The Constitution uses 3 bones techniques to guarantee freedom. First, federalism divides power between the country and federal governments, limiting the federal authorities just to powers specified in its text.

2d, the Separation of Powers and Checks and Balances divide governance among the federal branches to keep any individual branch from wielding too much ability. Third, Constitutional Rights, especially in the Bill of Rights, 14th Amendment, and Article i, Sections 9 and 10, cleave out key individual liberties that no function of government cannot infringe. Quaternary, all parts of the government are straight or indirectly answerable to the people, so that the people are capable of holding them responsible if they abuse their power.

The Framers divided ability among three split up branches of the federal authorities:

The separation of powers is designed to make certain that no branch of government will become too powerful or exercise the powers of another branch. For case, the executive branch (the President) cannot make laws. Merely the legislative branch (Congress) tin can. The system of "checks and balances" similarly empowers each co-operative to forestall the other branches from overstepping their constitutional say-so. For example, the President can veto a police proposed by Congress.

Article I

Article I assigns the legislative potency, or the ability to make federal laws, to Congress (the legislative branch) . Congress is also responsible for declaring state of war and making the federal budget. Congress is composed of two parts, the Senate and the House of Representatives. The Senate is likewise responsible for approving presidential appointments and ratifying treaties with other nations.

Commodity II

Article Two places the President of the United States in accuse of the executive co-operative . Among the President'southward primary obligations is to take intendance that the laws exist faithfully carried out, or executed, and to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution. The president is likewise charged with appointing the heads of all federal agencies and judges, with the consent of the Senate.

Article 3

Article Three creates the judicial co-operative , or courtroom arrangement, of the federal government. Its job is to hear cases and controversies, or legal disputes. While considering these disputes, the judicial branch enforces the Constitution, reviewing laws and executive deportment to ensure that these laws and executive actions are consistent with the Constitution. If they find otherwise, they volition decline to use an unconstitutional police; this process is called judicial review.

"The Constitution protects united states of america from our own best intentions: It divides ability amongst sovereigns and amid branches of government precisely so that nosotros may resist the temptation to concentrate power in one location as an expedient solution to the crisis of the twenty-four hour period."

          – Sandra 24-hour interval O'Connor, New York 5. United States (1992)

And so that they may have a slightly longer perspective than members of the House, who are elected for two years, Senators face up re-election every six years. They serve staggered terms so that unremarkably one-tertiary of the Senate is running at every general election. There are a total of 100 Senators, two from each state.

Senators serve a diverseness of important roles: not only practice they pass legislation similar Members of the Business firm, but Senators likewise have the sole responsibility of confirming federal judges and loftier ranking executive officers, equally well as ratifying treaties. Thus, so that you tin share your opinions on such matters, information technology is worth knowing who your 2 Senators are.

The number of voting members of the House of Representatives since 1911. The number of voting members has inverse over fourth dimension, and the circulation of those representatives among usa changes later every census to reflect shifts in population.

Quick fact:

Nancy Pelosi is the current Speaker of the House of Representatives. Pelosi took function shortly after the Democrats took control of the House in the 2022 ballot. She previously served every bit Speaker between the elections in 2006 and 2010.

In order to remain tightly continued to the will of the people and public stance, members of the Business firm serve shorter terms than the Senate, facing re-election every 2 years.

Like Senators, members of the House vote on legislation. Unlike Senators, who represent and are chosen by the citizens of their unabridged state, members of the House are chosen by and serve the citizens of congressional districts within their states. Considering these district maps modify every ten years after a census, it can have some work to know who i's representative is.

You tin discover your country representative and your legislative district here.

Business firm.gov

The two different houses have different sizes considering each represents a different constituency and is intended to serve a different purpose.

The Senate is designed to represent the interests of each private land and brand sure each country has equal representation in Washington.  Thus each land, whether big or small-scale, has the same number of senators: 2 .

The Senate is also intended to help protect the people's liberty and reinforce the idea of federalism: Senators would be more likely to enforce the constitutional limits on federal power because whatsoever expansion of federal power would come at the price of their local land governments' jurisdiction and rights.

By manner of dissimilarity, the House of Representatives aims to represent the people and public opinion more directly. Thus, states with more people (a larger population) have more Representatives than other, less populous states.

Presidents serve 4-year terms. Initially, Presidents could be re-elected to an unlimited number of terms, simply the celebrated norm was to follow George Washington's example and only serve 2. Franklin Roosevelt bankrupt this norm and was elected for four terms (but died very early on during his 4th). Concern about the concentration of executive power during such a long presidency led to the Twenty-Second Amendment, which formalized the 2-term limit.

Quick note:

The 22nd Subpoena formalized the two-term limit for presidents.

Although initially states had some variation in when they selected presidential electors, since 1845, presidential elections have always taken place in the month of November, specifically the Tuesday afterwards the showtime Monday in Nov.

In order to ensure continuity in government, the Constitution and federal law creates an club of succession should the President become unable to serve due to death, disability, resignation, or impeachment and removal. Should the President be unable to serve, the Vice President becomes president. Should both the president and Vice President be unable to serve, the Speaker of the House of Representatives becomes President.

Quick fact:

Every bit of Jan 2021, Joe Biden is the President of the U.s. and Kamala Harris the Vice President.

The Constitution, especially Commodity Ii, gives the President a multifariousness of roles in the federal government. Not only must he or she take intendance that the laws exist faithfully executed, merely the President is assigned to exist commander-in-chief of the military and to sign or veto bills passed by Congress. He or she also serves as master diplomat, and appoints, with the consent of the Senate, federal judges and members of the executive branch.

