Paper 3 – US statistics
1.1 The nature of the US Constitution
Vagueness of the document, codification and entrenchment
o Vagueness of the document allowed delegates to compromise
at the Philadelphia Convention and has allowed the
Constitution to evolve without formal amendment
Lack of clarity has also caused problems – the absence
of comment on slavery in the original document sowed
the seeds of division for the American Civil War in 1863-
65. Slavery would eventually be banned under the 13th
Amendment
o Entrenchment – there have been only 27 amendments to the
Constitution
The constitutional framework (powers) of the US branches of
government
o The legislature, the executive and the judiciary
o Articles I-III (explained how the 3 branches of the government
(federal/national government) would work and what powers
they would have) – these are the enumerated powers
Article I – established Congress as a national legislature,
defining its membership, the qualifications and method
of election of its members, as well as its powers
Article II – decided on a singular executive by vesting all
executive power in the hands of ‘a President’, who
would be chosen indirectly by an Electoral College
Article III – established the US Supreme Court. The Court
was to be the umpire of the Constitution (although this
role was not explicitly granted), implied in the
supremacy clause of Article VI (the Constitution ‘shall be
the supreme law of the Land’) and the provision in
Article III that the Court’s judicial power applies to ‘all
Cases… arising under this Constitution’
o Most implied powers are deduced from the ‘necessary and
proper’ clause (final clause of Article I, Section 8), which
empowers Congress to make all laws ‘necessary and proper’
to carry out the federal government’s duties
The SC ruled, in McCulloch v Maryland (1819), that
Congress had the power to create a national bank,
despite the power of creating a bank not being an
enumerated power of Congress under the Constitution –
a law in Maryland required the Bank of the United States
to pay a tax, which it refused to pay. The SC had to
determine whether Congress had the power to establish
a bank, and whether the states could tax this bank.
They decided that Maryland would not be allowed to tax
this bank.
, The Commerce Clause implies that Congress has the
power to set a minimum wage, ban discrimination in the
workplace and in public facilities and regulate banking
Gibbons v Ogden (1824) – both Ogden and
Gibbons claimed to have an exclusive license to
provide a ferry service between New York and New
Jersey. Ogden’s license was provided by New York
and Gibbon’s was provided by Congress – the SC
ruled that navigation fell under the Commerce
Clause and so upheld Gibbon’s exclusive license.
Full Faith and Credit Clause – every state should
recognise the rulings made in other states
Pacific Employers Insurance v Industrial Accident
(1939) – SC ruled that the Full Faith and Credit
Clause does not require one state to substitute for
its own statute the conflicting statute of another
state
o Judicial review is another implied power – it is not enumerated
in the Constitution but was ‘found’ in the 1803 case of
Marbury v Madison
o Congress
Legislation (enumerated): exclusive powers to legislate
for the country, specific powers held by the House and
the Senate
Economic (enumerated): tax and duty collection,
borrowing money on behalf of the US government,
establishing currency and coin, setting weights and
measures, establishing Post Offices, regulation of
commerce (nationally and internationally)
Economic (implied): Interstate Commerce Clause
Defence (enumerated): declaration of war, maintenance
of army and navy, organisation and training of militia
Defence (implied): the power to ‘provide for the
common defence and general welfare of the United
States’, i.e. the power to levy and collect taxes to
provide for the defence of the USA (also economic),
power to draft citizens into the armed forces may be
implied from Congress’s enumerated powers to raise an
army and navy
o President
Executive (enumerated): head of the executive branch;
nominates cabinet members, ambassadors and judges;
grants pardons
Defence (enumerated): commander-in-chief of the army
and navy
Defence (implied): commander-in-chief of the United
States Air Force (no air force existed at the time)
o Judiciary
, Enumerated: to rule of cases arising under the
Constitution
Judicial review (implied): to declare Acts of Congress or
actions of the executive unconstitutional
o Reserved powers – 10th Amendment: ‘the powers not
delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor
prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States,
respectively, or to the people’
o Concurrent powers
The amendment process, including advantages and
disadvantages of the formal process
o Amendment process – 2 stage process requiring
supermajorities of more than 50%, such as a 2/3 or ¾ majority
o Stage 1 is the proposal and stage 2 is the ratification
o Bill of Rights
1st – freedom of religion, speech, the press, and
assembly
2nd – right to keep and bear arms
3rd – no quartering of troops in private homes
4th – unreasonable searches and seizures prohibited
5th – rights of accused persons
6th – rights of trial
7th – common-law suits
8th – excessive bail, and cruel and unusual punishments
prohibited
9th – unenumerated rights protected
10th – undelegated powers reserved to the states or to
the people
o Other important amendments
12th – revised the process for electing the president and
vp
13th – 15th – proposed and ratified immediately after the
Civil War to end slavery and guarantee civil rights
16th – allowed the federal government to impose income
tax
17th – made the Senate an elected house
19th – gave women the right to vote
22nd – limited the president to a maximum of 2 terms in
office
25th – dealt with the issue of presidential disability and
succession, following the assassination of President
Kennedy in 1963
26th – lowered the voting age to 18
o Frivolous amendments include: the 18th Amendment
(prohibited the sale, transport and manufacture of alcohol) –
this was repealed by the 21st Amendment
o It is harder to pass amendments in the modern era – the first
Congress had only 65 congressmen in the House and 26
senators in the Senate – only 44 members of the House and
, 18 members of the Senate were needed to agree for a
proposal to pass the first stage of the amendment process.
Nowadays there are 435 members of the House and 100
members of the Senate
o Of the 12,000 amendments that have been proposed since
the original Constitution was written in 1787, only 33 have
gone to the states for ratification and only 27 have made it
into the Constitution itself (around 0.2% of all proposals)
o The Arnold Amendment was an attempt to amend the
Constitution that questions whether or not to amend the
Constitution to allow foreign-born citizens to run for president.
Orrin Hatch introduced a bill that would allow a person who
had been a US citizen for 20 years and a resident for 14 years
to run for president. However, many immigration officials say
that immigrants always have emotional ties to the country of
their birth and the Constitution implies that foreign-born
citizens are less trustworthy than native-borns
Advantages Example Disadvantages Example
Protects the President Trump Difficult to Changing the
Constitution – describes the amend outdated Electoral
the key features checks and provisions or to College – it
of the balances of the incorporate new has elected 2
Constitution Constitution as ideas. Well- presidents
were ideals of ‘archaic’ when thought-out who lost the
the Founding they frustrated amendments popular vote
Fathers that his attempts to may also fail to (George W.
were intended govern as he pass Bush in 2000
to be almost wished – this and Trump in
completely demonstrates 2016) in the
immune from that they are last 20 years.
amendment working. Equal rights
amendment –
although it
was
successfully
passed by
Congress by
1972, it failed
to be
supported by
the required
number of
states by
1982.
Balanced
budget
amendment –
from 1999-
2018 there
