The American Constitution is the most wonderful work ever struck off at a given time by the brain and purpose of man.' It is with these words that William Gladstone describes the Supreme Law of the United States. This famous document, written by the Founding Fathers and ratified in 1789, is the oldest written Constitution still in use. It sets the world's biggest super power's institutional and political structure. This Constitution was a revolutionary approach to politics, emphasizing on the separation of powers, as recommended by Montesquieu . However, the evolution of the USA could have corrupted the original Founding Fathers' spirit.
[...] In a formal point of view, the Founding Fathers would probably be reassured to see that the Constitution they wrote two centuries ago is still applied and only sparsely amended (they made this process difficult on purpose). This document, purposely vague on some issues to make it easily adaptable, managed to face huge evolutions: democratization, widening of the territory and of the population, Civil War ( . ) to become a superpower. Duly, the USA is still a nation of individual's rights and never collapsed into tyranny or a despotic regime. [...]
[...] However, the Congress disposes therefore of special attributes whose purpose are especially to play the role of watchdog of Executive and Judiciary branches and reinforce, as said, the separation of powers in practice. Concerning the Executive, the Congress has notably the prerogative to declare War and raise the navy and army. In addition the Senate confirms appointments (on executive and judicial functions) and ratifies treaties. In the same way, the Legislature controls the Judiciary by creating and eliminating federal courts of justice. [...]
[...] States work as the federal government with almost the same system of checks and balances between their institutions. Due to the heterogeneousness of America's identity and its size, federalism appeared as a crucial and essential organization for the Founding Fathers. The only one, they felt, able to maintain the Nation as a united whole (by politically fragmenting this territory), to make the States accept the new federation, and to ensure a close action of governments. The sharing of power between two entities, two levels of government, contributes, of course, to limiting the central power and to protecting individuals' rights (the fundamental aim), but also to ensuring global cohesion and the most efficient political level of action. [...]
[...] The federal government has been implied more and more in the protection of civil rights and liberties even by constraining states to implement them. McKay emphasizes on: government at all levels have increasingly intruded into the lives of individuals, so the need for protection from arbitrary governmental (federal) authority has grown '[15]. To conclude, we can say that the Founding Fathers' basic aim was to prevent tyranny and absolute power in the USA. To do that, they developed a Constitution emphasizing on the separation of power between a federal government and the fifty States of the Union, and also between each federal branch of power. [...]
[...] Wroe, PO 617's course and documents (A. Wroe, Separation of powers, P.Barry Clarke and J. Foweraker, Encyclopedia of Democratic Thought, Routledge 2001). - American Politics and Society. 6th edition, David McKay, Malden, MA ; Oxford : Blackwell Publishing The Spirit of Law 1748 M.C. Pauwels, Civilisation Américaine, Les fondamentaux Hachette : p7 R. Hodder-Williams, R. Singh, Governing America: the politics of a divided democracy, Oxford : p59 R. Hodder-Williams, R. Singh, Governing America, Oxford : p59 R. Hodder-Williams, R. Singh, Governing America, Oxford : p [...]
APA Style reference
For your bibliographyOnline reading
with our online readerContent validated
by our reading committee
