Essay on constitution and popular sovereignty

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DBQ- Development of the United States Constitution to Ensure Popular Sovereignty
In 1776 the United States declared its independence from the tyrannical British Empire and has been growing as a nation ever since then. The first constitution that the United States developed as a united country was the Articles of Confederation, which failed horribly. But learning from the mistakes made in the Articles of Confederation the brilliant minds of early America drafted the Constitution, a document that still governs the states to this day with only being amended 27 times. In order to be this successful it was written very broadly with a lot of room for interpretation because every problem couldn’t be addressed. One problem that the Founding …show more content…
That’s what the world would be like without separation of powers, that’s how it was when there was a king. Separation of powers is used in government, powers are split evenly between the legislative, executive, and judicial branches so one branch of government doesn’t have more power than another. “That nothing contained in the said Constitution is to be construed to prevent the legislature of any state from passing laws at its discretion, from time to time, to divide such state into convenient districts.’’(Document H). From this part of the article you can see that there was a slight separation of powers, but overtime it became more established within the government. The 1777 Articles of Confederation states “Each state retains its sovereignty, freedom, and independence, and every power, jurisdiction, and right, which is not by this Confederation expressly delegated to the United States, in Congress assembled.” (Document A). It tells the rights and powers that the states are supposed to have, but it doesn’t tell us how to obtain those rights, and it doesn’t tell us our personal rights. Separation of powers played an important role in what is now popular sovereignty. As a result of government powers being split up we don’t have to worry about the president making every decision. Without separation of powers popular sovereignty wouldn’t really matter, the people would get to
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