Constitutional Democracy or The Living Constitution or American Federalism

Constitutional Democracy

What does it mean to have constitutional democracy ? But perhaps , to determine what the term `constitutional democracy ' is , the first question one ought to ask should be : what is democracy

According to the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary , democracy is a government by the people especially : rule of the majority . Also , it is a government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly or indirectly through a system of representation usually involving periodically held free elections

Democracy has been interpreted in various ways . Laypeople

would often interpret democracy as having the right to enjoy basic rights and freedoms that a person is entitled to . Some of those so-called rights and freedoms include the right to live , the right to free speech , the right to property and the right to association . Some say that democracy is merely an ideology that had already existed even during the time of the Greeks , centuries ago . However , democracy should mean a lot more than that

The word democracy came from the Greek word Demokratia : demos , the people kratos , strength , power kratein , to rule . From this etymology we can derive this meaning : democracy is a form of government where power emanates from the people ' In the famous lines of President Abraham Lincoln , it is a government , of the people , by the people and for the people ' The people being the sovereign are the ones with the power to over the government . It should not be the other way around Supreme power in a democracy should lie with the people

Having a democratic society does not happen overnight . In our country hard battles had been fought in to reach the kind of democracy that our country has now . One can turn the pages of history and see the great feats our leaders have accomplished in to have a democratic government and preserve it for centuries . And , when the battle to freedom has been won , our forefathers made sure that their children and children 's children will continue to enjoy the liberty that they have fought so hard for . Hence , we have our nation 's centuries-old constitution

America 's Founding Fathers fashioned a constitution that was a unique breakthrough in the continuing struggle for human freedom . They believed in the principle of constitutional government (Blaustein , para . 2 . A constitutional government allows for a system of checks and balances to ensure that the power is not confined to only one branch of the government . This kind of system guarantees that governmental power is decentralized . What make this so important is that different sort of abuses are minimized of not curtailed . Moreover , this will make certain that the rights of the people , enshrined in the Constitution , are protected and preserved . This is what constitutionalism is all about

According the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (2007 Constitutionalism is the idea , often associated with the political theories of John Locke and the "founders " of the American republic , that government can and should be legally...