...The United States Constitution overcame the weaknesses of the Articles of Confederation and provided for the organization of the new government. In the late 1700s British colonies were setting up a new government. They started governing a new nation be writing the Articles of Confederation. Delegates met at the Constitutional Convention to discuss the Constitution. The Constitution was debated because it had no Bill of Rights. Governing a new nation the Constitutional Convention and debating the Constitution was how the US overcame the Articles of Confederation and formed a government. When governing a new nation, the US wrote new state Constitutions, the Articles of Confederation and divided land. Eleven out of thirteen states wrote new state Constitutions. State Constitutions avoided the same problems they had with the British. They limited the power of the central government and the governor. The Articles of Confederation was written in 1777. The states were given power. The Congress could make laws, coin/borrow money, build roads and post offices, deal with foreign nations and declare war. Congress could not regulate trade, collect taxes and enforce laws. The states did not want to give lands to the government. Disputes over land slowed ratification of the Articles of Confederation. The land ordinance of 1785 broke land into six-square mile townships. The land ordinance of 1787 banned slavery and set up a three-step process for state hood. Governing a new nation led to compromises...
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...CONSTITUTIONAL AND ADMINISTRATIVE LAW LAWS 1112 Y (1) UNIVERSITY OF MAURITIUS ACADEMIC YEAR 2011/2012 Lecture 1 DEFINITION AND SCOPE OF CONSTITUTIONAL LAW * The role of law * “Law is not merely a matter of the rules which govern relations between private individuals (for example between the employer and employee or between landlord and tenant). Law also concerns the structure and powers of the state.” A W Bradley and K D Ewing: Constitutional and Administrative Law * Constitutional Law has the basic role of governing the structure and the powers of the state. It therefore organises the powers of the state in an attempt to prevent abuses of power by those in power. * Emergence of Constitutional Law - Enlightenment * The term “constitution” was coined recently with the emergence of the new nation state. During the 18th of century, political revolutions in France and the US led to the emergence of the new nation state and the need was felt for a document reflecting the beliefs and the political aspirations of the heralders of the new political and legal order. * Major ideologies (constitutionalism, Thomas Hobbes, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, John Locke) started perceiving power of the state and freedoms of individuals as being conflicting such that only a proper balance between the two would lead to political and social stability. According to those ideologies, to maximise individual freedoms and liberties, the power of the state had...
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...The Constitutional Convention is an important part of History that created an outline that we still use today. The Constitutional Convention was the 3 month time when the constitution was created. Charles Pinckney helped create the constitution at the convention. Pinckney is a U.S founding father, the governor of South Carolina and a signer of the constitution. Also, he served as chairman and shared possible ideas. Charles Pinckney was born October 26, 1757 in south carolina and was 29 during the convention. Pinckney's father was a rich lawyer and planter and Pinckney's second cousin Charles-Cotesworth Pinckney who was a fellow signer of the US constitution. He went on to marry Mary Eleanor Laurens, daughter of a wealthy and politically powerful...
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...The Constitution The written document that established the National Government of the United States is known as the Articles of Confederation. Independence was declared from Great Britain for this document. They created it to set laws, to appoint taxes according to the population, grant one vote per state, and give rights to the federal government to dispose of the public lands in the west. The constitution was needed when there appeared to be a problem with the Articles of Confederation. The Constitutional convention was held in Philadelphia. It was from May to September of 1787. Of all the states 12 of the 13 delegates appeared at the convention. The only one not in attendance was Rhode Island. Some important people who attended the convention were George Washington, James Madison, Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton and George Mason. Each one of them had a very important role in the signing of the...
