The Constitution

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The Constitution
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The Constitution

• Outlines the governments Responsibilities
• Its an outline of the powers the government has,
  and outlines the basic operations so that the
  government can function its limits of power.

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Constitution

• means that all power resides with the people.
  The government can only have as much power as the
  people allow it to have
• Our democracy is founded on the principle consent
  of the governed. The government can only govern
  with the consent of the people.
• This concept leads to our first principle

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Popular Sovereignty

• core of our democratic system

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Limited Government

• First seen with the Magna Carta (1215)
• Limited government holds that no government is
  all powerful, that government may do only those
  things that the people have given it power to do.

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Constitutionalism

• Form of limited government
• government must be conducted according to the
  constitution.

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Rule of Law

• Limited government
• Which holds that no government official is above
  the law, they are always subject to it, just as a
  regular civilian

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Separation of Powers

• Powers of government are distributed among three
  distinct branches

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Check and Balances

• Each branch is subject to a number of
  constitutional checks (restraints form the other
  branches. Each branch has certain powers with
  which it can check the operations of the other
  two branches.

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Judicial Review

• the power of courts to determine whether what
  government does is in accord with what the
  Constitution Provides
• It is the power of a court to determine the
  constitutionality of a governmental action. The
  court system was set up under the Judicial Act of
  1789

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The Judiciary Act of 1789

• One of the first acts of the new Congress was to
  establish a federal court system in the Judiciary
  Act of 1789. The Constitution provided that the
  judicial branch should be composed of one Supreme
  Court and such inferior courts as Congress from
  time to time established.

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Judicial Review

• Marbury vs. Madison (1803)
• This court case establishes judicial review
• What is Marbury?

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Federalism

• the division of power among a central government
  and several smaller governments