Tyranny
by Lindsey Sibell
Federalism
Federalism is the powers given to the central and state governments. Federalism helps prevent tyranny because it gives these two groups different powers. The states powers are things like marriage laws, local governments, to establish schools, and other things like how old you have to be to get a license. The national government has power over things like trade laws, declaring war, foreign relations, and immigration laws. Both the central and state government both have power, but the state government is for more local issues. The state government is for more national issues.
Separation of Powers
The United States has three different branches of government. These three branches are the legislative, executive, and judicial. The job of the legislative branch is to make the laws. The legislative branch consists of the Senate and the House of Representatives. They also can introduce new laws and amendments. The job of the executive branch is to enforce the laws. The executive branch consists of the president and the cabinet. The Cabinet is all the departments of the executive branch. Lastly, the job of the judicial branch is to interpret the laws. This means they look at the laws and make sure they are constitutional. The judicial branch includes the court. Each branch has its own powers.
Checks and Balances
Each branch of government has their own power. But each branch also checks the other two branches. The legislative branch can check the executive branch by overriding the presidents veto, removing the president from office, and approve presidential nominations. The legislative branch can check the judicial branch because the senate confirms the presidents nominations. The judicial branch can check the legislative branch by declaring a law unconstitutional. The judicial branch can check the executive branch by declaring presidential acts unconstitutional. The executive branch checks the legislative branch because the president can veto laws. The executive branch check the judicial branch by the president nominating judges.
The Great Compromise
The great compromise was the choosing to use two houses in government. These are the House of Representatives and the Senate. Each state had representatives in both houses. The House of Representatives was based on population. So, larger states like Virginia had more representatives than a smaller state like Delaware. The senate is different from that because each state has two representative. It didn't matter what your states population was, you only had two representative.