which laws dictate power in the US?
MILESTONE 2, STEPPING STONE 2
MILESTONE 2, STEPPING STONE 2
In this stepping stone, we will explore what gives power.
SS 1.1: I can evaluate historical outcomes in context.
Read about why our power comes from the Constitution 👤
Listen to "Non-Stop" from Hamilton 👤
Read "Powers from the Constitution 👤
Answer the Reflection Questions 👤
Submit to Slate ☑️
The Constitution gives structure to our nation!
The only real guiding document the US had was the Articles of Confederation. "The weakness of the Articles of Confederation was that Congress was not strong enough to enforce laws or raise taxes, making it difficult for the new nation to repay their debts from the Revolutionary War. There was no executive and no judiciary, two of the three branches of government we have today to act as a system of checks and balances" (History.com). They needed a Constitution allowing for all these things!
In Lin Manuel Miranda's, Hamilton, you hear the moment that Alexander Hamilton asked for help from Aaron Burr in pushing the Constitution through.
Hamilton was a federalist. He believed that there should be a central government that was powerful, allowing for states to give up some of their power to have it. In pushing the Constitution forward to be signed and law, he helped move the country forward and established our structure for government & power.
However, there was another group that came up, The Anti-Federalists, who believed the states should always have more power than a central government and warned about how they just fought an entire Revolutionary War to be free of a central government with too much power...
There are three kinds of powers for our federal government: delegated, implied, and inherent powers. There are also reserved powers and these are for the states. These are not listed out, but are reserved by the Constitution under Amendment 10. Learn more below!