point in the process, action tin be stopped. Maintaining the status quo is more probable than enacting pregnant changes. Exceptions occur in response to dire situations such every bit a fiscal crunch or external attacks.

What the Constitution Says

The text of the Constitution consists of a preamble and 7 sections known as "articles." The preamble is the opening rhetorical flourish. Its first words—"We the People of the United States"—rebuke the "Nosotros the States" mentality of the Articles of Confederation. The preamble lists reasons for establishing a national regime.

The outset three articles set up the branches of government. Nosotros briefly summarize them hither, leaving the details of the powers and responsibilities given to these branches to specific chapters.

Article I establishes a legislature that the founders believed would make up the heart of the new government. By specifying many domains in which Congress is allowed to human action, Article I also lays out the powers of the national government that nosotros examine in Affiliate 3 "Federalism".

Article Two takes upwards the cumbersome process of assembling an Electoral College and electing a president and a vice president—a process that was later modified by the Twelfth Amendment. The presidential duties listed here focus on war and management of the executive co-operative. The president's powers are far fewer than those enumerated for Congress.

The Ramble Convention punted decisions on the structure of the judiciary beneath the Supreme Court to the first Congress to determine. Article 3 states that judges of all federal courts hold function for life "during expert Behaviour." It authorizes the Supreme Court to decide all cases arising under federal constabulary and in disputes involving states. Judicial review, the key power of the Supreme Court, is not mentioned. Asserted in the 1804 case of Marbury v. Madison (discussed in Chapter 15 "The Courts", Section 15.2 "Power of the US Supreme Court"), it is the ability of the Courtroom to invalidate a law passed past Congress or a decision made by the executive on the basis that it violates the Constitution.

Commodity Four lists rights and obligations among the states and between the states and the national regime (discussed in Chapter 3 "Federalism").

Article V specifies how to amend the Constitution. This shows that the framers intended to accept a Constitution that could be adjusted to changing conditions. There are two means to propose amendments. States may phone call for a convention. (This has never been used due to fears it would reopen the unabridged Constitution for revision.) The other way to propose amendments is for Congress to pass them by a two-thirds majority in both the Business firm and Senate.

Then in that location are two ways to approve an amendment. One is through ratification by three-fourths of country legislatures. Alternatively, an amendment tin be ratified past three-fourths of especially convoked land conventions. This process has been used once. "Wets," favoring the finish of Prohibition, feared that the Twenty-First Amendment—which would have repealed the Eighteenth Amendment prohibiting the sale and consumption of booze—would be blocked by bourgeois ("dry") state legislatures. The wets asked for specially called state conventions and quickly ratified repeal—on December 5, 1933.

Thus a constitutional amendment can exist stopped by one-third of either bedroom of Congress or one-4th of state legislatures—which explains why there have been but twenty-seven amendments in over two centuries.

Commodity VI includes a crucial provision that endorses the motility away from a loose confederation to a national government superior to u.s.. Lifted from the New Jersey Plan, the supremacy clause states that the Constitution and all federal laws are "the supreme Law of the State."

Article VII outlines how to ratify the new Constitution.

Ramble Evolution

The Constitution has remained substantially intact over time. The basic construction of governmental power is much the same in the twenty-showtime century every bit in the tardily eighteenth century. At the same fourth dimension, the Constitution has been transformed in the centuries since 1787. Amendments take greatly expanded civil liberties and rights. Interpretations of its language by all three branches of government have taken the Constitution into realms not imagined by the founders. New practices have been grafted onto the Constitution's ancient procedures. Intermediary institutions non mentioned in the Constitution have developed important governmental roles (Ackerman, 2005).

Amendments

Many crucial clauses of the Constitution today are in the amendments. The Nib of Rights, the outset ten amendments ratified by the states in 1791, defines civil liberties to which individuals are entitled. After the slavery outcome was resolved by a devastating civil state of war, equality entered the Constitution with the Fourteenth Amendment, which specified that "No State shall…deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." This amendment provides the basis for civil rights, and farther democratization of the electorate was guaranteed in subsequent ones. The right to vote became anchored in the Constitution with the add-on of the Fifteenth, Nineteenth, Twenty-Quaternary, and Twenty-Sixth Amendments, which stated that such a right, granted to all citizens anile 18 years or more, could not be denied on the basis of race or sex, nor could it be dependent on the payment of a poll tax (Keyssar, 2000).

