Was the US Constitution written to be a source of power or an instrument of limitation?
Posted on 09/24/2008 3:41:17 PM PDT by yankeedame
(NOT a trick question. Genuinely curious as to what my fellow Freepers think.)
The latter
By far, limitation.
an instrument of limitation
Yes.
Very Intersting
instrument of limitation
Limitation, however, there are a few amendments (16th comes to mind here) that could use a repeal.
17TH! 17TH! GET RID OF IT!
If that thing was dropped off the face of the constitution, the entire Federal government would start to get chopped up piecemeal and fed back to the States.
An instrument of limitation.
I dont know much, but the Constitution wasnt meant to be a hammer to pound people with Taxes and rules.
The Revolution, the Dec. of Independence, the Constitution...it was all about limiting government.
In the Whig understanding, government was to have the power to do these things as vested in the legislature. But the Constitution was also to carefully stipulate the limits of those powers, and the exercise thereof.
Seems pretty obvious, a source of limitation (although a better word could be restriction or constraint). It works from the assumption of given individual rights, and it basically constrains how authoritative bodies can work, under what circumstances, while not unnecessarily infringing on innate individual rights.
b
Both, it limits government and empowers “the people”. Not government, “the people”.
It's not simply a source of the Federal government's power, it's the only source of the Federal government's power. So, in areas where the Constitution explicitly (or, in some very limited circumstances, implicitly) authorizes the Federal government to act, it is a source of power. In areas where the Constitution does not authorize the Federal government to act, this lack of authorization serves as a limitation of power. Finally, of course, there are some provisions (i.e., the First Amendment) which are explicit limitations on the power of the Federal government.
A limitation on Federal and State power, as well as a check on concentration in an individual or institution, unfortunately that balance has been damaged by courts.
Good point LS. From it comes from the individual, it is a source of power, in that he has legislative power through his representatives, versus, what it was coming from where the individual had now power. The amendments that others mentioned should be removed, where added through the will of the people. Power, that isn’t vested in dictatorships, for example...
I hate to duck the question, but I don’t it’s well-formed.
The Constitution was written as a delegation of power from the states, who were always considered to the source of sovereignity, to the federal government. Accordingly it both limits and “creates” (but a better phrase would be “defines the scope of the delegation”) of the federal government’s power with respect to the states.
Making the argument of why we need senators to represent STATES and not "the people" is damn near impossible.
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