Why is the Federal government of the United States divided into three branches?
The Three Branches of Government The United States Federal Government is divided into three branches to divide power. The Founding Fathers did not want a single person or party to have too much power as it leads to tyranny. From the above link: "To avoid the risk of dictatorship or tyranny, the group divided the new government into three parts, or branches: the executive branch, the legislative branch, and the judicial branch. Executive Branch: Headed by the president. The president carries out federal laws and recommends new ones, directs national defense and foreign policy, and performs ceremonial duties. Powers include directing government, commanding the Armed Forces, dealing with international powers, acting as chief law enforcement officer, and vetoing laws. Legislative Branch: Headed by Congress, which includes the House of Representatives and the Senate. The main task of these two bodies is to make the laws. Its powers include passing laws, originating spending bills (House), impeaching officials (Senate), and approving treaties (Senate). Judicial Branch: Headed by the Supreme Court. Its powers include interpreting the Constitution, reviewing laws, and deciding cases involving states' rights." Knowing this, take a moment to look how the power of the US Federal Government has been moved more and more to the Executive Branch. Add in that the federal government was also intended to be MUCH less powerful than it is today as most of the power was reserved for the States. Power which has been taken by the federal government, and in the case of the States selecting Senators, by the States giving away their powers to the People, making themselves largely irrelevent in Federal decision making. The US is moving gradually, but inexorably, toward tyranny and the average voter is too stupid to know it, and too stupid to see that no matter how much they like a candidate, they need to be limited in what they can do.
Did the founding fathers believe in a limited government?
You are absolutely correct, the reason the Constitution was written was because limited government under the Articles of Confederation failed. The Constitution's purpose was to increase the power of government and limit the power of the states. Government is only limited by government. A person is born with the right to do anything he wants. Without government he could steal or murder without consequence. It is only government that limits our freedoms. I think you are making reference to the talks about states' rights when the Articles of Confederation were written and again when the Constitution usurped many of those states' rights. Until the tyrant Lincoln forced an end to states' rights, it was the right of any state to secede, many states had threatened secession, some more than once. Lincoln destroyed the 10th amendment. When states are put under martial law and required to ratify certain amendments, they have no rights. Lincoln proved there is no limit to the federal government. Is the 14th amendment valid? When an unlimited federal government tells a state you must ratify an amendment or not be represented in Congress, is that ratification legitimate? And for those who claim the southern states had no right to secede and were never a separate nation, we should look at the communication from Lincoln to the Confederacy, recognizing it as a separate nation and realize that the southern states could not have had stipulations placed on them in order to rejoin the union if it was not an accepted fact that they had seceded legitimately. They were not recognized as states and had no representation in Congress until they ratified the 14th amendment under duress. Yes, our founding fathers believed in limited government until they saw that it didn't work. Then they wrote a document increasing governmental powers. Lincoln then increased federal powers to a greater extent than anyone in our history. Republicans will tell you they believe in limited government but, they are the ones who always create a more oppressive government.
Why should, or shouldn't we have a stronger central government?
I believe that a strong central government is an idea whose time has passed. I believe it was a good idea in a time where the people were for the most part an uniformed mass. With advances in the way we communicate as a society and the amount of information available at our fingertips we can make informed decisions. The first institution that has to go is the electoral college, I would rather go for a popular vote then to vote for someone who is going to speak "for" me in deciding who will run our country.
Would the founding fathers be ashamed of our country today?
i know that the world has changed but our greatest allies are the oceans. if we better secure countries then its more possible to have a non intervention foreign policy and we dont have to have alliances. alliances just prove to haunt you. also capitalism is the best type of system and socialism is a system that the U.S. is NOT meant to have and its an unfair system that doesnt work. also y do the feds have to have so much power??? listen to ron paul, he knows his stuff
What would the Founding father's think of the current state of America today?
