The American political system as it was formulated by the Founding Fathers and written down in the Constitution was based on a particularly eighteenth century vision of liberal government based on Enlightenment ideals. The Constitution and the Bill of Rights as a document is a great example of what the priorities and values of the Framers of the Constitution were. The values of the Framers which they fought a war against Great Britain over basically centered around the belief in limited government, the decentralization of power and the separation of powers combined with a system of checks and balances. These liberal values were the founding principles of the new system of American government. However, these values did not come into the United States preformed and instead they were highly shaped by a tradition that spanned the Atlantic world as well as the ages. The American system of government as it was laid down in the US Constitution by was in fact the culmination of a certain strain thought that was typical of European liberal ideology of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth century which owed much of its content to the work of thinkers like John Locke, the Baron de Montesquieu and the classical Constitutional tradition. These ideas and their application by the founders in the Constitution and throughout the American tradition of government.
The American conception of limited government is highly reliant on a vision of John Locke’s formula from the Second Treatise of Government and its reliance on the Lockean construct of “Life, Liberty and Estate.” (Doernberg 66) The American state and its founding document and the values they embody owe much to John Locke and his belief in limited government. John Locke’s natural rights philosophy can be recognized in sections nine and ten of Article I of the Constitution as well as the Bill of Rights. The Bill of Rights one of the only pieces of the eventual Constitution that actually gave rights to citizens was “built upon the ideas of that English philosopher whose pioneering work first grappled with the fundamentals of society in terms of the balancing of freedom and rights - John Locke” (Doernberg 67) The Founding Fathers and the Framers of the Constitution used the concepts of Lockean philosophy in order to build a state and a system of government that actually was that was revolutionary and unlike anything that was ever seen on earth before, The new American political system created by the US Constitution was suffused with Lockean concepts such as the state of nature, a belief in inalienable rights, social contract theory, a belief in popular sovereignty and the consent of the governed. (Doernberg 67) These concepts of Lockean philosophy were actually quite important determinants in creating the American political system that was built first on the rights of citizens and their most important inalienable rights those to life, liberty and estate. This is a purposefully minimalist version of the state as pictured by the Founders and Framers of the US Constitution.
If much of the language of the constitution as it regards the limits of government power is traceable to the thought of an Englishman John Locke, the way that power should be separated owes its tradition to a Frenchman, the Baron de Montesquieu and the Roman Classical tradition he drew upon. Montesquieu’s great contribution to American government and the US Constitution was the concept of the separation of powers with a robust system of checks and balances. James Madison in Federalist Paper no.51 and in the Constitution itself is highly reliant on the ideas and concepts of Montesquieu’s The Spirit of the Laws in his crafting of a system of government which depended on the separation of powers. As well Montesquieu’s conception a republican form of government as being one of that should be striven for by all people’s is something that highly influenced the Framers of the Constitution.
Montesquieu in describing what he thought were the best conditions for creating a republican government lies perfectly that a limited amount people should have the right to vote and that those “in whom the supreme power resides, ought to have the managements of everything within their reach; that which exceeds their abilities must be conducted by their ministers” (Montesquieu 26) This is the operating system of the American political system installed at the Constitutional convention. The idea that an indirect democracy where in a small electorate chooses a series of representatives to dispense the popular will, that is to say a republic. Additionally, Montesquieu expounds on the three kinds of powers that exists in governments, the legislative, the executive and the judicial. The executive power, “makes peace or war, sends and receives embassies, establishes the public security, and provides against invasions.” (Montesquieu 173) The legislative power makes laws and the judiciary power, serves to deal with disputes and deal with criminals. (Montesquieu 173) Montesquieu’s triad of power is something that is quite plain to see as enumerated in the US Constitution’s first three articles: The first establishing the legislature, the Congress, Tte Second establishing the executive, the Presidency and finally the third, establishing the judiciary in the Supreme Court of the United States. (Us Constitution) This construction of power and its division seems to be clearly inspired by Montesquieu and his work on the topic in The Spirit of the Laws.
The Framers in the Constitution created a system of government where each kind of power executive, legislative and judicial was clearly separated with each branch of the US Government having its own power which created a principle of equality between the separate branches of government. James Madison in Federalist Paper no. 51 posits the necessity that
each department should have a will of its own; and consequently should be so constituted, that the members of each should have as little agency as possible in the appointment of the members of the others. (Madison)
This according to Madison should allow that all appointments made to the three branches of government should ultimately come from the popular will and that the different branches should to whatever level possible not communicate with each other if at all possible. (Madison)
This is instilled in the Constitution with process of Congressional power to “advise and consent” the President on issues like judicial appointments, the president’s right to possibly override any Congressional veto and although not at first a part of the Constituion the right of judicial review as a way for the Supreme Court to curb both Presidential and Congressional power. The system of checks and balances is one of the keys to American democracy and the conflict between the powers has in large part actually led to a lot of the development in American history.
Another significant idea and form of government that was an innovation due to the Framers was the idea of federalism as system that can be used to limit the power of a central government. The United States of America arrived at the need of Federalism for many reasons that stretched as far back as the end of the French and Indian War and the founding of the republic at the constitutional convention. The Founding Fathers and the Framers of the Constitution realized as son as that they concluded that if they were to attempt to gain their independence they would have to work together in order to do it. The Continental Congress in Philadelphia was one of the first cases of the colonies working together in order to accomplish a goal and it was a very complex system of government. Folloiwing the end of the War against Britain the United States decided to run a government based on a Confederation where each individual sates had the majority of the power and everything functioned on the basis of unanimity. The weaknesses of this system of government were laid out by Alexander Hamilton in Federalist No. 15 in very stark terms pointing that the United States under the present system of confederation was a debt ridden, fractured, military weak and poor nation that had no way to deal with the problems that lay at their feet. (Hamilton) His solution to this was coming together in a federal system where all of the establishment of a federal union.
Altogether the government put together by the Framers at the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia created a system where it was nearly impossible for one branch, one state or one individual to incorporate all of the power in their hands. Federalism separates the power between the states and the federal government which limits the power of the federal government to usurp all of power given to it. Separation of powers and checks and balances also works to avoid any single branch of government from getting too powerful and leading to any kind of breakdown of the republican form of government. Finally, the Lockean tradition and the rights it enshrines like the Bill of Rights, especially the First Amendment and the affirmation of the belief in the “Life, Liberty and Estate” gives the state a small role in American government and although the trend has been towards an increase of federal power and the power of the presidency it seems like the system as it was designed by the Framers has actually stood the test of time and has made the United States and its government a model for the world when a federal republic with large civil liberties and limited government is discussed. That is the strength of the US Constitution and the genius of the Framers to this day.
Works Cited.
Doernberg, Donald L. "" We the People": John Locke, Collective Constitutional Rights, and Standing to Challenge Government Action."California Law Review 73.1 (1985): 52-118.
Kurland, Philip B., and Ralph Lerner, eds. The Founders' Constitution. Vol. 1. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987.
Hamilton, Alexander. "Federalist Paper, No. 15." (1961).
Madison, James. "The federalist no. 51." The Federalist 51 (1788).
Secondat, Charles de, and Baron de Montesquieu. "The spirit of laws." Kitchener: Batoche Books (2001).
