American Democracy Essay

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U.S. Democracy After a long time of being the colony of the European countries, the Americans decided that they need to get rid of the British government and, instead, established their own. As Thomas Jefferson wrote in “Declaration of Independence”, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed” (1776), these words not only inspired the Americans fighting for their equalities and freedoms but also became the standards and definitions of the typical American Democracy that they were pursuing. Except the Declaration if Independence, there are many other documents which explain the ideal American Democracy, such as the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. First of all, through the publishment of the Declaration and the Civil War, American people gained the democracy that they want and succeed in their revolution for freedom. The American revolution can be considered as an important event in the history of democracy. As in the Declaration of Independence was published, Jefferson brought out the idea of “the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”(1776). From 1878, the farmers and those people who wanted to improve their living conditions and the circumstances they were in tried to forming the People’s Party in order to engage in the politics and express their needs to the government (web), this is also one of the practices that shows the people of America were trying hard to reach the democracy that they want. In order to reached the democracy that would satisfied the people and balanced the power of the governments, the U.S. government is divided to three branches, Executive, Legislative and Judicial, this was announced in the Constitution in 1787. The legislative Branch is consisted of the House of Representatives and the Senate, they are responsible of writing, discussing and voting laws. The Executive Branch is leaded by the President and its responsibility is to sign the laws and make them become official, the President was elected by whole country through voting, just as it’s promised, people all have the right to vote. The Judicial Branch stands for the U.S. court system, which put the laws that the Legislative and Executive Branches passed into practice. None of these three branches has absolute power, instead, they limit and restrict each other and create a system called checks and balances which protect and achieve the democracy of the U.S. Though the American Government was founded and the American Democracy was defined, they kept evolving in order to keep up with the current situation of the whole nation and meet the changing needs of the people. As Katznelson, Kesselman and Draper wrote in 2011 the democracy in American was limited when the country was just founded, there are lots of restrictions and the majority people in the U.S. were not allowed to participate in politics (p. 13). The black slaves and the women almost have no power and influence in politics, they even can’t participant in politics. However, with the development and improving of the democratic system, citizens have more and more power in the political events, for example, the equalities of voting changed from only land-owners can vote and slaves were considered one-third of person, to every citizens can vote for the candidates that they support. However, in the U.S., democracy and capitalism always go hand in hand though the entire history since the country is founded, and it’s obvious that they can’t exist without each other. Or to say, the U.S. Democracy is not that democratic and idealize as they promised to be in several documents. Thus, there is procedural and substantive democracy, the procedural democracy are those
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