Constitution Review

Constitution Basics

Con*sti*tu*tion (kon-ste-tÜ-shen)1. n. system of fundamental principles according to which a nation, state, or society is governed.2. n. the written set of fundamental principles by which the United States is governed.

Popular Sovereignty
A government created by and for the people.
“We the People . . . do ordain and establish this Constitution.”These words are contained in the Constitution's Preamble and give expression to the doctrine of popular sovereignty, or rule by the people. The Constitution's Framers crafted a governing document, which they submitted for popular ratification, based on the conception that ultimate political authority resides not in the government or in any single government official, but rather, in the people. "We, the People" own our government, but under our representative democracy, we delegate the day-to-day governing powers to a body of elected representatives. However, this delegation of powers in no way impairs or diminishes the people's rights and responsibilities as the supreme sovereign. The government's legitimacy remains dependent on the governed, who retain the inalienable right to alter or abolish their government or amend their Constitution.

Rule of Law
A government guided by a set of laws, rather than by any individual or group entity.
The Supreme CourtThe Framers considered the rule of law essential to the safekeeping of social order and civil liberties. The rule of law holds that if our relationships with each other and with the state are governed by a set of rules, rather than by a group of individuals, we are less likely to fall victim to authoritarian rule. The rule of law calls for both individuals and the government to submit to the law's supremacy. By precluding both the individual and the state from transcending the supreme law of the land, the Framers constructed another protective layer over individual rights and liberties

Separation of Powers and a System of Checks and Balances
A separation of powers and distribution of functions and responsibilities among three separate government branches, and a system of checks and balances to calibrate those powers.
Anchored by the first three articles of the Constitution, Congress (legislative), the presidency (executive) and the judiciary (judicial) make up our three branches of government.By distributing the essential business of government among three separate but interdependent branches, the Constitutional Framers ensured that the principal powers of the government, legislative, executive and judicial, were not concentrated in the hands of any single branch. Allocating governmental authority among three separate branches also prevented the formation of too strong a national government capable of overpowering the individual state governments. The Separation of Powers, by which the executive, legislative, and judicial branches are to be independent and not infringe upon each other's rights and duties, is one of the basic doctrines in the US Constitution.Nevertheless, governmental powers and responsibilities intentionally overlap. For example, congressional authority to enact laws can be checked by an executive veto, which in turn can be overridden by a two-thirds majority vote in both houses; the President serves as commander-in-chief, but only the Congress has the authority to raise and support an army, and to declare war; the President has the power to appoint all federal judges, ambassadors, and other high government officials, but all appointments must be affirmed by the Senate; and the Supreme Court has final authority to strike down both legislative and presidential acts as unconstitutional. This balancing of power is intended to ensure that no one branch grows too powerful and dominates the national government.

Federalism
A federalist system whereby governing power is shared between the national government and the individual state governments.
Federalism refers to the apportioning of power between the federal government and the states. By the time the American Revolution had been waged and won, state governments were fully entrenched. It was unlikely, therefore, that the states would agree to the creation of a powerful central government at the total expense of its self-governing authority. Granting the states specific self-governing powers and rights was not only politically expedient, but also served the Framers' intent to limit the central government's authority. The sharing of power between the states and the national government was one more structural check in an elaborate governmental scheme of checks and balances.

Judicial Review
The establishment of the Supreme Court as the judicial branch's authoritative institution, and the resulting power of judicial review.