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...Should There be Another Constitutional Convention? The Articles of Confederation was he first federal “constitution” to be upheld in the thirteen colonies. Unfortunately, under the Articles, Congress was given no power over the states so that the country could grow into an actual functioning society, though there were certain things that they did have control over, such as create war and peace time, conduct foreign affairs and etc. But under the Articles, “But Congress could not collect taxes and enforce laws directly; it had to rely on the states to provide money and enforce its laws. . .”(Dye 61). Essentially, the states did what they felt was right beneath their own respective state level government. “No respect is paid to the federal authority. Not a single state complies with the requisitions[submitted by Congress]” (Nardo 18). The Founding Fathers were disturbed by the utter discord the nation seemed to be in. Deciding that enough was enough in May of 1797, twelve of the thirteen colonies delegates, 55 delegates, gathered together in the State House of Philadelphia to, originally, fix and tweak the bugs out of the Articles of Confederation. But instead of fixing the Articles, James Madison decided that it would be better to scrap the whole document and create a whole new federal constitution. James Madison was intent on drafting a new constitution that would create a stronger, central government: The Virginia Plan. “. . . he by no means wanted that government to be so...
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...The British constitution has become increasingly codified, discuss. A constitution is a set of rules that defines the manner a country is run. The British constitution is said to be an unwritten constitution, more accurately it is uncodified as much more of the British constitution is written down, however, they are not all written down in a single document like a codified constitution would require as how the US is, however draws from several different sources such as; statutes laws, common law, conventions, EU laws, authoritative documents etc. Statute law, is a written law passed down by parliament for example the human rights act of 1998 which brought the European convention on human rights into British law, conventions is another source of the British constitution, they are unwritten laws considered binding on members of the political community for example the Salisbury convention which made sure that the house of lords does not obstruct proposals contained in the governments most recent manifesto. Has the British constitution become increasingly codified? Its not the case that the British constitution is being written in a single document but in fact that more of the constitution is being written down as there is increasingly more written statutes that have great constitutional impacts as they are passed by parliament making them more rigid therefore harder to change as parliament has ultimate sovereignty, however you could say the EU laws are exempt from this,...
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...The Constitutional philosophy changed much through the years between the Revolution and the signing of the Constitution. Most of this was do to the historical events and writings going on at that time. I will explain how “Common Sense”, Preamble of the Declaration of Independence, State constitutions, The Articles of Confederation, and The Annapolis Convention affected the Constitution. The early philosophy of the American Constitution was to preserve and maintain the power of the individual states. They wanted to keep the possibility of a main power or tyranny very low. Thomas Paine’s “Common Sense” is what sparked the idea for a constitution and independence. It contained that there should be an elected President and national Congress,...
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...The Constitutional process began with the Constitutional Convention, that was the gathering of delegates coming from 12 of the 13 states is called the Constitutional Convention. Those delegates were not representative of the American people. In fact, many of them were wealthy, property owners and well-educated. Even tough, they created a supreme law for all American citizens. They wanted a massive and general adhesion of the People in America to support the project. That’s why the US Constitution was only roughly a year after its creation. Citizens were given the time to debate the written Constitution. The Constitution became the law only when the People publicly agreed to ordain and establish it, only after nine states approved it, then the...
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...The Constitutional Convention was an important event because it is what lead us to the government we have now. The different compromises are what lead to the methods that were used and still being used nowadays The Constitutional Convention was a meeting that took place in Philadelphia in 1787. The purpose of that meeting was to rewrite the Articles of Confederation. There were fifty five men who were delegates, their purpose was to have the federal government strengthen. The delegates did not think that rewriting the Articles of Confederation would actually work out. Eventually they wrote the U.S. Constitution. George Washington was chosen to lead the convention. All of the delegates had to agree that every state would get one vote. They did not want anyone to know about what was going on during the convention meetings. The delegates made sure to keep everything a secret, anyone who was not a delegate were not allowed to attend any meetings. We have no written documents because they kept everything a secret of what had occurred during the meetings. The only details we have today is from a notebook that belonged to James Madison. However, James Madison is known as the “Father of the Constitution.” He had also helped write the federalist papers. At the Constitutional Convention James Madison had done a very good job. When the delegates had to decided to write the “Bill of Rights” he was against it. James Madison was afraid that the future people would just go by those...
