US Constitution: Birth of Democracy
The following content is based on my lecture note on America's Written Constitution course authorized by Yale University via Coursera.
It does not reflect ideas of any institutions or political purposes but my view. Please read About for my blog objectives in general.
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The Preamble
The US Constitution of thousands words can be summarized by a single classic sentence known as the Preamble. It reads as following:
"...We, the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, ensure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America..."
Before the sentence was imprinted on September 19, 1787, self-government and democracy existed almost in no where on planet earth. Perhaps, to some extent in England and Scotland, there were self-governing states who could protect themselves from a larger kingdom due to their protective geography of islands and mountains. Too far from perfect, America back then was still colonized by the British Monarchy. How was it possible to escape?
The idea of Constitution came from that of Perfect Union of England and Scotland in 1707 as opposition to English monarchy. It was established by we the People for more perfect and indivisible unions for unification of welfare. The preamble reflects that it is not about vote but talk. We the People can criticize anyone—even the US first officer George Washington. The core beauty of democracy lies within popular talks and criticism by people. No one got shut down.
New Rules for a Better World
We the People do ordain and establish the Constitution for the United States of America, and the Constitution has three independent branches: (1) The Legislative Branch (2) The Executive Branch (3) The Judicial Branch, all of which are checked and balanced with separation of power. I will discuss in more details about powers of each in my later blog. For this blog I demonstrate only the first.
Section 1 of article 1 of US Constitution states that all legislative powers are vested in a Congress of the United States consisting of two houses: A Senate and House of Representatives. Taking a look at Congressional Building which was first built in 1846, we obviously see that it is designed with two divisions—one for Senate and the other for the House. The Congressional Building sizes much bigger than the White House, meaning that laws come first; executive later.
The US Congress reflects bicameral legislation built upon a similar structure from State legislatures and Bicameral Parliament in the Great Britain. Simply speaking, bicameralism is kind of law making process where two wings come to make change to law in regard to voices from people on the ground. How to make House of Representatives present enough?
At least one state has one representative chosen regardless to property qualification, and the number of representative is according to population of the state. In Section 2 of the Article 1, it mentions that Members of the House got chosen in every two years. The candidates must be over 7 years of American citizen and aged over 25 years old. Representatives for a state shall not be those from other states.
The Senate of US shall be composed of two Senators from each state, and they are chosen by the Legislature. Seats of Senators are divided into three different classes with equal term of office. The seat of the first class shall be left at the expiration of two years, the second class at four years and the last third class at six years. Thus it means Senator can stay in office for 6 year term. Senators cannot age younger than 30 years old and have been 9 years of US citizenship. The US Vice President shall be the President of the Senate. The Senate has power to choose other officers as President Pro Tempore in the absence of Vice President.
In the next blog I am going to discuss further on another branch of Executive in particular Presidency in charge of carrying out and reviewing laws passed from the Congress.
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