They would not like it at all.I think they were intelligent enough to understand that Slavery was going to eventually be done away with, and liberties expanded to those they denied them to, however, their society was based upon strict formal rules of responsibility of the individual to the community at large. The laws of Accessory were very important back then. If you saw a crime and did nothing to stop it, you could be charged with accessory to the crime.Today people can watch someone be beaten to death and not face hanging. This kind of irresponsibility and selfishness was contradictory to their way of life. They accepted as fact that every person must be willing to sacrifice for a greater good.i.e. Men carried guns to police the community if needs be. The 2nd Amendment was much more woven into the fabric of day-to-day life then. There were no Police Forces, there was just the People.People depended on their communities more than today because people weren't as wealthy. The sense of Community that they enjoyed they would fine sadly missing today.Just in my life-time, I’ve seen this disappear. Growing up I thought all these people were family that came over every Christmas, they were the other families that lived in the brownstone apartment block my Mom grew up in, an Extended Family. How many people at that close to their neighbors today?It really is sad to see that kind of community disappear.
How would the founding fathers view the great depression and the new deal?
It is very likely that there would be mixed responses. FDR's presidency through the New Deal and WW2 represented the greatest increase in power of the Federal Government in all of America's history. None of America's founders ever encountered a situation like the Great Depression, and to a great extent, they wouldn't recognize the policies of the FDR administration because the language used wasn't the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century language style. Alexander Hamilton might agree with parts of it, as the strengthening of the Federal Government would go along with his hopes to create an economically strong country, but probably wouldn't know how to respond to the fact that much of the New Deal was intended to save an economy that tanked. They economy of 1790-1800 was still growing and had never encountered anything like the Great Depression. Thomas Jefferson and Madison would have been profoundly against the New Deal, largely because they favored a much more Confederate style government, rather then a centralized government from the top. They would have been opposed to Roosevelt's attempts to fix the problem, not necessarily that they personally disagreed, but because this was not a measure being proposed to FDR by all the state governments, but by FDR and clic of like minded Congressmen. However, I doubt they would have really had any answers on how to solve the problems of the Great Depression and looming threats of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan, because these problems transcended all levels of social strata and affected every state in the union. Looking to the states to individually solve nationwide problems would have been impossible, and getting all the states to agree to fight a two front war on three continents (Europe, Africa, Asia/Pacific) was something that they had never even thought of as science fiction.
Did the Founding Fathers view Congress as more important than the Judicial and Executive branches?
The way we frame a question has, wittingly or unwittingly, a tendency to condition the response we evoke. Does the question under review, for instance, seek to understand whether the Founding Fathers devoted more attention in the establishment of US state machinery to Congress (in comparison with the other two arms of government)? Or does it seek to understand whether the Founding Fathers thought legislative power was more important than executive and judicial powers?I doubt anyone might find literature which might suggest that the Founding Fathers prioritised one arm of government above others. The Declaration of Independence was in July 1776. Montesquieu had published his Spirit of The Laws (which argued the separation of government powers) 28 years earlier (in 1748).It is safe to accept that the Founding Fathers would among others have been influenced by the views argued by Montesquieu in calling forth the American political arrangements. It is safe too, to accept that they would have appreciated the need, in order for the separation of powers to work well, that the three spheres of government must at the very least appear to be equally important for the democratic project.When Founding Fathers declared American independence, they raised 26 grievances against the King. At least 9 of those (34.6%) had to do with law-making. There isn’t another issue which featured nearly so prominently in explaining, as the Declaration might say, “their right … their duty to throw off such Government”. I would imagine that the frequency with which law-making features in the grievances leading up to the Declaration of Independence tells a story about the weight assigned to law-making, and along with that to Congress.When one looks at the founding Constitution of the US, it is fascinating how much detail is devoted to Congress in comparison with the two other arms of government. Article I, which deals with the legislative power, has ten sections, spanning some 280 lines of text. Article II, which deals with the Executive, has 4 sections spanning some 119 lines worth of text. Article III, which deals with the Judiciary, has 3 sections comprising 45 lines in text. So, over 63% of the words which the Founding Fathers used to establish the three arms of the State were devoted to lawmaking and along with that to Congress.It seems to me, therefore, that more effort was devoted to Congress than the other arms of government in founding America.