Chapter 2- The Constitution

1. Why is the United States Constitution stronger than the Articles of Confederation? How would the history of the United States have been different if the country still operated under the Articles?
         

The Articles of Confederation were the original governing authority of the United States. Because of the way the colonists were treated by Great Britain, they were still weary of the thought of being controlled by a nation. The Articles of Confederation emphasized freedom from any kind of national authority, which made governing the nation very difficult. Congress could not place taxes on citizens or products directly; it could only request revenues from the states. Because of this, the nation had no way to pay its debts and economic growth was coming to a standstill. The Constitution helped solve these problems by establishing judicial and executive branches, outlining a system of checks and balances, finding a way to represent the states proportionally and all in all put a stronger structure behind the country. If the country still operated under the Articles, it would be much harder for the states to negotiate with one another and I believe there would be a lot more disagreement between citizens concerning major issues.

 

2.  The first three articles of the Constitution establish/define the three branches of government - read these articles. What did you learn that you didn't already know about our government?

Congress, or the legislative branch, is established in article I of the Constitution. Congress is divided into two groups: the Senate and the House of Representatives. These two groups were created so that no one institution had too much power. Congress is responsible for making laws, collecting taxes, providing for the common defense, declaring war, and many other issues. Article II established the executive branch, which consists of the president and the vice president. One thing I didn’t know is that even though the president is commander in chief, only Congress can declare war. This ensures that power is evenly distributed and no one person can make major decisions. Article III of the Constitution established the judicial branch of our government. The Supreme Court and federal courts make up the judicial branch and are in charge of interpreting the laws.

 

3. How important is the Supreme Court ruling in Marbury v. Madison and why?

In the Supreme Court case Marbury v. Madison, the court granted itself the authority of judicial review. Judicial review gives the Supreme Court the authority to strike down any law passed by Congress if the Court believes the law violates the Constitution.  The idea was that if a law conflicts with the constitution, either the law itself takes authority over the Constitution, or the Constitution reigns supreme over the law. The authority that is given to the Supreme Court by the power of judicial review is extremely important because the Constitution was agreed upon by the people. The Constitution is the fundamental structure of our government and it is important that the Supreme Court makes sure that no laws are allowed to undermine that.


4. Looking at the United States government today, is it more like what the Federalists or the Anti-Federalists envisioned and why?

When ratifying conventions began meeting over the Constitution, two groups were formed. Those who supported the Constitution called themselves Federalists. Those who opposed the Constitution became known as the Antifederalists. The Antifederalists feared that under the new Constitution, the national government would consolidate its authority over the state governments because national law was supreme over state law. The Federalists argued that if the people were sovereign, then they could split lawmaking authority between the national and state governments as they saw fit.  In today’s government with issues such as gun control on the front page of EVERYTHING, it seems that the people are seeing our government more like the Antifederalists did. People are afraid that national law will take their rights away. It seems kind of like history is repeating itself.