Whisonant, Instructor
American Government 201 004
September 17, 2010
Living Constitution
When the state decided to declare our independence from the British rule, every state had its own army called the militia. The first attempt to form a federal government was in 1777 under a Confederation called the Articles of Confederation, the archived to have a small federal government to have little power but to form a national army to fight the British. This form of government would not last long the Confederation was too close to anarchy; with the federal government have little power over the state governments. The Constitutional Congress fixed this problem by the written and the signing of the Constitution to set in motion government that should be in place today. Some people feel the US Constitution should evolve with the changing times a living document and the others feel the language of the constitution in written in stone and can only be changed by 2/3’s of the state ratifying amendments. The Constitution was written in 1787, and then passed by the Constitutional Congress but each of the nine states had to ratify the Constitution through the general election system.
I feel the US Constitution is not a living document; it is set in stone and should only be changed by the 2/3’s of the states. The Supreme Court has made interruptions base on the courts bias having effects on the Constitution. The progress movement has had even a larger effect on the Constitution by passing social laws that create new agencies to interpret and regulate the laws. President Woodrow Wilson while in office segregated the US Army, set up the League of Nations pushed through the Federal Income Tax and the Federal Reserve. The new deal enacted by President Franklin D. Roosevelt put social society in place which is out of money now. More present President Lyndon B. Johnson with the new society bringing welfare to the people. President Jimmy Carter upgraded Education to cabinet level status in 1979 was controversial and opposed by many in the Republican Party, who saw the department as unconstitutional. Now we have President Barack Obama taking over Industry and health care system, growing the Federal Government out of control which the Constitution was set to limit. The changes have put the United States on a path of being more socialist, a road that the founder of the United States Constitution did not see.
We need to get back to the ways our founders envision the country with limit federal government control given the population more control over their own fate and get us off the path of the European model of freedom the Constitution gives the United States population. I believe all of these systems that have been place on us are unconstitutional seen after the inception of the Constitution. We need stronger leaders to fight back the changes to Constitution. What a waste of a great document the US Constitution?
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