Eighteen Year Old Vote Essays - James Madison, Constitutional Law

Eighteen Year Old Vote When the thirteen British colonies in North America declared their independence in 1776, they laid down that governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. In so doing they were consciously echoing the words of the Great Charter which King John had sealed 561 years before, wherein he had undertaken that no tax may be levied in our kingdom without its general consent. Similarly, the federal constitution which the newly independent states drew up in 1787 was to a large extent the formal statement of rights and liberties already won in Britain. However, while England had for centuries been intent on limiting the power of the absolute monarchy, American constitution-writers now focused on limiting the power and potential danger of the new absolute ruler - Congress, and the power of federal government institutions generally. This they sought to achieve not only through constitutional provisions and the Bill of Rights, but also through the celebrated checks and balances whereby two Houses, and the President as Executive, exercise discipline and restraint over one another. The judiciary was also placed to act as a restrictive force; indeed the US Supreme Court has traditionally seen itself as the ultimate discipline upon government power, and champion of the citizen against government excesses. The supremacy of the constitution over any and all branches of government was seen by America's Founders as the essential assurance of orderly and disciplined government, a view clearly described by Mr Hugo LaFayette Black, Associate Justice of the US Supreme Court, 1937-1971. The form of government which was ordained and established in 1789 contains certain unique features which reflected the Framers' fear of arbitrary government and which clearly indicate an intention absolutely to limit what Congress could do. The first of these features is that our Constitution is written in a single document. Such constitutions are familiar today and it is not always remembered that our country was the first to have one. Certainly one purpose of a written constitution is to define and therefore more specifically limit government powers. An all-powerful government that can act as it pleases wants no such constitution - unless to fool the people. England had no written constitution and this once proved a source of tyranny, as our ancestors well knew. Jefferson said about this departure from the English type of Government: Our peculiar security is in the possession of a written Constitution. Let us not make it a blank paper by construction. A second unique feature of our Government is a Constitution supreme over the Legislature. In England, statutes, Magna Carta, and later declarations of rights had for centuries limited the power of the King, but they did not limit the power of parliament. Although commonly referred to as a constitution, they were never the supreme law of the land in the way in which our Constitution is, much to the regret of statesmen like Pitt the elder. Parliament could change this English Constitution; Congress cannot change ours. Ours can only be changed by amendments ratified by three-fourths of the States. A third feature of our Government, expressly designed to limit its powers, was the division of authority into three co-ordinate branches, none of which was to have supremacy over the others. This separation of powers with the checks and balances which each branch was given over the others was designed to prevent any branch, including the legislative, from infringing individual liberties safeguarded by the Constitution. All of the unique features of our Constitution show an underlying purpose to create a new kind of limited government. [Completion of the Constitution was followed shortly after by James Madison's proposed ten additions or Amendments, these first ten Amendments becoming collectively known as the Bill of Rights. Mr Justice Black continues:] Central to all of the Framers of the Bill of Rights was the idea that since Government, particularly the national government newly created, is a powerful institution, its officials - all of them - must be compelled to exercise their powers within strictly defined boundaries. As Madison told Congress, the Bill of Rights' limitations point sometimes against the abuse of the Executive power, sometimes against the Legislative, and