Where can we locate community development feature in the constitution?

This has led to questions over the balance of power between national and state governments. The appropriate distribution of power has been interpreted differently over time. At some points, measures have been taken to enhance federal power, while at other points, the Framers, and later, the Supreme Court, have enhanced state power. Term Definition commerce clause Part of Article I of the Constitution that gives Congress the power to regulate interstate commerce (buying and selling of goods across state lines). federalism An institutional arrangement that creates two relatively autonomous levels of government, each possessing the capacity to act directly on behalf of the people with the authority granted to it by the national constitution. enumerated powers Powers of the federal government that are explicitly named in the Constitution. implied powers Powers of the federal government that are not explicitly named in the Constitution but are implied so that the federal government can carry out its enumerated powers. necessary and proper clause Part of Article I of the Constitution that gives Congress the power to create laws that they find “necessary and proper” for performing their constitutional responsibilities. Tenth Amendment Constitutional amendment that stipulates that all powers not given to the federal government are reserved to the states or the people. Fourteenth Amendment Constitutional amendment that grants citizenship, equal protection, and due process under the...

Dependent on a minority of the population to hold national power, Republicans such as Senator Mike Lee of Utah have taken to reminding the public that “we’re not a democracy.” It is quaint that so many Republicans, embracing a president who routinely tramples constitutional norms, have suddenly found their voice in pointing out that, formally, the country is a republic. There is some truth to this insistence. But it is mostly disingenuous. The Constitution was meant to foster a complex form of majority rule, not enable minority rule. The founding generation was deeply skeptical of what it called “pure” democracy and defended the American experiment as “wholly republican.” To take this as a rejection of democracy misses how the idea of government by the people, including both a democracy and a republic, was understood when the Constitution was drafted and ratified. It misses, too, how we understand the idea of democracy today. When founding thinkers such as James Madison spoke of democracy, they were usually referring to direct democracy, what Madison frequently labeled “pure” democracy. Madison made the distinction between a republic and a direct democracy exquisitely clear in “ popular forms of government: Each drew its legitimacy from the people and depended on rule by the people. The crucial difference was that a republic relied on representation, while in a “pure” democracy, the people represented themselves. At the time of the founding, a narrow vision of the people p...

In a story published June 8, 2023, The Associated Press reported that one of the ways to amend the Constitution requires support from two-thirds of the members of Congress constitution, the body of doctrines and practices that form the fundamental organizing principle of a political state. In some cases, such as the The general idea of a constitution and of Politics, Nicomachean Ethics, Constitution of Athens, and other works, Aristotle used the Greek word for constitution ( politeia) in several different senses. The simplest and most neutral of these was “the arrangement of the offices in a This article deals with the theories and classical see Theories about constitutions Aristotle’s classification of the “forms of government” was intended as a classification of constitutions, both good and bad. Under good constitutions— politeia—one person, a few individuals, or the many polis. Under the bad constitutions—tyranny, dēmos, or people, rule in their own interest alone. Aristotle regarded the mixed constitution as the best arrangement of offices in the polis. Such a politeia would contain monarchic, aristocratic, and democratic elements. Its citizens, after learning to obey, were to be given opportunities to participate in ruling. This was a privilege only of citizens, however, since neither noncitizens nor Roman law thus added to Aristotelian notions of politeia), the laws ( nomoi), and something more psēphismata). The latter might be based upon the votes cast by the citize...

Constitution of the United States, Fundamental law of the U.S. federal system of government and a landmark document of the Western world. It is the oldest written national constitution in operation, completed in 1787 at the Constitutional Convention of 55 delegates who met in Philadelphia, ostensibly to amend the Articles of Confederation. The Constitution was ratified in June 1788, but because ratification in many states was contingent on the promised addition of a See also civil liberty; Related Article Summaries