The Powers of the Government � PAGE * MERGEFORMAT �7�

Abstract

Shortly after the Revolutionary War in 1787, our founding fathers met in Philadelphia to draft the Constitution of the United States. They came to the table with a few ideas in mind on how the new government should be ran. Prior to the Constitution, the government was established under the Articles of Confederate but that proved to be a weak system. It was their goal to establish a strong central government without giving too much power to any one person or group. In order to achieve this they separated the government powers into three branches which are the Legislative, Executive, and Judicial branches. To prevent any branch from become more powerful then the other, a system of checks and balances was established that allows each branch to check the other. The powers of each branch are described in Articles I, II, and III of the Constitution.

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The Powers of the Government

The United States government underwent a complete transformation in the late 18th century following the Revolutionary War. After winning their independence from Great Britain the new government was ran for a short time under the Articles of Confederation, however, the people had little confidence in this system because it lacked centralization. In 1787 Benjamin Franklin met with other government leaders in the Annapolis Convention to revise the Articles of Confederation in order to build a strong central government. After many months of meeting, drafting, and redrafting, they came up with a government based on two concepts: separation of powers and checks and balance system.

The new government was established under the Constitution of the United States and was separated into three branches that ...

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