US Government - The US constitution and Amendments Flashcards
What is a codified constitution?
- The US constitution is codified
- Laws are entrenched and hard to change
- Codified constitutions are largely written, centered around a single document incorporating key constitutional provisions that are on binding on all political institutions
- They are usually ‘entrenched’, allowing the protection of rights and the allowance of a higher or Supreme Court, and can only be repealed or amended by major legislative action, securing rights from temporary power
What is an uncodified constitution?
- An informal set of rules not recorded in a single document but found in a number of sources; written and unwritten conventions
- It has the status of ordinary law
- It is not entrenched and can be changed easily; courts find it difficult to determine if something is unconstitutional
- The UK constitution is uncodified
The advantages of a codified constitution (US)
- Limited government - the rules for government are established so it becomes clear when the government oversteps
- Protection of rights - basic rights are enshrined sin the constitution such as freedom of speech, meaning legislation cannot trample these rights
- Clear rules for political procedure - unlike the UK, a codified constitution allows for removal of precedent as a form of procedure, making a political instruction list for powers and systems, making it more clear-cut
- Checks and balances prevent dictatorship
- Amendments happen but basic rights are protected
- Safeguards against tyrannical governments
- Public can access and understand easier
The advantages of an uncodified constitution
- Flexible and easy to change; laws can be easily amended and repealed, allowing it to stay updated with modern issues - dynamic for constitutional reform
- Creates a ‘living constitution’ because it evolves and adapts to reflect changing social attitudes
- New problems = new laws introduced
- The laws that stay or are improved are the best option; trial and error of laws is available
- Direct democracy
The disadvantages of a codified constitution
- Rigidity - codified constitutions are notoriously difficult to change and amend - only 27 amendments in 200 years
- Judicial tyranny - interpreted by judiciary and so it can be the case that judges ‘legislate from the bench’ as it is not clear and therefore becomes subjective punishment
- It is outdated
- Hard to agree on - hard to change when needed
- Too much power to judges
The disadvantages of an uncodified constitution
- Absence of a written constitution means the UK does not have a single, written document that has a higher legal status than other laws and rules, which compromises a number of sources making it less accessible, transparent, understandable or intelligible
- Powers of executive, legislative and judicial branches are not clearly defined - creates ambiguity, uncertainty and conflict between the three governmental pillars
- Flexible nature means it is subject to interpretation
- Dangerous governments could exploit it
- Hard for public to understand
- Allow civil liberties to be overridden
The origins of the Constitution - The Articles of Confederation
- The first US government system was the Articles of Confederation, which had good intention but was executed poorly; the Articles government had not judicial or executive branch and effectively couldn’t govern without the means to settle disputes; it was essentially only a congress that had a state representative from each colony and had a veto power to sink legislation and all decisions had to be unanimous (decisions are hard to reach) and had no power to levy taxes / gain money
What was the Constitutional Convention?
- Delegates of the 13 colonies gathered in Philadelphia in 1787 to revise the Articles, but they ended up creating a whole new constitution
- Each delegate had their own agendas at the Constitutional Convention, making it difficult for them to agree on a new government system, causing them to have to compromise
- The issue of competing interest would make coming up with a new government system even more difficult - larger population states had different issues to smaller states, and would benefit more from government spending, and so had different needs
What was the Northwest Ordinance?
- The Northwest Ordinance 1787 - set up a system for eventual statehood for the colonies in the West which were yet to become states and forbade slavery in these territories
What was the Virginia Plan?
Formed by the delegates from Virginia.
The Virginia Plan - Larger states therefore wanted the number of representatives to in the Congress proportional to the population of the states (large states have more representatives than smaller ones)
What was the New Jersey Plan?
The New Jersey Plan - the delegates from this colony proposed an idea where each state would send an equal number of representatives to Congress to prevent larger states dominating and also allocate themselves a bigger share of government spending
What was the Great Compromise?
This created a bicameral congress, a two-house legislative branch of government with the representatives in the House being dictated by state population
What was the 3/5’s compromise?
- The 3/5’s compromise - in order to prevent states with few slaves being underrepresented by those states with large slave populations (who wanted the slaves counted to get a larger population and therefore a higher percentage of seats), all slaves were counted as being 3/5 of a free white person
- However, this entrenched the idea that slaves, who were mostly black, were worth less embedding slavery and racism into the constitution
Ratifying the Constitution
- Before the constitution could come into effect however, it had to be ratified by 9 of the 13 states, so each state held a convention where delegates could vote on whether or not to adopt the new constitution
- These conventions were open to the public which is why some say the Constitution is the will of the people
Who were the Federalists?
- There was division over ratifying the constitution - those who wanted it, the Federalists (based on the Federalist Papers, a collection of articles written by Hamilton, Madison and Jay ,Ade to convince the New York delegates to ratify the document) - thought a strong central government would benefit the country, and mainly came from wealthy groups, feeling a national government would pay debts, and be good for business, and they wanted stronger ties with England, who was a good trading partner