Chapter 2: Constitutional Democracy: Promoting Liberty and Self-Government

Limited government:

One that’s subject to strict legal on the uses of power.

• Still have strict uses of power.

• However, there are still times in history where power has been abused.

Representative government:

One in which the people govern through the selection of representatives.

When the costs of war created a budget crisis in Britain,…

Parliament levied taxes on the colonies.

• Repeal of the Stamp Act, a tax on colonial newspapers and business documents.

• Enactment of the Townshend Act, which included a tax on tea.

Social contract:

Gov’t has responsibility to preserve rights.

• John Locke

Inalienable (natural) rights:

Life, liberty, and property.

• Gov’t can’t take it away because they didn’t give it to us.

Thomas Jefferson paraphrased who?

Locke in the Declaration of Independence

• Gov’t derive “their just powers from the consent of the governed,” and “it is the right of the people to alter or abolish” a tyrannical gov’t.

The Articles of Confederation

Adopted during the Revolutionary War.

• Not a constitution: A fundamental law that defines how a government will legitimately operate.

• Created a weak national government.

Shays’ Rebellion.

Farmers led by Daniel Shays fomented armed rebellion to prevent foreclosures on their land.

• Congress was unable to raise an army to quell the rebellion.

Weakness of the national government raised what?

Fears especially in the wake of Shays’ Rebellion.

The Great Compromise

addressed the conflict between large states and small states regrading how representation in Congress should be determined.

• Virginia Plan, New Jersey Plan, Great Compromise

Virginia Plan, or large-state plan:

• Representation based on the size of a state’s pop.

• Greater power to larger states.

New Jersey Plan, or small-state plan:

• Each state would have one vote.

• Equal power to large and small states.

Great Compromise: A bicameral Congress.

• House of Representatives: proportional representation.

• Senate: Equal representation.

Congress would be prohibited until 1808 from passing laws to end what?

End the slave trade(they did so immediately)

Three-Fifths Compromise:

Three-fifths of the enslaved population counted for apportionment of taxes and political representation.

• Northern delegates were against counting slaves because they didn’t have legal rights.

• Southern delegates were in favor of counting slaves, affording the South more House seats and thus greater political power.

At the time of writing the of the Constitution who was the largest population in Southern states?

African Americans(most of whom were slaves)

The framers sought a national government that could act how?

Decisively, but not act irresponsibly.

• They mistrusted unrestricted majority rule.

• Liberty was the governing ideal they sought most.

Individuals should be free to act and think as they choose, provided they do not do what?

infringe unreasonably on the freedom and well-being of others.

Why did John C. Calhoun, reject the founding principles of inalienable rights and equality of men?

He stated they were the “most false and dangerous of all political errors.”

Grants of Power:

Powers granted to the national government.

• Limit gov’t by stating specific powers in the Constitution.

• Total of 17 powers.

Denials of power:

• Powers expressly denied to the national and state gov’ts.

  • Limited gov’t by stating specific prohibitions in the Constitution.

Montesquieu’s concept of a separation of power is what?

Powers divided among separate branches rather than investing them entirely in a single individual or institution.

The framers’ special contribution to the doctrine of the separation of powers:

Each branch would’ve the capacity to check the power of the others.

Separated institutions sharing powers:

Separate branches interlocked in such a way that an elaborate system of checks and balances is created.

Shared legislative powers:

Congress checked by the: president and the Supreme Court.

Shared executive powers:

President checked by: Congress and the Supreme Court.

Shared judicial powers:

Courts checked by the: president and Congress.

The U.S. Constitution separates power among the legislative, executive, and judicial branches but assigns each branch what?

part of the power of the other two branches so that it can act as a check on their power.

To the framers, the risk of popular government was what?

tyranny of the majority: The people acting as an irrational mob that tramples on the rights of the minority.

Democracy, to the framers:

A gov’t in which the majority has absolute power.

Framers preferred what concept instead of democracy?

A republic

Republic:

A government that has limits on its power, where the people have rights guaranteed by a constitution and that are protected through carefully designed institutions.

• Majority rule in a republic is limited in order to protect minority rights.

Anti-Federalists:

Those who were against a strong national gov’t and the ratification of the constitution

• National gov’t would be too powerful.

• State self-gov’t and personal liberty would be placed at risk.

Federalists(framers):

Supports of the Constitution.

• The Federalist Papers, a series of essays by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay, laid out a persuasive case.

Federalists 51:

“You must oblige the gov’t to control the governed; and in the next place it to control itself”

Limited Popular Rule

• The House of Representatives was initially the only institution based on direct popular election.

  • To make gov’t responsive to popular majorities.

Each state would’ve the same number of what?

electoral votes as members in Congress, and their electors(the Electoral College) would select the president.

Who was to decide whether officials were operating within the limits of their constitutional powers?

The answer was established by Chief Justice John Marshall Marbury v. Madison (1803).

• Affirming the Supreme Court’s power to declare acts of Congress unconstitutional.

Judicial Review:

The power of the judiciary to decide whether a gov’t official or institution has acted within the limits of Constitution and, if not, to declare its action null and void.