The American Constitution: history, features, federation, amendment and separation of powers
Political Science - Major World Governments · Unit II · Topic 5 of 17 · 5 min read
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Cases checked to exist. Read the judgment before quoting a holding.
Every case cited here has been checked to exist — the citation resolves and names the right parties. The propositions attributed to each case have not been verified line by line against the judgment. Case names link through to the full judgment: read it before quoting a holding in an examination answer, and never carry a proposition from notes into court on trust.
1. A very brief history
Declaration of Independence, 4 July 1776. Drafted mainly by Thomas Jefferson and adopted by the Second Continental Congress, it declared the thirteen colonies free of the British Crown. Its political theory is Lockean: all men are created equal, endowed with unalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness; governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed; and the people may alter or abolish a government destructive of these ends.
Articles of Confederation (in force 1781). A loose league of sovereign states with a single-chamber Congress, no executive, no national courts, no power to tax and no power to regulate commerce. Its weakness led to the call for revision.
The Philadelphia Convention, May–September 1787.
- 55 delegates from twelve states (Rhode Island stayed away); George Washington presided; James Madison, “father of the Constitution”, kept the notes.
- Called to revise the Articles, it drafted a new Constitution instead.
- Virginia Plan (representation by population) against the New Jersey Plan (equal representation of states), resolved by the Connecticut or Great Compromise: a House by population, a Senate with two members per state.
- The three-fifths compromise on counting enslaved persons, and compromises on the slave trade and the indirect election of the President through an electoral college.
- Signed on 17 September 1787. Ratified after the debate in which Hamilton, Madison and Jay wrote The Federalist papers; New Hampshire became the ninth state to ratify in June 1788, and the new government began in 1789.
2. Features of the Constitution
- Written and brief. Seven Articles and 27 amendments; the oldest written national constitution in force.
- Rigid. Amendment under Article V is difficult (section 4).
- Popular sovereignty. “We the People of the United States” ordain the Constitution.
- Federal. A dual polity of a national government and 50 states, each with its own constitution.
- Separation of powers with checks and balances (section 5).
- Presidential government. A single elected executive for a fixed term, not responsible to Congress.
- Bill of Rights. The first ten amendments (1791), extended against the states through the Fourteenth Amendment (1868).
- Judicial review. Not stated in the text but established in Marbury v. Madison (1803).
- Supremacy of the Constitution. Article VI makes the Constitution, federal laws and treaties the supreme law of the land.
- Republicanism and limited government. No titles of nobility; government has only granted powers.
- Growth by usage and interpretation. Parties, the presidential cabinet, primaries and senatorial courtesy are all outside the text.
3. The American federation
Division of powers. The Constitution lists the powers of the national government (the delegated or enumerated powers in Article I, section 8: tax, borrow, regulate interstate and foreign commerce, coin money, declare war, raise armies, establish post offices). The Tenth Amendment reserves all other powers to the states or the people. Some powers are concurrent (taxation), some are denied to both (bills of attainder, ex post facto laws).
Implied powers. The “necessary and proper” clause lets Congress make laws needed to carry out its listed powers. In McCulloch v. Maryland (1819) Chief Justice Marshall upheld a national bank on this ground and held that a state could not tax it. Through implied powers, the commerce clause and federal grants, the national government has grown far beyond the framers’ design.
State governments. Each state has a written constitution, an elected Governor, a legislature (bicameral in every state but Nebraska) and its own courts. States control most criminal law, education, local government, police and elections. There is dual citizenship: of the United States and of the state of residence. The states take part in the Union through equal representation in the Senate, the electoral college and ratification of amendments. The Union is indestructible: secession was settled by the Civil War (1861–65).
4. Amendment procedure (Article V)
| Stage | Method |
|---|---|
| Proposal | (a) two-thirds of both Houses of Congress; or (b) a national convention called by Congress on the application of two-thirds of the state legislatures |
| Ratification | (a) legislatures of three-fourths of the states; or (b) conventions in three-fourths of the states, as Congress decides |
- Every amendment so far has been proposed by Congress; the convention route has never been used.
- Only the Twenty-first Amendment (1933, repealing prohibition) was ratified by state conventions.
- The President has no formal role, and no state may be deprived of its equal suffrage in the Senate without its consent.
- Thousands of proposals, 27 amendments. The Twenty-seventh, on congressional pay, was proposed in 1789 and ratified in 1992.
Because formal amendment is so hard, the Constitution has changed mainly through judicial interpretation, custom and statute. Contrast India’s three-tier procedure in Article 368 (Unit V) and Swiss popular amendment (Unit III).
5. Strict separation of powers, with checks and balances
Montesquieu’s The Spirit of the Laws (1748) argued that liberty is lost where the same person or body makes, executes and judges the law. The framers applied this strictly: legislative power is vested in Congress (Article I), executive power in the President (Article II), judicial power in the Supreme Court and inferior courts (Article III). Members of Congress cannot hold executive office; the President is separately elected and cannot dissolve Congress.
Madison, in Federalist No. 51, added that “ambition must be made to counteract ambition”: each branch checks the others.
- The President vetoes bills; Congress overrides by two-thirds in each House.
- The Senate confirms appointments and ratifies treaties by two-thirds.
- Congress controls money and may impeach and remove the President and judges.
- The President appoints judges; courts may declare acts of Congress and the President unconstitutional.
Hence the description of the system as “separated institutions sharing powers” (Richard Neustadt). The risk is deadlock between a President of one party and a Congress of the other.
How this is examined
The features of the American Constitution is the most frequently set essay in Unit II. List ten features with one or two lines each and close with judicial review and growth by interpretation. The amendment procedure (January 2026, Q.9(a)) needs the table above and the comment on rigidity. For a short note on the Philadelphia Convention (February 2025), give the date, the delegates, the two plans and the Great Compromise.
Now try the real questions: Political Science - Major World Governments past question papers.