U.S_Constitution_Project

__Background Information of the U.S. Constitution__

 * The Constitution is the law of the land, any state laws contradicts the Constitution will not be enforced or admitted.
 * The Constitution was written during the __Philidelphia Constitution Convention__, From __May to September in 1787__.
 * The Convention, originally was to made further editing to the Articles of Confederation.
 * Delegates from all states except for Rhode Island attended the Convention.
 * __James Madison__, later the fourth president of the U.S., made a major contribution on solving the soverignty and limiting power problems.
 * The Philadelphia Convention, 1787.**

With series of Problems caused by the Articles of Confederation, the delegates, instead of editing the old documents, decided to form brand new one The new document is now known as the U.S Constitution.

- During the convention, the Founding Fathers (Writers of the Constitution) encountered problems after problems. One of the major ones were the problem on representation.
 * The __Virginia Plan__, proposed by __Edmund Randolph__ from Virgina, suggested within the state, provide a upper House of Senates and the lower House of Representatives, Representaion in the lower house base on population;
 * On the other side, the __New Jersey Plan__, proposed by __William Paterson__, suggested preserving the one house state congress. The plan would be in favor of the small states, since for each state the representatives will remained a fixed number.

- In order to end the endless debates between which proposal should be chosen, the __Great Compromise__ was made.
 * Taking both the large state plan and the small state plan, combining to form the Great Compromise.
 * Taking the Large state plan, which the state government would __be divided in to the House of Senates and house of Representatives__
 * Also taking the small state's plan, which the __Senate's House would always have 2 seats, while the house of representatives would be chosen base on the state population.__
 * The Compromise also include the __Three-fifths Compromise__. Total Number of slaves would be divided by 3/5 and added to the white population
 * The Compromise was agreed to, and passed on **July 16, 1787**.

**The Constitution was finally ratified by nine out of thirteen states and offically adopted on June, 1788.**
media type="custom" key="7252019" __**Wordle Analysis of most used words in the Constitution.**__

The words __'United'__ and __'States'__ shows up the most often in the document, which means the Founding considered the individuality of each of the states, however, also the importance of those states to unite together to form one nation with a strong federal government, without overpowering the rights of the staes. The word '__President__' and __'Congress'__ appears fairly often in the Constitution, shows the importance of the two branches at the time (The judiciary branch was less as important before the Judiciary Act of 1800 and the Marbury v. Madison court case.) 'Senate' 'Representatives' 'House' appears about the same amount of times, the controversy over the House of Representatives and the House of Senates almost cause a deadlock in the making of the new Constitution; as a result, the words had appear pretty often.

__﻿Key Ideas and Principles of the Constitution__

 * =====**Checks and Balances / Seperation of Powers**=====
 * =====**Representative Democracy**=====
 * =====**Bill of Rights/ Amendment allowed**=====
 * =====**Restrcitions to certain office positions**=====
 * **Elastic Clause/ Clause of Proper and Necessities**


 * 1) **Checks and Balances**: The Founding fathers based the three branches of government to avoid tyranny as the British had done to them before the War for Independence. The power within the federal government is divided into 3rds, held by the executive branch (President and his Cabinet); the legislative branch (the U.S. Congress) and the Judiciary Branch(The U.S, Supreme Court).

Each branch checks on other two branches to make sure the other branch do not hold too much power. Congress can vote on to impeach the president from office; The president can vetoe the bills passed by congress; The supreme court can review and repeal laws which are unconstutional. Also, the president has the right to appoint judges into the supreme court, in the other way the Supreme court can rule acts of the president unconstitutional. Lastly, congress is allowed to make amendments to the Constitution, which can replace the strucutre of the Supreme Court system with a completely new system.
 * Diagram of the three branches**

2. **Representative Democracy**: The Constitution did not simply formed a democracy government, but a representative government; (Pure democracy is that all the citizens decide on every issues of the nation, representative democracy means representatives elected by the people to decide on the national and state issues.). The representatives from states are broken down into the house of senates and the house of representatives. The lower house, the house of representatives are elected base on the population of the state. Each state would have 2 senates in the upper house, total of 100 senates from all over the nation. Above the senates is the U.S. Congress, which they decide on new bills, but also they are in charge of writing new bills to be signed by the president.

3.**Bill of Rights/Amendments:** The Constitution was designed not to be the same forever. Amendments can be made to the Constitution, for example the first 10 Amendments to the Constitution, known as the Bill of Rights. Granting the rights not mentioned in the Constitution to the people and the States. Other Amendments can be made to the Constitution, if 3/4 of the Congress members agreed to the admendment.

4. **Restrictions on Certain Office Positions:** The Constitution restricted certain positions to a standard. For example, the president has to be at least 35 years old, and America born citizen; however the president's term is limited to 8 years (one of the amendments after Roosevelt's death). Judges in the Supreme court is appointed by the president, and serve for a life time. Representatives in the lower house and the senates are elected by the people, representatives has a term of 2 years, and 6 years for a senate. The President's cabinet is also appointed by the president, serve as long as the president is still in his term.


 * 5. Elastic Clause:** Details and powers not listed in the Constitution can be adjusted by the Elastic Clause. Even though such power was not mentioned anywhere in the Constitution, but the Congress has the right to exceed its power like a elastic to make the acts. The powers granted to the Congress is flexible, small spaces were reserved for congress to make acts.

Importance of the Constitution
The Constitution is the most important document of the land. Even though the Declaration of Independence had given the nation its first identity, it is not as important as the Constitution. The Representative Democracy structured in the Constitution supported the nation for over 200 years, the nation did not got too close to collapse. The Constitutio structure a government now became what mostly the world is like right now.

Application of Key Principles in History

 * 1.The Lousiana Purchase:** After the purchase was made with the France, Jefferson, as a strict constructionist, worried that the congress or him did not had the right to make such purchase, because in the Constitution, the expansion of territories was not included in the Constitution. The issue was solved by using the power granted to the Federal government, which is the power of making treaties. The Louisiana Purchase was treated as a treaty in this case.


 * 2.Impeachment of President:** Radical Reconstructionist had tried to remove President Andrew Johnson from office to avoid him interfering with their reconstruction plans. The Tenure of Office Act was passes; At the same time, Johnson dismissed his secretarty of War Staton, even the Congress had refused to do so. The Radical Constructionist, seeing the president violationg part of the Constitution, quickly sent a trial to court to impeach the president (Even it failed at last)


 * 3. 2-Term Service of President:** Franklin Roosevelt re-elected president for a thrid term was different from the past of America, ever since the beginning. The final decision was both party nominated 1 candidate and compete against Roosevelt, and it was clear that it was Roosevelt's victory. The twenty-second amendment was issued after Roosevelt's death, The Twenty-second Amendment was proposed on March 24, 1947, and ratified on February 27, 1951. After the amendment, no president can serve for more than 2 terms in office. The act was proposed by the republicans to prevent the same actions as Roosevelt.

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