7 Principles of the Constitution
By Mason Shirley
Popular Sovereignty
Ex: Women were given the right to vote with the 19th Amendment.
Quote: "No government can have a right to obedience from a people who have not freely consented to it." John Locke, Second Treatise of Civil government
Republicanism
Ex: Article II allows for a President and Vice President to be elected every 4 years.
Quote:
Federalism
Ex: States may make their own laws as long as they do not go against the Constitution.
Quote: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." 10th Amendment
Separation Of Powers
Ex: The executive branch enforces laws, the judicial interprets laws, and the legislative makes laws.
Quote: "When the legislative and executive powers are united in the same person or in the same body of magistrates, there can be no liberty. The same monarch or senate would enact tyrannical laws and execute them in a tyrannical manner." Charles de Montisquieu, Spirit of Laws, 1748.