Placeholder Image

字幕列表 影片播放

  • - [Teacher] In the last video we discussed the great

  • compromise made at the Constitutional Convention in 1787,

  • where delegates who were trying to craft a new

  • governmental system for the United States agreed on how

  • the legislative branch of the government would be set up,

  • and the agreement they made was that it would be a two house

  • or bicameral legislature with a House of Representatives,

  • where the representatives would be apportioned

  • based on state population, and then a Senate where

  • every state would get two senators regardless of its size.

  • This is just one example of how the framers

  • of the constitution tried to introduce a notion of balance.

  • In this video, I wanna zoom out a little bit and look at

  • the broader constitution, because the legislative branch

  • was really only one part of it.

  • In fact, there are seven more articles of the constitution.

  • So here, I'd like to spend some time taking a closer look

  • at some of the other articles, paying special attention

  • to the executive branch and the judicial branch,

  • but before we do that, I just want to take a moment

  • to marvel at the size of the constitution.

  • Not because it's so big, but because it's so small.

  • This is the first page of the constitution,

  • famously starting with, "We the people," but the entire

  • original constitution could fit on four pages.

  • Compare that to the constitutions of many other nations

  • which are hundreds of pages long,

  • and I think the idea here in having a constitution

  • that's really only seven articles long

  • was that it was gonna set down principles.

  • This wasn't going to be a whole set of laws that outlined

  • everything that a state should do in any situation

  • but rather a set of broad ideas around which

  • lawmaking decisions could happen.

  • In a way, you could think of the constitution

  • as being kind of broad enough to be flexible.

  • They spoke in larger generalities that could be

  • applied to many different situations,

  • and I think the proof that this was a good way to think

  • about putting together a constitution is just in the fact

  • that we'd still have this constitution today,

  • more than 200 years after it was written in 1787.

  • The US Constitution is the oldest constitution in the world

  • that is still in effect at the national level.

  • I think that's a pretty big deal.

  • How did this constitution work?

  • Well, let's look a little bit more closely at these first

  • three articles and the branches of government they created.

  • One of the ways that the framers of the constitution

  • attempted to remedy the problems caused by the single branch

  • government under the Articles of Confederation

  • was creating a three branch government.

  • One branch, established in Article 1,

  • would be the Congress and within this building

  • is the House of Representatives and the Senate.

  • And this would be in the eyes of the framers,

  • really the most powerful of the branches.

  • They gave Congress the power to make law,

  • to tax, to raise an army, to coin money.

  • They really envisioned that most of the day to day

  • operations and most of the power of government

  • would fall under the duties of Congress,

  • but one thing that the Articles of Confederation

  • had lacked was a powerful executive,

  • so the second branch of government,

  • established in Article 2 is the executive branch,

  • the head of which is the president.

  • The job of the executive would be to enforce

  • or carry out the laws made by Congress,

  • and that would include doing things like waging war.

  • Remember that the first president was George Washington,

  • who had been the General of the Revolutionary Armies,

  • but the president could also kind of have the front lines

  • on dealing with foreign nations, so negotiating treaties,

  • and would also have the power

  • of appointing many government officials.

  • And lastly, the third branch would be the judicial branch

  • of government, established in Article 3.

  • The head of the judicial branch would be the Supreme Court,

  • the highest court in the land.

  • Of course, there are many other smaller courts

  • below it at the state and district level.

  • The Supreme Court's job, along with other courts,

  • would be to interpret the law, to see whether or not

  • things done by Congress and the president

  • fell within the bounds of the constitution.

  • And the framers really thought that the judicial branch

  • would end up being the weakest branch of government,

  • although both the presidency and the Supreme Court

  • have grown in power over the years.

  • Now, this is an incredibly brief overview

  • of these three branches.

  • These articles include lots more in them

  • about the specific powers of each of these branches

  • and the kinds of requirements one would need

  • to become a representative or president,

  • so I highly recommend that you read more about

  • the Constitution and check out these articles.

  • But what I want you to get out of this is that the framers

  • here were trying to separate the powers of government,

  • so they wanted to make sure that to avoid

  • having too much power in government.

  • Remember that they are trying to escape from the monarchy.

  • They want to make sure that government power

  • is kind of diffused among these three branches

  • with the idea that they're going to have to argue

  • with each other to get things done, they're going to have to

  • cooperate with each other to get things done,

  • so the separation of powers is one of the key

  • principles of the Constitution.

  • Another key principle is checks and balances.

  • What do I mean by checks and balances?

  • Well, this is the idea that each of the branches

  • of government has the power to check in the sense of stop,

  • like checkmate in chess, the other branches of government.

  • I think of this as kind of like a giant

  • governmental game of rock, paper, scissors.

  • Now, there are many ways that these branches can

  • check each other, but I just wanna give a couple of quick

  • examples to help you understand what that might be like.

  • Alright, say that Congress makes a law,

  • and the president doesn't like that law.

  • The president can use the power

  • of the veto to kill that law,

  • and if Congress gets annoyed enough with the president,

  • they might use their power to impeach the president.

  • What about the judicial branch?

  • The judicial branch's main checking function

  • is declaring laws unconstitutional.

  • The president or Congress may put through

  • a law that the Supreme Court says

  • is not consistent with the Constitution.

  • The judicial branch can then kill that law

  • by declaring it unconstitutional.

  • What happens if the other branches are unhappy

  • with the judicial branch?

  • One way that the president can check the judicial branch

  • is through appointing judges.

  • This would kind of change the composition of the court,

  • the people on the court, and so over time,

  • the presidency can influence who is on the Supreme Court

  • and how they rule on laws.

  • And lastly, if Congress isn't happy with the Supreme Court,

  • they might be able to impeach justices,

  • or change jurisdiction of the lower courts.

  • In this way, like the separation of powers,

  • the framers intended to make sure that

  • one branch couldn't get too powerful,

  • because it would be able to check the other branches.

  • You could really think of this as being a brilliant way

  • of harnessing peoples' natural inclination

  • to look out for themselves.

  • As rivalries developed, as people tried to do

  • what they thought was best, they could help keep

  • government honest by fighting among themselves,

  • and as they all strove and checked each other,

  • it would keep all of government from becoming too powerful.

- [Teacher] In the last video we discussed the great

字幕與單字

單字即點即查 點擊單字可以查詢單字解釋

B1 中級 美國腔

美國憲法 (The US Constitution)

  • 35 7
    Amy.Lin 發佈於 2021 年 01 月 14 日
影片單字