constitution and popular sovereignty
DBQ- Development of the United States Constitution to Ensure Popular Sovereignty
In 1776 the United States declared its independence from the tyrannical British Empire and has been growing as a nation ever since then. The first constitution that the United States developed as a united country was the Articles of Confederation, which failed horribly. But learning from the mistakes made in the Articles of Confederation the brilliant minds of early America drafted the Constitution, a document that still governs the states to this day with only being amended 27 times. In order to be this successful it was written very broadly with a lot of room for interpretation because every problem couldn’t be addressed. One problem that the Founding Fathers made sure to address was popular sovereignty, in fear of another tyrannical king. The Constitution ensured popular sovereignty with regulations on term limits, the bill of rights and the separation of powers. Paranoid because of the recent revolution from Great Britain and its tyrannical government many founders wanted regulations on terms in order for the leader to not become too powerful. Under the Constitution the citizens get to vote the governing officials into office in order to represent them in the best way possible. The terms need to be long enough that the officials have an ample amount of time to be helpful to society but not too long as they can establish a dictatorship or resemble anything of a monarchy. Edmund Randolph brings up the topic of restricting the amount of time that an official can serve as well as the frequency of reelections (Document B). While Madison reports that the officials elected to the National Legislature will be elected for a term of three years by the “people” (Document C). These people are only the free white men otherwise they counted as three fifths of a vote or not at all. But after many years and many activists every American has the right to vote in order to protect the
In 1776 the United States declared its independence from the tyrannical British Empire and has been growing as a nation ever since then. The first constitution that the United States developed as a united country was the Articles of Confederation, which failed horribly. But learning from the mistakes made in the Articles of Confederation the brilliant minds of early America drafted the Constitution, a document that still governs the states to this day with only being amended 27 times. In order to be this successful it was written very broadly with a lot of room for interpretation because every problem couldn’t be addressed. One problem that the Founding Fathers made sure to address was popular sovereignty, in fear of another tyrannical king. The Constitution ensured popular sovereignty with regulations on term limits, the bill of rights and the separation of powers. Paranoid because of the recent revolution from Great Britain and its tyrannical government many founders wanted regulations on terms in order for the leader to not become too powerful. Under the Constitution the citizens get to vote the governing officials into office in order to represent them in the best way possible. The terms need to be long enough that the officials have an ample amount of time to be helpful to society but not too long as they can establish a dictatorship or resemble anything of a monarchy. Edmund Randolph brings up the topic of restricting the amount of time that an official can serve as well as the frequency of reelections (Document B). While Madison reports that the officials elected to the National Legislature will be elected for a term of three years by the “people” (Document C). These people are only the free white men otherwise they counted as three fifths of a vote or not at all. But after many years and many activists every American has the right to vote in order to protect the