Is The Constitution A Success Or A Failure

In order for the United States to become a successful nation after the revolutionary war the Congress had to devise a system of government that would be just and effective. First, the articles of confederation were drawn up, but they failed massively. The major reason for failure was the excessive amount of power the states had over the federal government, creating a weak central government, and obviously, the states couldn’t function as a stable group. Unlike our current government, the articles relied on solely the congress with the executive and judicial offices nonexistent. With no executive office to enforce the laws, and no judicial wing to interpret them, most of the laws congress passed were ignored, or modified by the individual states,
and untimely ineffective. To make any changes, all the states had to unanimously agree and all vote for the change, but, most of the time, the smaller states disagreed with the larger ones. 9 out of the 13 states also had to approve any major laws before they were passes, again bringing up the conflict the small states had with the large ones. The worst part of the Articles, in my opinion, was that there was no standing army to protect the nation, leaving the small and growing nation open to further acts of foreign aggression. Probably the final nail in the Articles coffin was that Congress could levy taxes, but not collect them, which made the war repair effort and the debt we owed difficult to implement and pay off. In 1787, Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay wrote and published the Federalist Papers, which promoted the ratification of the Constitution that we have today.
Originally, they were published in The Independent Journal and The New York Packet. The general reason of these papers were to support the Constitution, even though in the first part of said papers, that they only wanted a good, strong, lasting government. Some historians, such as Richard B. Morris, have gone as far as to refer to the Federalist Papers as an “Incomparable exposition of the Constitution”. When they were first published, fearing political backlash, the authors remained anonymous for a time, but the more perceptive citizens will able to determine the author’s identities. Even now, there is some debate over who was the main, or most influential author, but the majority consensus is that Madison is “The Father of the Constitution” whilst others say Thomas Jefferson is. Most of the papers are basically a switched around and edited version of the U.S. Constitution, the papers mentioning amendments and the Bill of Rights. As with most political papers and opinions, there’s always an opposing side, many of the Anti-Federalists drafting their own rebuttal to the Federalist Papers. Oddly enough, the papers opposed the Bill of Rights. Federal judges often use the papers as a look into the intentions of the framers and
ratifier’s. One thing that made our constitution unique was its 3 separate but equal branches of government each with their own system of checks and balances to ensure no branch is more powerful than the others.
For example, both the congress and the president have the power to veto each other’s laws, but only in certain situations, and the Supreme Court interprets the laws that are not vetoed and are actually passed. The president also needs congressional approval to declare a full scale war on another country. The president can do a few military action without congressional approval, and can even assume full control of the nation in a massive crisis situation, such as an invasion or nuclear attack. On the congressional side, their direct control maneuver is the ability to impeach (fire) the president, they may be able to even charge the president for treason after the impeachment based on his/her crime. The Judicial Branch doesn’t really have a “power card” such as executive order or impeachment, the closest thing they have is the ability to declare a bill unconstitutional. Even with its flaws, our constitution has stood the test of time, lasting about 240 years, and it has been implemented in countries all over the world! Hopefully, one day, every man, woman, and child on the planet earth are under a democracy, and have their freedom from
tyranny!