9/11/08 Notes

C. Federalist No. 10 demonstrated that the proposed government was not likely to be dominated by any particular faction. 1) Majority tyranny could be checked through representatives. Elected representatives, not the people, would control the government. 2) Elected representatives would possess the wisdom to serve the larger interests of the nation.

D. Madison argued that federalism would impede majority tyranny by requiring the majorities from within each state and then organizing the national level that, given the vastness of the United States, there was a probability that an outstanding majority couldn’t form.

2) In Federalist No. 51, Madison argued that the separation of powers and checks and balances would control tyranny. Federalism further divided power among the states, thus ensuring protection against tyrants.
3) In Federalist No. 15, Alexander Hamilton argues that the United States had “reached almost the last stage of national humiliation” as a result of the “insufficiency of the present.” Confederation to the preservation of the Union.
4) In Federalist No. 22, Hamilton provides a list of those deficiencies.
5) In Federalist No. 39, Madison illustrates how the Constitution conforms to republican principles and explains how the proposed Constitution is “neither a national nor a federal constitution but a composition of both.”

Opponents of the proposed Constitution called themselves Anti-federalists.
1) Attacked Constitution on the ground that it centralized power in a strong national government that would wipe out the states. 2) Argued for additional separation of powers and additional checks and balances among the three branches because they wanted to eliminate the threat of tyranny. 3) The chief obstacle to ratification was that many prominent citizens were concerned that the Constitution lacked a list of individual freedoms. Ratification was only assured with the promise of creating a document that was later known as the Bill of Rights, or the first ten amendments.

The Constitution can be changed in three ways, but only one is spelled out in the Constitution.

1) Article V specifies the requirements for formally amending the Constitution. This has occurred only twenty-seven times. It is a two-stage process.
A. Proposal Stage: 1) By a two-thirds vote of the House of Representatives and Senate in favor of the proposal. 2) By a national convention summoned by Congress at the request of two-thirds of the state legislatures. This has never been used.
B. Ratification stage-Congress chooses ratification route. 1) By a vote of the legislatures of three-fourths of the states. 2) By a vote of the state conventions held in three-fourths of the states.

2) The second way the Constitution can be amended is by the process of judicial review.
A. The judiciary’s power to interpret the law makes the Constitution fair game for judicial interpretation. Marbury vs. Madison (1803) established the courts’ power to nullify government acts that conflict with the Constitution.
B. There is substantial controversy about how best to interpret the Constitution: should the standard be the intent of the founders, or the contemporary notion about the meaning of the Constitution’s provision? There is no clear answer.

3) The third way the Constitution can be amended is informally by political practice.
A. The Constitution is silent on some aspects of government that are now quite important (e.g. the President’s cabinet).B. Political practice has changed how some institutions actually work. Ex. The Electoral College was supposed to exercise independent judgment in voting for the president and vice president, but now electors simply rubberstamp the election outcomes in their states.