Checks And Balances Of The Constitution

When creating the Constitution, the framers feared that the national government had been given too much authority. They incorporated Separation of Powers, Checks and Balances, and Federalism in the Constitution to prevent this possible issue. These concepts and philosophies are an important part of our constitutional framework, and serve a valuable role in our government. In Articles I through III, the Constitution lays out the instructions for the three branches of government. By establishing three different branches, the Legislative, the Executive, and the Judicial, in that order, the framers split specific powers among three groups. The framers had relatively recently exited the control of the British Constitutional Monarchy, where

Through Checks and Balances, each branch of government controls the other two in some regard and is also controlled by the other two. In Article I, the Constitution states that “The Senate shall have the sole power to try all Impeachments,” meaning that the Legislative branch has the power to impeach the President, head of the Executive branch. In return, as written in Article I Section 7, the President has power to veto bills put forward by Congress, who can, in turn, overrule his veto with a two-thirds majority vote. The same goes for the Executive branch and the Judicial branch and for the Judicial branch and the Legislative branch. According to Article 2 Section 2, the President has the power to appoint judges to the Supreme Court and the power to pardon those convicted, but the Supreme Court has the power to declare Presidential acts unconstitutional. Article 2 Section 2 states that the Senate approves or disapproves judge appointments, but the Supreme Court can declare Congress’s laws unconstitutional. These Checks and Balances in the Constitution ensure that the three branches of government cannot gain nor lose power, something the framers saw as important to maintaining order and fairness in the federal