Constitution Dbq Analysis

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Pages: 4

After declaring independence from Britain, the Founding Fathers needed to create a government for the new nation. They were afraid of a government with too much power, so when they created the Articles of Confederation, our first plan of government, they organized the country around a weak central government along with strong state governments. However, this did not create an effective bureaucracy and the Founding Fathers were driven to meet again to form a new plan of government in 1787. The product of this meeting was the Constitution, which still stands today. The framers learned from their mistakes in the Articles of Confederation, and through many compromises, created a powerful federal government while still reserving some powers …show more content…
Two of the most extraordinary, innovative, and important decisions made by the Framers were having separation of powers between the branches of government and having a system of checks and balances within these branches. Document 6 describes the checks and balances between the Legislative, Executive, and Judicial branch. Checks and balances were an ingenious idea that prevents any one branch of government to become too powerful by giving each branch powers to restrict the other branches and check in on them. For example, while the Legislative Branch proposes laws, the President can veto these laws. But, with a certain majority, the Legislative Branch can override the President’s veto. The Framers of the Constitution deliberately set up an intricate web of checks and balances similar to those just mentioned. While checks and balances and separation of powers keep any one person or group from gaining control of the national government, many of the Framers originally did not want a strong national government at all. The Constitution we live by today was created through a series of compromises. One. known as the Great Compromise, is shown in Document 4. As seen in the document, the Great Compromise created two houses of Congress, one with equal representation …show more content…
The Articles of Confederation were hastily created with many problems, and the chaos that ensued caused the creation of the Constitution. The Constitution created a strong national government, with limits ensuring no one person could take power, that still stands today. If the Framers had not joined together to write the Constitution, our government would have disintegrated under the failure of the Articles of Confederation. The Constitution allowed our nation to survive and thrive. It has survived over 200 years and will continue as our government for the foreseeable future and beyond. Without the Constitution, our lives would be unimaginably different