Basic Principles Of The Constitution by Zachary Murra

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Slide Notes

Basic Principles Of The Constitution

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PRESENTATION OUTLINE

POPULAR SOVEREIGNTY

In the United States, all political power resides in the people, a concept known as popular sovereignty. The people are the only source for any and all governmental power. Government can govern only with the consent of the governed
That government exercises those powers through popularly elected lead ers who are chosen by the people to represent them in the exercise of the peoples power.

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LIMITED GOVERNMENT

The principle of limited government states that no government is all-powerful. That government may do only those things that the people have given it the power to do.
constitutionalism: government must be conducted according to constitutional principles.
rule of law, holds the government and its officers, in all that they do, are always subject to—never above—the law.

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SEPARATION OF POWERS

the legislative, executive, and Judicial powers of government are all gathered in the hands of a single agency. British government is a leading example of the form. In a presidential system, these basic powers are distributed—separated—among three distinct and independent branches of the government.

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CHECKS AND BALANCES

These three branches are not entirely separated nor completely independent of one another. Rather, they are tied together by a complex system of checks and balances. This means that each branch is subject to a number ofconstitutional checks, or restraints, by the other branches. In other words, each branch has certain powers with which it can check the operations of the other two.
Congress has the power to make laws, but the President may veto (reject) any act of Congress.

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JUDICIAL REVIEW

The power of judicial review may be defined as the power of a court to determine the consti tutionality of a governmental action.
unconstitutional—to declare illegal, null and void, of no force and effect—a governmental action found to violate some provision in the Constitution.

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FEDERALISM

Tlie principle of federalism—the division of power among a central government and several regional governments—came to the Constitution out of both experience and necessity.

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Zachary Murra