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...The United States Constitution overcame the weaknesses of the Articles of Confederation and provided the organization of the new government. After the American Revolutionary War in America, the colonists needed a government so no one could take away their power.The Articles of Confederation were very weak and under them the new country was vulnerable and the states all were doing their own thing. During the Constitutional Convention, many compromises were made to make everyone in small and large states happy. Federalists wrote the Federalists Papers to gain support from the public. Anti- Federalists refused to sign things and protested the Constitution. To overcome the weaknesses of the Articles of Confederation the newly formed United States...
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...Primary Source Paper 2 Identify and Summarize The Constitutional Convention’s Debates on Slavery took place in 1787 and was reported by James Madison. James Madison was a white male born in Virginia and was the leading delegate for his state of Virginia in the Constitutional Convention’s Debates on Slavery. He also became the chief recorder of information because he took an abundance of detailed notes. The notes that James Madison took during the Debates on Slavery were published right after the convention concluded. It was published for the public to view in the thirteen states, even though Rhode Island did not have a representative at the convention. It was the public who pushed for the delegates to meet in Philadelphia to revise the Articles...
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...NONE, ONE OR SEVERAL? PERSPECTIVES ON THE UK’S CONSTITUTION(S) DAVID FELDMAN* An inaugural lecture is the occasion when the University of Cambridge can look its gift horse in the mouth, weighing the new professor in the balance against his or her distinguished predecessors. The Rouse Ball Professorship of English Law has been held in the past by a long series of distinguished scholars, from Sir Percy Winfield to my immediate predecessor, Sir Jack Beatson whom we are delighted to welcome back today. Their work has influenced generations of lawyers. They certainly influenced me. Before I encountered Criminal Law: The General Part,1 a great little volume by Professor Glanville Williams, Learning the Law, was my ‘Guide, Philosopher and Friend’ (as it still says on the cover of the latest edition, now edited by my colleague Professor Tony Smith)2 as I approached the study of law. Another Rouse Ball Professor, the late Sir William Wade, had a formative effect on my understanding of land law and administrative law both through his famous books, Megarry and Wade on the Law of Real Property (now edited by a former Fellow of Downing College, Dr. Charles Harpum)3 and Administrative Law (now in the hands of my colleague Dr. Christopher Forsyth),4 not to mention the lectures that I attended as an undergraduate in (softly be it said) the University of Oxford. Two wonderfully stimulating and enjoyable books by the Emeritus Rouse Ball Professor and * Rouse Ball Professor of English Law in...
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...Constitution What is a constitution? • Set of rules seeking to establishing the duties, powers and functions of the various institutions of government • To regulate the relationships between and among the institutions • Define the relationship between the state and the individual, define extent of civil liberty Types of Constitution • Codified and uncodified o Codified – enshrined in law and based on 1 single authoritative document outlining powers of institutions + government, as well as a statement of the rights of citizen’s ▪ Document is authoritative, highest law of the land. Binds all political institutions – leads to 2 tier legal system ▪ Provisions of it are entrenched, difficult to amend or abolish ▪ It is judiciable, all political bodies are subject to authority of the courts, in particular a supreme court. o Uncodified – increasingly rare, UK one of few ▪ Not authoritative, constitutional laws treated same as ordinary laws ▪ Not entrenched, constitution can be changed through the normal process for enacting statute law. ▪ Not judiciable, judges do not have legal standard to declare that actions of other bodies are constitutional/not constitutional. o However: ▪ No constitution is entirely written, written documents do not encompass all aspects of constitutional practice ▪ No constitution...
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...High Treason, but the Patriots freed him by an angry mob who stormed the prison. In 1776 David Brearley became part of the Constitutional Convention...
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...Our first one hundred years in the United States of America should definitely be celebrated. These first one hundred years are concentrated with the blood of the soldiers who fought for our country, the sweat of slaves who created the agricultural foundation of our economy, and the thoughts of our leaders throughout the ages. I say the first one hundred years should be celebrated because after these one hundred years, we established a powerful united country that takes account of justice and morality, and is booming economically. Within our first important years, many important moments happened that changed our country forever. For example, in the first one hundred years was the Constitutional Convention. Before the Constitutional Convention,...
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