The Constitution, using the principle of balance and check, creates a government that is powerful enough to secure general public welfare and national interests but not so powerful as to threaten the liberty of its people. The balancing and checking of power are put into practice through the division of power among three branches of government and federalism. The Judiciary Branch, Executive Branch, and the Legislative Branch serve different purposes, hold conflicting interests, and share powers, thereby naturally being compelled to watch one another and maintain a stable power structure that keeps any one branch from assuming absolute control. In a federalist government, the state addresses local issues while the national government addresses national issues with neither level being subjected to the other’s approval. The Necessary and proper clause gives Congress the power to adaptively interpret the law to ensure the functionality and successful execution of the expressed powers while the reserved powers limit the federal government’s power to those explicitly enlisted in the Constitution and save the rest to the states. Therefore, the power and rights of both states and the government are securely protected by the Constitution. The balancing and checking of different powers prevent the tyranny of the majority and the absolute rule of a monarch.
The Constitution was based on American’s most dear principles of liberty, individualism, equality, and self-government. Its most power clauses safeguard those rights or freedoms from bereavement. The most well-known individual civil liberties are explicitly expressed in the Bill of Rights to keep the government accountable for its primary obligation to protect. Besides civil liberties, the Constitution also secures the civil rights of individuals. The due process clause ensures that no individual’s rights to life, liberty, or property will be deprived without due process of law. As a result of this clause, justice becomes a principle that is emphasized and exercised in actual practice, under the protection of national law when states impinge on our rights. However, not all individuals can enjoy this clause equally. Thus, the Equal Protection clause was ratified to grant legal protection to minority groups. Despite effectively ending de jure discrimination, which is discrimination based on law, de facto discrimination, which is the discrimination resulted from prejudice and social norms and conditions is still a serious issue that needs to be addressed in modern society.
Among those important and innovative features of the Constitution, representation is most crucial. The primary concern of the framers was never simply to avoid a monarchy, like the one they fought everything to separate from the beginning. Their goal is to prevent any kinds of tyranny or concentration of power that threatens any other groups’ rights and freedoms. Therefore, a republican government is desperately needed in a big county like the US. If given too much power to the people, or a specific group, directly, demagogues can easily stir up impulsive and irrational movements and incentives that seriously endanger the democracy of all people. Instead, when the power of millions of people not directly given and exercised, the process of one ideal’s decimation or the empowerment of a particular group is slowed down. Through representation, not only does government become more practical by avoiding too many voices incurred countless disagreements, but also controls the means for one institution or power to develop into a tyrannical rule. Without democracy and safeguarded individual liberties, we would never be free and sovereign. Despite the constraints that the Constitution puts on individuals, states, government, private and public sectors, Constitution successfully maximizes and upholds civil liberties, rights, and public welfare in an orderly and lawfully way.
Grow Constantly; Think Critically 