Rule Of Law And Tolerance Politics Essay

In the past, most of the nations has built their government in the concept of the thee pillars : religion, language and race. The leaders of these nations was the King under the only God. They made the nations believe the obedience to the King was the connection between the ruler and God.

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In the U.S Constitution, this idea was put aside by three words: “We the People.” These words demonstrated a different organizational structure for a nation. Basically it was the set of rules and are generally obeyed by everyone. Its purpose is to make a good government and good laws, have peace in their homes, national security, healthy communities, and freedom to themselves.

After the Revolutionary War, even though the Treaty of Paris had been created, but the congress still worried that with the large army of French, there is a danger for another war. In 1781, the Articles of Confederation were adopted to stated the liberty of the thirteen states (p20). The Articles of Confederacy;in fact, was considered the first constitution of the United States, stated that in order to change any part of the document all thirteen states must agree to the change. Therefor a meeting was called so that they could amend the failing articles. However, mostly the laws under the article were ignored because the lack of power of the enforcement. Moreover, the economy after the Revolution is in a bad state. some States had to print large amount of money and the consequence was the inflation. With the banking crisis, and the loss of power in some states, a convention in Philadelphia had occurred to edit the Articles. Even with the small amounts of states respond, but George Washington, the leader of the U.S. Army and also the leader of the convention, were with Thomas Jefferson, James Madison,George Mason and Edmund Randolf were the most important people in the convention. The Virginia Plan has created, proposed a bicameral legislature which later was in the Article 1 of the Constitution. But there was an issue in the plan, which the smaller states complained it violate their interests. This led to the New Jersey Plan. The Constitution is divided into two main sections, The Human Rights and The Institutions of the State.In the Human Rights section, the Constitution defines what rights each member of the state is entitled to. For example, it may define that everyone has the right to vote in an election, or that everyone is entitled to a pension when he reaches a certain age.The Institutions of the State is divided into three sections: the Legislative, the Executive and the Judiciary.These people are the Members of the Parliament, who are elected by the citizens of the state and meet to discuss matters concerning the state. The central government, Congress the central government) was made up of delegates chosen by the states and could conduct foreign affairs, make treaties, declare war, maintain an army and a navy, coin money, and establish post offices. Before any measure has been publish by the Congress has to be agreed by 9 out of 13 states. In this plan, even though the smaller state did not go against the Articles of Confederation, which has small affection on them, and the process of the convention. But the new issues led to a form of Anti Federalists and Federalists. The Federalists advocated the “necessary” and “proper” clause, and their faith rested heavily in the virtue of implied powers. But after the ratification, a compromised between the two perspective has happened under the agreement to amend the Constitution to include ten amendments has been called the Bill of Rights.(p21)

After 2/3 of the states ratified it, on June 21, 1788,the Constitution became law. The entire purpose of the Constitution was to increase the powers of the central government and to limit the powers of the state governments.

Popular sovereignty, is the idea that people have the power to organize the government (p22), it is a basic concept and does not really describe a political reality. David Wilmot, a Representative in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1844-1851,created Wilmot Proviso Wilmot, based on the justification that slavery should not exist in the Mexican War territory for geographic reasons, proposed to Congress that slavery should be banned in all of the territory gained from Spain. But Stephen A. Douglas, was the person that popularized the concept as the Kansas-Nebraska bill, that was proposed regarding the new territories aˆ¦ allow them to vote and choose for themselves whether or not they wish to allow slavery. Popular sovereignty in America allows their citizens to have a free republic that does not allow for a totalitarian dictatorship; the nation has certain rights such as liberty, or freedom, from outside forces. The Constitution in the U.S are sometimes called the contract written by the Founding Fathers, and they wrote popular sovereignty as one of the pillar to build an American nation, and also is one of the six foundational principles. In the Amendment XII (1804) , it has stated standard way of voting for a system of a nation. On the Amendment XV (1870) , it established that the factors of race, color, religion are not the obstacle of having rights to vote

