How Did The Constitution Guard Against Tyranny? Shay’s Rebellion. The Boston Massacre. Lexington and Concord. The Revolutionary War. Colonists tried their best to get away from King George III, a tyrant, by organizing different kinds of protests. In 1787, fifty-five delegates met in Philadelphia to fix the current government system. The problem was that the existing government, the Articles of Confederation, was too weak. The Articles of Confederation did not provide a chief executive, a court system, or any way to force a state to pay taxes. A new constitution was needed to pull the nation together. What did the constitution do to avoid tyranny? Tyranny, according to James Madison, means the accumulation of all power… in the same hands, whether …show more content…
According to Federalist Paper #51, Document A, James Madison stated, “The different governments will each control each other, at the same time that each will be controlled by itself.” the central government doesn’t have complete control over the states, and the states don’t have complete control over the central government. This prevents tyranny because one government, state or central, can take over. The second guard against tyranny was the Separation of Powers, which means the powers of the government that are divided among separate branches; the legislative, executive, and judiciary branch. In Federalist Paper #47 from James Madison, Document B, “Liberty requires that the three great departments of power should be separate and distinct.” Each branch can do something to override, or go against, another branches decision(s), so that no person, or group, gets too much power. The third guard against tyranny was checks and balances, which means the way one branch stops another from getting to powerful. In Document C, Federalist Paper #51 states, “the three branches should not be so far separated as to no constitutional control over each other.” Checks and balances makes sure that one group in the government can review a decision and can’t do anything
According to document A, one way we guarded against tyranny was federalism. Which divides power between states and government which is like sharing. This provides double security where it checks each other from becoming too powerful. Federalism guards against tyranny by evening out power between the states and government.
Four years after the revolutionary war between the Americans and Great Britain came to an end, fifty-five delegates met to discuss a serious matter. As the British used tyranny with the Americans, ways to guard the country against the reoccurring of Tyranny were important to find. The DBQ, How Did the Constitution Guard Against Tyranny published in 2009 by the DBQ project provides the different methods the constitution used to guard against tyranny. It is crucial to learn about how the constitution helped guard the country against tyranny because it is a big part of the history of the United States, as it also justifies the reasons behind the decisions made by the Americans. The actions the constitution took to guard against tyranny were developing
Throughout the course of history, nations have struggled to prevent tyranny, but our country has created a constitution with guards built into it to not only prevent the occurence of tyranny, but to limit the damage a tyrant can do. Our United States Constitution was written in 1787, in response to the tyrannical governance of Great Britain. So the question is, how does our constitution guard against tyranny? Some potential answers we will be looking at today are as follows, the system of federalism, the system of separation of powers, the system of checks and balances, and the big state small state compromise.
If the power weren’t divided between the states, we would have tyranny because one state, group, or person would start to take over, or start to like a king or ruler. Federalist paper #51 states, ”In the compound state of America, the power surrendered by the people is first divided between two distinct governments [state and federal], and the portion allotted to each subdivided among distinct and separate departments.” This statement proves that without the separation of powers, we would have tyranny.
Federalism separated power within the central and state government. They put the states in charge of education and holding elections (Doc A). This guarded against tyranny because it separated power between 2 types of government. The second method the constitution used to guard against tyranny was separation of power. Separation of power deals with the
The first guard against tyranny was Federalism. Federalism means the power given to the states, central governments and the powers that they both share. Document A states that the central government can regulate trade, conduct foreign relations, and declare war. Federalism protects against tyranny because the central government and state government have enough power that they do not control everything. James Madison states that "the different governments will each control each other, at the same time that each will be controlled by itself."
States can create local authorities, conduct elections and create schools. As James Madison said, "different governments will control each other, at the same time everyone will be controlled by himself. " What James Madison is trying to say is that the central and state governments have sufficient power not to do so. control everything. The central government has sufficient authority to help some of the country's basic needs, and the state government has sufficient
One way the Constitution guards against tyranny is Federalism. Federalism is the distribution of powers between central government and state government and the powers they share. In Document A it states the powers of the central government. Those powers are they can regulate trade, conduct foreign relations, provide an Army and Navy, declare war, print and coin money p, set up post offices, and make immigration laws. Document A also states the powers of the state government. Those powers are they can set up local governments such as town halls and city halls, hold elections, establish schools, pass marriage and divorce laws and regulate in-state
One guard against tyranny is federalism, which are different governments that operate together and share powers over citizens. The powers are shared between the central and state governments. Together they share the power to tax, borrow money, set up courts, make and enforce laws. Document A says “The different governments will each control each other, at the same time that each will be controlled by itself.”, meaning the two governments must work together so no one government can become too powerful, like a tyrant.
The constitution makes sure that there is a separation between two distinct governments state and national which prevents the United States from tyranny. This can be seen in Document A where it states “In the compound republic of America, the power surrendered by the people is first divided between two distinct governments, and the portion allotted to each subdivided among distinct and separate governments. Hence a double security..” The speaker Madison has theorized with the idea of a compound republic, which in this case is made up of the central government and the state government. The duties that the central government have include as of the document are regulate trade, conduct foreign relations, provide an army and navy,
James Madison said that “The three branches of government should not be so far separated as to have no constitutional control over each other.” (Doc D) James Madison was saying that the three branches do need to be separated but not to much that they are totally don’t have different views and are on different pages of each other. In the Constitution the three branches are given what they are allowed to do in other branches like “Congress can impeach the President and remove him or her from office,” “The President nominates judges,” and “The Court can declare laws unconstitutional.” (Doc D)
Before you are told how the Constitution protects against tyranny you must first know what tyranny is. There are two definitions of tyranny in the reading one by DBQ projects and one by James Madison. The one by James Madison is more relevant to the situation. James Madison states that "The accumulation of all powers... in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many (is) the very definition of tyranny. ". You will be informed about four documents and how each contributes to the protection against tyranny in the constitution.
The first method the Constitution protects against tyranny is Federalism. Federalism is a principle of government that splits the government’s power between the central and state. According to Document A, James Madison, in the Federalist Paper, explained that the power the people give to the government is divided into two separate governments-state and central. Which is proof that Federalism helps protect America against tyranny since, instead of having one government with all the power, it is split between the two, and thus preventing the rising of a tyrant.
“The accumulation of all powers, Legislative, Executive, and Judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, few, or many, and whether hereditary, self-appointed, or elective, maybe justly pronounced the very definition of tyranny,” which is said in James Madison’s Federalist paper, number 47. By separating the power, no one person or group could gain too much of it. The three branches of government are Executive, Legislative, and Judicial. The Executive makes the laws, the Legislative enforces the laws, and the Judicial determines if laws are broken. Separation of Powers began when James Madison drafted the Constitution.
“(L)iberty requires that the three great departments of power should be separate and distinct.” (Document B) For our government to be successful we much create three main levels of government where powers are distributed. This guards from tyranny because it makes sure that no branch has more power than one another because they check each other. Document B states that in the Constitution article 1 section 1, article 2 section 1 clause 1, and article 3 section are about the three separate branches in our government and what responsibilities that each one holds. With our government having three different branches each one has its own limited powers that make a democracy possible. This guards against tyranny because no branch overpowers each other, nobody gets too much power, and the powers are evenly distributed. Separation of powers is one of the main things framers used to protect against tyranny.