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Madison saw the federal Constitution as providing for a "happy combination" of a republic and a purer democracy, with "the great and aggregate interests being referred to the national, the local and particular to the State legislatures" resulting in a decentralized governmental structure.
The U.S. Constitution was a federal one and was greatly influenced by the study of Magna Carta and other federations, both ancient and extant. The Due Process Clause of the Constitution was partly based on common law and on Magna Carta (1215), which had become a foundation of English liberty against arbitrary power wielded by a ruler.
The American experience of constitutional amendment and judicial review motivated constitutionalists at times when they were considering the possibilities for their nation's future. Examples include Abraham Lincoln during the American Civil War, his contemporary and ally Benito Juárez of Mexico, the second generation of 19th-century ...
The United States Constitution and its amendments comprise hundreds of clauses which outline the functioning of the United States Federal Government, the political relationship between the states and the national government, and affect how the United States federal court system interprets the law. When a particular clause becomes an important ...
Gödel's Loophole is a supposed "inner contradiction" in the Constitution of the United States which Austrian-American logician, mathematician, and analytic philosopher Kurt Gödel postulated in 1947. The loophole would permit the American democracy to be legally turned into a dictatorship.
The Tenth Amendment (Amendment X) to the United States Constitution, a part of the Bill of Rights, was ratified on December 15, 1791. [1] It expresses the principle of federalism, whereby the federal government and the individual states share power, by mutual agreement, with the federal government having the supremacy.
This philosophy heavily influenced the United States Constitution, according to which the Legislative, Executive, and Judicial branches of the United States government are kept distinct in order to prevent abuse of power. The American form of separation of powers is associated with a system of checks and balances.
More broadly, in Federalist No. 10, Madison distinguished a democracy from a republic. Jefferson warned that "an elective despotism is not the government we fought for." [80] Madison wrote: In a democracy, the people meet and exercise the government in person; in a republic, they assemble and administer it by their representatives and agents.