The nation based on the three pillars : Popular Sovereignty,the Rule of Law and Tolerance, the Founding Fathers wrote a contract that if you agree with these three principles then you would be able to become a member of this, nation, regardless of your religion, race or language. Building a nation which is a mixture of too many races and religions, a nation that has a diversities of language, the Founding Father did not want to build the nation that has one religion, race and language. If the Constitution went that way perhaps the Civil Rights war was still going on, perhaps this nation did not survived through times, and perhaps the US never as the president Obama. Sovereignty clearly evolves from the hierarchical to the lateral, emphasizing what Woodrow Wilson dreams of when he writes that “We cannot be separated in interest or divided in purpose. We stand together until the end.’ (p472) . As in the Treaty of Paris -or known as Treaty of Peace set in November 30th 1782, there were articles proposed to be concluded between The Crown of Great Britain and the said United States. In Article 1, it claimed that individuals has their right to vote and organize their own government by stated ‘to be free sovereign and independent states, that he treats with them as such, and for himself, his heirs, and successors, relinquishes all claims to the government, propriety, and territorial rights of the same and every part thereof.’ (p224). Without Popular sovereignty , the rights and liberties of its citizens are not fully protected by national or international standards.

The Rule of Law is the second pillar that the Constitution want to create. It is somehow the opposite of what so called The Devine Right of Kings, the Constitution wrote this to set up different society. There is ‘no law’ when King rules country, law is what the King want to set and the law can be changed unpredictable depend on what the King wants. Rule of law is different,it is one important ingredient of a system of justice. The Constitution fundamental law of the United States federal government. It has become the landmark legal document of the Western world, and is the oldest written national constitution currently in effect. The essential principle of the document is that government must be confined to the rule of law. The rule of law is a difficult concept to grasp and proves elusive to substantive definition . The following work considers the attempts of various social and legal theorists to define the concept and pertinent authorities are considered. All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives. ( p23) . There is the appearance of Separation of Powers. Because as in other nations which has only one King, a person who has the utter most power in hand means that others are curbed or their powers curtailed. The Constitution secures people rights long understood to be essential to the rule of law, such as the right to due process, meaning that the laws of the land must be transparent, consistent, and equally applied to all men, so that no man may be arbitrarily deprived of life, liberty, or property. Without the rule of law to safeguard the ownership of property and the enforcement of contracts, it makes any citizen feel unsecured whenever they do any job that can build up the nation. Human rights are given clear prominence in the Constitution which has 4,440 words, which is the oldest and the shortest written constitution of any government in the world.

Even though individuals have been given the rights to have their own government and the rights to do everything as long as it does not violate to the law. Tolerance is another dimension of liberty, it is not acceptance (p22). Tolerance is recognizing and respecting other’s beliefs , we do not need to agree with others, we can disagree with them by stop sponsoring or support what they are doing upon to the power you are having like economy. However, tolerance is not a form of a moral act or duty, it is a legal requirement. In the recent history of the U.S. , there are intolerance like slavery, racism, or religion. Throughout history, perhaps the intolerance examples would be the slavery , racism in the South, the civil rights which was the appearance of Martin Luther King goes again the intolerance acts. The Southerners even only accepted popular sovereignty but they did not want to agree the liberty and tolerance amongst the slavery. That is why the Civil War, not popular sovereignty ,resolve both the moral issue of slavery and its constitutional status.But the Civil War resolved only the tensions created by slavery. It did not provide guidance as to how a democracy resolves other issues where morality, constitutionalrights, and politics conflict. Therefore, any acts against the intolerance like Martin Luther King’s act was very important in the history of the U.S because of the big population of African American in the nation by the time. People who support the abstract norms of democracy (e.g., free speech, majority vote) are more likely to be tolerant. Democracy that is stable, longer-enduring tend to provide an environment that supports tolerance; however, the conflicts that threatens one’s group identity, tends to decrease individual levels of tolerance. Tolerance allow us have a diversity and individual while we still keeping a peaceful environment. Perhaps the most topics people always think about when they talk about Tolerance were about racism and religious. This is when we violate other’s perspectives with our own perspectives,intolerance and recognition of the sanctity of the individual. This is the example of what President Woodrow Wilson stated in the statement about the Great war in Europe that the programme of the world’s peace is our programme (p471) , all the nation has their own liberty, and equal right; the violations between these may lead to a big war between nations.

In conclusion, the Constitution is just like any other government system, it is not perfect. Like Ben Franklin said after the Constitutional Convention: ‘Our new Constitution is now established, and has an appearance that promises permanency; but in the world nothing can be said to be certain except death and taxes’. But the U.S. Constitution had failed points and it had been edited as to correct those problems. But the most important is that they successfully built the system based on the three pillar popular sovereignty, rule of law, and tolerance.