The Judicial Branch

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17. Describe and analyze the Judicial Branch. In Article Three of the Constitution, the framers included a section concerning the nationalizing of a new governmental power and a necessity to check “radical democratic impulses”. Most importantly, they stressed the requirement to prevent the new national government from impeding on the principles of liberty and property. Article Three basically created a United States supreme court. They did not want to award total power over the national government to the court, so they granted the Supreme Court the right to settle any conflicts between state and federal laws. The Supreme Court also had control over inter-state controversies and this provision led to an advanced national economy that relied …show more content…
In the eighteenth century, Montesquieu initially introduced the necessity for a “separation of powers” so that no branch or group could gain total control over another group and their decisions. At the Philadelphia Convention in 1787, the framers drafted three specific articles, separating power into three branches: the legislature, the executive, and the judiciary. To maintain the separation, and to protect the nation from tyranny, checks and balances were created. Aside from their own power, each branch was given some power over the other two branches. For example, the President can veto Congress (executive power over legislative power), and Congress can influence the president (through the power to control appointments to the judiciary and other executive …show more content…
Local and national considerations would influence “state conventions of delegates elected by the people of each state” in order to complete the ratification process. During the ratification process, two opposing sides emerged, the Federalists and the Antifederalists. Federalists were advocates of Federalism, supporting a strong government and the principles in the Constitution (including a strong national government), while the Antifederalists were a group of people who opposed the authorization of the 1787 Constitution and supported a “decentralized” government rather than a unified one. Throughout the ratification process of the Constitution, these two groups fought over how much power the national government should have, the safeguards needed to prevent a misuse of power, and the possible source of

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