The Supreme CourtThe Judiciary occupies the third branch of government and possesses a powerful tool to check abuses of office by both the executive and legislative branches: the authority to declare acts of Congress and the President unconstitutional. The power of judicial review derives not from the Constitution, which contains no explicit reference to this authority, but from a series of cases dating back to the late 1700s.One of the earlier illustrations of the Supreme Court's exercise of its judicial review powers was in Hylton v. United States, a 1796 Supreme Court decision wherein the Court upheld a federal tax on carriages. Indeed, flexing a judicial right to hold laws unconstitutional predates the passage of the Constitution as some Colonial judges were known to have invalidated state laws on the grounds that they violated a state constitutional provision.But the case most frequently cited in connection with judicial review powers is the Supreme Court's 1803 decision in Marbury v. Madison. In declaring part of a federal statute null and void on the ground that it conflicted with the Constitution, Chief Justice John Marshall articulated a detailed doctrine of judicial review, and concluded that the Constitution implicitly grants to the Supreme Court the power to invalidate any law that, in the Court's opinion, violates the Constitution. Seven years following its decision in Marbury, the Supreme Court extended its judicial authority by ruling on the constitutionality of a Georgia statute in the 1810 Fletcher v. Peck case. By asserting its judicial reviewing powers over both federal and state laws and acts, the Supreme Court secured for itself the role of chief interpreter and arbiter of the Constitution

Individual Rights
Protection of individual rights and liberties against government encroachment.
The Bill of RightsContained in the Constitution's Preamble are its founding principles: To form a more perfect union, to provide for a common defense, to establish justice and secure the blessings of liberty for present and future generations. For many, the guarantee of justice and liberty was crucial to their support of a national charter. However, when first drafted and submitted to the states for ratification, the Constitution did not include any reference to individual rights. The Framers assumed that the powers of the newly formed national government were so carefully constrained that individual rights required no expressed protection. Moreover, the Federalists, who supported a strong federal government, argued that by enumerating a bill of rights, those rights deemed essential yet left unspecified would be vulnerable to government encroachment.But the demand to secure a definitive roster of individual rights against government infringement and the uncertainty of politics persisted. Unless assured that a bill of rights would be passed, many states threatened to withhold ratification of the Constitution. Consequently, in 1789, the First Congress of the United States adopted the first ten amendments to the Constitution, known collectively as the Bill of Rights. Ratification of these amendments by the required number of states occurred in 1791. And the Ninth Amendment, by expressly protecting fundamental rights not specifically described in the Constitution, lay to rest the Federalists' concern that the singling out of any right for protection jeopardized the protection of all other rights not similarly identified.The Bill of Rights restricts government invasion of certain individual liberties, including freedom of speech, press, assembly, and religion. It also prohibits the "establishment" of any official religion. The values embodied in the Bill of Rights center on individual worth and dignity and refer to certain inalienable rights that inhere to us all as human beings, and citizens of a constitutional democracy.Nearly two-thirds of the Bill of Rights is devoted to safeguarding the rights of persons suspected or accused of crime. These rights include due process of law, fair trial, and freedom from self-incrimination, cruel and unusual punishment and being held in jeopardy twice for the same crime. The Bill of Rights, when first adopted, applied only to the actions of the federal government. An individual whose civil liberties had been violated by the state had to rely on that particular state's constitution or bill of rights for recourse. Restraining state incursions into civil liberties was the subject of the Thirteenth, Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments, the so-called Reconstruction Amendments, ratified in 1865, 1868, and 1870, respectively, and intended to dismantle the institution of slavery. The Thirteenth Amendment abolished slavery, and the Fifteenth Amendment granted newly freed male slaves the right to vote, but the amendment that paved the way for a broad and comprehensive application of the Bill of Rights to the states was the Fourteenth Amendment. Over the past 100 years, many of the liberties articulated in the first ten amendments have been incorporated into the Fourteenth Amendment's guarantee to state citizens due process and equal protection under the law.For the first 150 years following its adoption, the Bill of Rights was rarely invoked or the subject of judicial interpretation. But beginning in the 1920s, the Constitution's first ten amendments have played an increasingly active role in resolving difficult questions of public policy - from school prayer and mandatory drug testing laws, to birth control and capital punishment. And founding principles such as "justice" or "liberty" and constitutional precepts such as "due process" and "equal protection under the law" have been given new meaning by succeeding generations, reflecting changes in human sensibilities, values and ethos over the past two hundred years.