In the first section of Common Sense, Thomas Paine characterizes government as he sees it, which is still an influential viewpoint. His characterization is perhaps best summed up in his own succinct words: “government even in its best state is but a necessary evil.” These words speak measures to his attitude towards the fundamental nature of government—an attitude that shaped a political party in his time that has evolved over time with the core concept relatively intact. For Paine and modern conservatives alike, government is only rendered necessary due to the inadequacies of moral virtue in running a society. To illustrate this concept, Paine supports his idea with a hypothetical island. When a society develops, it will become necessary for a government to compensate for the eventual defect of moral virtue in individuals.
John Marshall’s Supreme Court cases shaped how the government is organized today. He strongly believed in Federalism, and that the national government should be sovereign, rather than the states. The Supreme Court under John
The constitution guards against tyranny through federalism. Federalism is when the power of government is shared between a central government and state governments. “The different governments will each control each other at the same time each will be controlled by itself” (Madison, 1788). These two governments compete for power with each other instead of trying to take it from the people. Federalism is the first way the constitution guards against tyranny.
The United States of America established itself as a nation that advocated a political system subjected to the construct of democracy. This system was created to represent its citizens so that they may not grow weary in a tyrant monarchy, such as that of the British before the American Revolution [1]. The forefathers gathered to establish a constitution that respected the rights of its citizens and debated with much tension to how authority would be exercised in such a representative government. History has shared an active evolution to the structure of government within the United States , yet America today is actively still subjected to the famous political party establishment that was made in the years of 1783-1815. The political party commonly known were the Federalist and the Democratic Republicans – two very different ideal groups that helped change America.
Are the words of the Constitution reflected today? Is what the Constitution states different then what occurred? Are the words of the Constitution and Declaration Of Independence still reflected today? Although the Constitution is the premise of what this nation is about, it contradicted what numerous individuals think. To begin with, there was the Articles Of Confederation, which was a rough design of the Constitution.
In 1776 the Continental Congress called upon the colonies to draft new constitutions. The Continental Congress practically asked for colonies to summon themselves into being as new states. According to the theory of republicanism the state 's sovereignty would lie on the authority of the people. The documents the states drafted were contracts that defined the powers of government, as did the old colonial charters, but these new contracts drew their authority form the people, not from the royal seal of the king of Britain. The documents were mean to represent a fundamental law, above to the normal unexplained changes of mind of the ordinary legislations.
The Federalist rewrote The Articles of Confederation, thus how the Constitution came to be. Federalist believed the Constitution was necessary to protect individual rights and the Anti-Federalist did not think it was. Federalist paper number fifty-one defends the Constitution, but still preserving liberty. The Federalist paper number fifty-one says the United States is going to
Federalism is defined as, “system of government in which the same territory is controlled by two levels of government” (Cornell, n.d, para. 1). In the United States, this system forms the basis of the separation of powers that is the key to the effective governing of the nation. However, the separation of powers between a unitary government and a confederative one is not without overlapping authority as well instances where one, the federal government, can influence policy in state governments, where the latter cannot. How did this style of government come to be from the failure of the Articles of Confederation, and how does it still impact policy on the state level today?
Together the three documents prove and disprove what those political thinkers believed, which was that a strong unified nation was crucial for the protection of individual civil liberties. Therefore, we can tell that our founding was a time to build a unified nation based on the ideals of classic liberalism, while establishing a strong democratic government whose purpose was to defend individual liberty and freedom. Our claim that individuals have natural rights and liberties can be traced back to the time of John Locke, a liberal political thinker who believed in the social contract theory, in which all people were free due to their natural rights, who in return gave their consent to be governed. The root of this argument can be found in the heart of Thomas Jefferson’s Declaration
For that reason an essential aspect of a good government is to guarantee these rights. More importantly a good government is solely based on the consent of the people, who are entirely the most powerful source of the government’s authority. If the government started to constantly violate the rights of the nation then the people had the right to overthrow it, according to the theory of good government. Thirdly according to this document a list of complaints against King George III, that was singled out to represent the actions of the British government, was created. Those complaints were clear examples of movements that were against the ideas presented by the theory of good government.