The Constitution Protects Against Tyranny Dbq Essay

In Thomas Paine’s “Common Sense”, he said it’s absurd for an island to rule over a continent. This is especially true when Great Britain imposed tyrannic and restrictive laws on the colonies, so the founding fathers of the new independent country created the new constitution in a way the would prevent tyranny in the newly independent United States. The Articles of Confederation was the first plan of government for the newly formed U.S. The Articles were to weak to support a nation properly, so the new constitution began to form. How does the Constitution , a plan of government, guard against the government abusing its power. The Constitution protects against tyranny by establishing federalism, separation powers, and having checks and balances.

The first method the Constitution protects against tyranny is establishing federalism. Federalism is having the central and state governments powers divided or shared. In

This can easily be mistaken with separation of powers, but checks and balances means that each branch can do certain things when checking on the other branches {Doc.C}. For example, if the legislatures propose a law it must first go through the other two branches {Doc.C}. This evidence further explains why checks and balances protects against tyranny by letting each branch check on each other bad laws can be prevented. Also, if one branch is getting out of line, the other two can stop them so they won't become tyrannical.

How did the plan of government prevent tyranny? Federalism, separation of powers, and checks and balances are very important to the United States’ government because if this country didn't have these parts of the government everything would be out of control. To add on top of that the government would be abusing all of the powers that they have. People should be thankful they live in the U.S because the Constitution protects them from