United States Constitution

Essay by jojomooUniversity, Bachelor'sA+, March 2004

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The United States Constitution was written by our founding fathers to be the supreme law of the land. It contains the rights and liberties of the American people, and also the formation of the national government. In addition, it establishes the three separate branches of our government, the executive, the legislative and the judiciary. Their intent was to set up the legislative branch, or Congress, as the "First Branch" of the government. They did this by giving it a far wider assortment of institutional powers than the Executive branch. Early on Congress did in fact perform their duty as the dominant branch in government. The Legislature appears to be stronger on paper, but currently that is not the case. It seems that over time the Chief Executive has risen up and became the more powerful section of the United States government.

Our government is divided among three separate branches. One of these branches is the law making body known as Congress.

Congress is derived on the concept of bicameralism and is composed of two chambers both with equal powers. The 100 member Senate, based on two senators per state, and the 435 member House of Representatives based on population of the state they are representing. Members of both divisions are directly elected by the people. The House and the Senate need to work together in order to accomplish tasks. Even though they are both part of the Congress they have different characteristics. The most obvious is the amount of members each one has (435-100). The length of the term for members is also different. Members of the House serve for two years, and the members of the Senate serve for six years. Therefore when it comes election time (which occurs every other year) every member of the House runs for...