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Speak Up! - View Question #268 |
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Question: How did the U.S. Constitution change how governments were set up?
Answer: The U.S. Constitution was unique at the time (it was drafted in 1787 and it was ratified by all states in 1790) for several reasons.
First, it established three seperate and distinct branches of government with a system of checks and balances between them, making it nearly impossible for any one branch of government to dominate the other two. In addition, it established a system whereby the congress and chief executive (President) were elected by a vote of the citizenry.
Another of the important innovations in government that the U.S. Constitution pioneered was the Bill of Rights, or the first 10 amendments to the Constitution. It was this Bill of Rights that explicitly stated specific rights of the citizenry which by law must be preserved.
The democratic republic form of government first established in its modern form by the U.S. Constitution has been the basis for changes in government in several other countries around the world. Most recently, the same democratic concepts embodied in the U.S. Constitution have been included in former communist countries who have converted to democracies over the decade of the 1990s.
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