The Democratic-Republican Interpretation Of The Constitution

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During the period of 1801 through 1817, the conflict of the Democratic-Republican views on the constitution were arguing against the ideas of the Federalists. The two parties believed in completely different ideas of how to interpret the constitution. Although the parties knew they must come to some agreement in how the constitution should be interpreted they both had some very good reasons there party was correct. The Democratic-Republicans believed in interpreting the constitution exactly. This means that the Congress or the President should follow the constitution word for word. While the Federalist party held the ideas of general meaning. That said, the Congress or the President has the right to interpret the constitution based on significance. Over all this means that if the constitution doesn’t say it can’t do something then the Federalists believe they have a right to do it. As you can see the two parties show very different ways that they view the constitution as a whole. …show more content…
(Broad constitution is a theory of interpretation of the Constitution that holds that the spirit of the times, the values of the justices, and the needs of the nation may legitimately influence the decisions of a court, particularly the Supreme Court.) During the presidencies of Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, this characterization is only true to a certain extent because despite their opposition against broad construction, they both found the need to follow the Democratic-Republican path when stepping up to power as

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