Constitutional Estimation

The Constitution is sometimes silent or vague, making it flexible and adaptable to new circumstances. Interpretations of constitutional provisions past the iii branches of government have resulted in changes in political organization and practice.^[1]

For example, the Constitution is silent nigh the role, number, and jurisdictions of executive officers, such as cabinet secretaries; the judicial arrangement below the Supreme Courtroom; and the number of House members or Supreme Court justices. The commencement Congress had to make full in the blanks, oftentimes by altering the police force (Currie, 1997).

The Supreme Court is today at eye stage in interpreting the Constitution. Before becoming chief justice in 1910, Charles Evans Hughes proclaimed, "We are nether a Constitution, only the Constitution is what the Courtroom says information technology is."^[2] By examining the Constitution's clauses and applying them to specific cases, the justices expand or limit the reach of constitutional rights and requirements. However, the Supreme Court does not ever take the terminal discussion, since country officials and members of the national government'southward legislative and executive branches have their own understanding of the Constitution that they employ on a daily basis, responding to, challenging, and sometimes modifying what the Courtroom has held (Devins & Fisher, 2004).

New Practices

Specific sections of the Constitution have evolved profoundly through new practices. Article II gives the presidency few formal powers and responsibilities. During the first hundred years of the republic, presidents acted in limited ways, except during war or massive social change, and they rarely campaigned for a legislative agenda (Tulis, 1987). Article II'southward brevity would be turned to the part's advantage by President Theodore Roosevelt at the dawn of the twentieth century. He argued that the president is "a steward of the people…bound actively and affirmatively to do all he could for the people." So the president is obliged to do whatever is all-time for the nation as long as it is not specifically forbidden by the Constitution (Tulis, 2000).

Intermediary Institutions

The Constitution is silent about various intermediary institutions—political parties, involvement groups, and the media—that link government with the people and bridge gaps caused by a separation-of-powers organization. The political procedure might stall in their absence. For example, presidential elections and the internal arrangement of Congress rely on the party organisation. Interest groups represent different people and are actively involved in the policy process. The media are primal for carrying information to the public about government policies as well every bit for letting government officials know what the public is thinking, a process that is essential in a democratic organization.

Key Takeaways

The Constitution established a national government distinguished by federalism, separation of powers, checks and balances, and bicameralism. It divided ability and created conflicting institutions—between three branches of government, across two chambers of the legislature, and betwixt national and country levels. While the structure information technology created remains the same, the Constitution has been changed by amendments, interpretation, new practices, and intermediary institutions. Thus the Constitution operates in a arrangement that is democratic far beyond the founders' expectations.

Exercises

Why was disharmonize between the different branches of regime built into the Constitution? What are the advantages and disadvantages of a system of checks and balances?
How is the Constitution different from the Articles of Confederation? How did the authors of the Constitution address the concerns of those who worried that the new federal government would be likewise strong?
What do you think is missing from the Constitution? Are there any constitutional amendments you would propose?

References

Ackerman, B., The Failure of the Founding Fathers: Jefferson, Marshall and the Ascent of Presidential Democracy (Cambridge, MA.: Belknap Press of Harvard, 2005).

Currie, D. P., The Constitution in Congress: The Federalist Period, 1789–1801 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997).

Devins, N. and Louis Fisher, The Autonomous Constitution (New York: Oxford University Printing, 2004).

Fenno Jr., R. F., The United states Senate: A Bicameral Perspective (Washington, DC: American Enterprise Institute, 1982), 5.

Keyssar, A., The Right to Vote: The Contested History of Republic in the United States (New York: Basic Books, 2000).

Neustadt, R. E., Presidential Ability (New York: Wiley, 1960), 33. Of form, whether the founders intended this outcome is still open up to dispute.

Tulis, J., The Rhetorical Presidency (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1987).

Tulis, J. K., "The Two Ramble Presidencies," in The Presidency and the Political System, 6th ed., ed. Michael Nelson (Washington, DC: CQ Printing, 2000), 93–124.

Forest, 1000. Due south., The Cosmos of the American Republic (Chapel Hill: University of Northward Carolina Press, 1969), chap. 6.