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Essay On Why Was The American Constitution Unique

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To what extent was the government laid out in the American Constitution of 1787 unique? The government laid out in the constitution was both unique and not unique for its time. The constitution was not unique in that the majority of the ideas in the constitution were not original and came from other sources. The constitution was unique in that it was the first time that all the ideas used in the constitution were put together for a government.
The constitution was unique in that it was the first government basis containing separation of powers, checks and balances, limited government, judicial review, federalism, and popular sovereignty; and that it was based off of the Magna Carta, the Petition of Rights, the English Bill of Rights, and John Locke Second Treatise.
The six main ideas used in the constitution, while mostly not original ideas this was the first time these six ideas were used in a basis of government. The constitution was not unique in that the ideas used in constructing the …show more content…
These ideas all come from people outside of those making the Constitution. Three of these ideas are separation of powers, checks and balances, and limited government. The first of these ideas, the separation of powers, comes from a French philosopher Montesquieu which states that the government’s power should be separated between an executive, legislative, and judicial body. Another idea talked about in the constitution is the idea of checks and balances which comes from a Greek philosopher named Aristotle. The idea of checks and balances in the constitution is that each body of the federal government has a power over the others to keep them in reign, this prevents anyone body from becoming too powerful. A third idea that the founding fathers incorporated into the constitution was limited government. Limited government is the idea where the government is limited in its power by law written in the

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