Well hey there and welcome back to Heimler's History. Now we've been going through Unit 3 of the AP U.S. History curriculum, and in the last video we saw how the Articles of Confederation was replaced by the Constitution of the United States as America's new governing document. In this video we're going to look at the main content of the Constitution, and I can see that them brain cows are ready to get milked, so let's get to it. So if you'll recall from the last video, delegates from the states met in Philadelphia in 1787 at the Constitutional Convention, and here they hammered out a new governing document through debate and compromise which expanded the power of the Constitution.
power and influence of the federal government. And they did this because no small part of the failure of the Articles of Confederation was that the federal government was far too weak to be effective. So let's have a look at the major provisions of the Constitution.
We will by no means look at everything, but in order to taste a little of the Constitutional sauce, we really need to look at two major themes, federalism and the separation of powers. So let's start with federalism. Now this term is a per- perpetual scourge to high school students everywhere and they often misinterpret it.
And the reason students so often get it wrong is because federalism sounds like the federal government and the federal government is the national government. So when you hear that the Constitution embodies federalism, what you immediately think is, oh, well that means that the federal government is more powerful than the states. But that is emphatically not what federalism means. So I'm about to tell you what it means and I want you to write it down, I want you to bold it, highlight it. underline it, tattoo it on your forehead so you don't get it wrong.
Federalism just means the sharing of power between the national government and the state government. Say it with me now. Federalism is the sharing of power between state and national governments.
It doesn't mean that one has more power than the other. It just means that they share power to govern a people. Okay, so assuming your forehead tattoo is finished and healed up, But let me continue.
Now, with respect to federalism, even though I just said that neither national government nor state government was more powerful than the other, I'm about to complicate it a little bit. Article 6 of the Constitution, also known as the Supremacy Clause, does in fact state that national law trumps state law whenever they contradict. On the other hand, there are only certain national laws that fall under this category, and these are called the enumerated powers of Congress, which are given to us in Article 1, Section 8. An example of an enumerated power of the federal government is the power to declare war. If the federal government declares war on Canada, for example, and Rhode Island is like, yeah, we're not into that, then sorry Rhode Island, supremacy clause, we bout to invade Canada. So with respect to the powers outlined in Article 1, Section 8, the federal government has the Trump card.
But on the other side, we get to the 10th Amendment, which shifts power over to the states. It says, The powers not delegated to the United States are reserved to the states. Which basically means that power not listed in Article 1, Section 8 belongs to the state government. This included powers like defining legal relationships, like marriage or divorce, etc.
So that's how federalism plays out in the Constitution. Some powers are explicitly given to the federal government, and others are reserved exclusively for the states. You get me?
Power is But in addition to federalism, the new Constitution also provided a separation of powers between the three branches of government. The three branches of government established by the Constitution are as follows. The Legislative branch, which is responsible for making laws.
The Executive branch, which is to say a President, which is responsible for carrying out and enforcing the laws. And the Judicial branch, which is responsible for making laws. judicial branch, or the Supreme Court, which is responsible for interpreting the laws to make sure they align with the Constitution.
Side note, the judicial branch was not given much love in the Constitution, but in the next few videos we'll see how the Supreme Court got its big boy pants on and became a major player with respect to federal power. Now the last thing you need to know about this separation of powers in the federal government is that the framers of the Constitution set it up this way so that each branch could check and balance the power of the other. No one branch of government had all the power. For example, the legislative branch creates and proposes laws, but the the President must approve and sign it in order for the law to become binding. And if the President doesn't approve, then the President has the executive power of veto, which puts the kibosh on the proposed law, and that is a check on the power of Congress.
However, as a check on the power of the executive, Congress can override that veto with a two-thirds majority vote. And that's just one example of the many ways the three branches can check and balance each other. But the Constitution's provision for both federalism and the separation of power in the three branches really comes down to this. The Framers of the Constitution were under no delusions about human nature.
They understood that humans are, by nature, turds and will always abuse the power that is given to them. Which is why James Madison argued in Federalist 51, if men were angels, no government would be necessary. In that being the case, the Framers took special care to distribute the power to govern over several different entities, and this was their plan to protect the American people from tyranny.
Alright, that's what you need to know about Unit 3, Topic 9 of the AP US History curriculum. If you're enjoying your forehead tattoo, you might also enjoy getting an A in your class and a 5 on your exam in May. To that end, I recommend you grab my Ultimate Review Packet right here.
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