The President has help in coordinating and managing the executive co-operative, particularly from members of the Cabinet. The principal role of this loftier-ranking group of federal officers is to advise the President.

The Vice President is a member of this informational Cabinet, but virtually of its members are the heads of the various departments, and whose job titles are the "Secretary of (each Section)." Thus, the cabinet includes the Secretarial assistant of State, Secretary of Defense, Secretarial assistant of the Interior, Secretary of the Treasury, every bit well as the Attorney Full general (who oversees the Section of Justice), among others.
Simply as baseball games are not decided by who gets the well-nigh hits or football game the most yards, the president is not selected by a elementary majority vote. Instead, the president is elected by the Electoral College, in which each state gets equally many votes equally its combined number of senators and representatives.

Like the ii houses of Congress itself, this takes into business relationship both us and people, federalism and population, ensuring any winning candidate is broadly acceptable across different regions of the country. This balances the process of picking the president between direct popular election and congressional selection.

The Constitution leaves it up to state legislatures to determine how their states appoint their electors for the Electoral College. Today, forty-eight of the fifty states choose to honor all of their electoral votes to the presidential candidate who receives more popular votes than any other candidate within that state. This is known equally a "winner-take-all" organization.

Article III creates the judicial co-operative of the federal government. Its job is to hear cases and controversies, or legal disputes. In the course of considering these disputes, the judicial branch enforces the Constitution, reviewing laws and executive actions to ensure that these laws and executive actions are consequent with the Constitution. If they find otherwise, they will decline to use an unconstitutional constabulary; this process is called judicial review.

This process is designed to ensure that the balance of the government—whether the states, Congress, or executive branch—follows the Constitution while keeping the judiciary out of the function of making policy.

U.s.a. Supreme Court

The highest courtroom in the United States, the U.S. Supreme Court hears appeals both from these lower federal courts as well as state courts.

Circuit courts

The Circuit Courts hear appeals from commune courts.

District courts

The District Courts hear disputes near federal law.

Article III establishes that justices, like all federal judges, will serve "during good behavior," which has turned out to mean, in practice, life tenure. The purpose of this is to ensure that judges do not issue rulings based on political pressure or popularity but instead based on the demands of the Constitution and law.

The Constitution does not fix the number of justices on the Supreme Court across creating a Master Justice position. The number of justices changed throughout the 19th century, as more justices were added to supervise the expanding geographic scope of the nation. Since 1869, the number of justices has been fixed at 9 justices. In the 1930s, Franklin Roosevelt attempted to add more justices in club to go more than friendly rulings from the Supreme Courtroom, but even many of his allies rejected this every bit an illegitimate violation of judicial independence, and the number remained at 9 and still is to this solar day.

A bulk of Supreme Court justices are required to decide a case, which normally means five (5) justices are necessary to issue a ruling.

Quick fact:

The electric current Chief Justice of the Supreme Court is John Roberts , who has served in that office since the death of his predecessor, William Rehnquist, in 2005.

The Constitution's federalist system of enumerated powers limits the federal government to powers specified in the Constitution, especially Article I, Section 8. Among this list of federal powers is the authority to coin (or print) coin, to brand treaties and declare war, and to raise and support armies.

Under our Constitution, about political powers vest to the states. Every bit the Tenth Amendment makes clear, unless a political power is given to the federal government, it is assumed to remain with the states. Thus, the states retain authority over issues such every bit:

  • protecting the public health
  • providing safety and protection (such as police and fire departments)
  • providing schooling and education
  • regulating zoning and land use
  • And administering most licenses, such equally business and driver'due south licenses.

This broad authority to regulate on behalf of the health, welfare, safety, and morals of the people is chosen the police force power. It is wide-ranging, merely there are nonetheless limits on it: a country's utilise of its law powers cannot violate either the federal Constitution or the restrictions in a state's own constitution.

Every land today has a similar structure to the federal government, with a state constitution, a legislature making laws to govern the state, an executive enforcing those state laws, and a judicial co-operative resolving legal disputes. Ane important departure is that the head of the state's executive branch is called the Governor . The Governor'south country level powers are broadly similar to those wielded by the President, so it is important to know your land's Governor.

State capitals are where the regime of each state is located, especially the legislative chambers where the state'south laws are made. Sometimes land capitals are found in the largest or richest metropolis in a state, but in other cases, land capitals are pocket-size and sometimes situated far from economic ability. Because land law generally has a more direct event on your life, information technology is specially important to know virtually your state government and where and how the laws are made — thus, it's important to know where your state upper-case letter is!

Parties have come and gone in American history, simply there have usually been ii leading parties. Although it arose from earlier parties, the Democratic Party formally developed in the 1820s and 1830s under Martin Van Buren and its kickoff elected President, Andrew Jackson. Initially created to enforce states' rights and local regime, in the 1930s the Democratic Political party shifted to favor a more centralized federal government.

The Republican Party was founded in the 1850s with the specific purpose of catastrophe the expansion of slavery into the federal territories — its kickoff President was Abraham Lincoln.

Compared to the Democratic Party of today, the Republican Party tends to favor a more than decentralized federal government. The Democrats and Republicans are the two major parties today, whose ideas and values take shifted over time to reflect a changing United States.

Other political parties today include the Libertarian Party, the Green Political party, and the Constitution Party.