Essay on The Genius of the American Constitution - 1094 Words

â€Å"When people fear the government, there is tyranny. When the government fears the people, there is liberty.† By 1787, the enlightened statesmen began to understand and accept the flaws of the Articles of Confederation. It was too weak and did not allow the new nation’s economy to thrive. The system under these articles failed to create a strong central government and even lacked a court system. One major weakness of the central government was that they could not tax the states and this lead to an uneven distribution of power, and the states became overwhelmingly powerful. The challenge was to write a new constitution that was strong enough to hold the country and states together, secure the rights of the people, and not allow a single†¦show more content†¦The judicial branch also has the job of deciding the application of a law and protecting laws form passing that are unconstitutional. Another separation of power was put into place in the legislative bran ch to solve the problem of big states vs small states. This problem would be solved by having two parts of congress, the senate and the House of Representatives. The senate would consist of two representatives or senators from each state, while the house representatives would vary from state to state according to population. The small states were happy in the senate because they had the same say as larger states, whereas in the house, larger states were happy because they had more votes. This protected against tyranny because not one state or representative could gain absolute power. Having three branches with separate powers defends against tyranny simply because instead of having one power such as the king of England, who made all of the decisions, there are multiple parts of the government working together to come to an agreeable solution. (Document B, D) The Separation of powers on its own could not prevent tyranny. Although, the branches of power we distinct and unique, they â €Å"[Were not to be] so far separated as to have no constitutional control over each other.† TheShow MoreRelatedThe Genius of the American Constitution1000 Words   |  4 Pages The Genius of the American Constitution Since the advent of human government, one of the principle fears held by the constituents of the government has always been to prevent any form of tyranny or abuse within it. Tyranny can be loosely described as one person or a group of people having total power in a government leading to the subjugation and oppression of people’s rights. Many new nations wish to eliminate any aspect of their government that may eventually lead to tyranny. 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