Final paper

The Constitution

Kaleena Springsteen

POL 201 American National Government

Matthew Schuster

May 28, 2017

Strength

The constitution created an avenue where the people could change it through amendments to ensure that the constitution was in line and able to grow with the economy and the civilization growth. The aspect of amendments has enacted more chapters on the constitution to be included and also a more definition of different things when the first constitution was being drawn up. The constitution was developed by thirteen states which later accommodated more states which joined the United States to make up the 50 states as members of the United States (Bederman, 2011). The constitution has also expound as it was recently indicated as the bill on same sex marriages was legalized which made it constitutional right for same sex couples to get married and enjoy the same rights as heterosexual marriages.

Weakness

One of the major weaknesses that the constitution of the United States has relates to the judiciary. Judges are supposed to serve for life or till they retire which means that when one party rules for a long time, the judges are going to be either democrat or republican limiting the interpretation of the constitution and the delivery of policy by the supreme court(Watson, 2017). The judges due to the lack of a term limit or an age cap means that the judges will not represent the constitutional rights of everyone in society as a balance is supposed to be struck especially in the Supreme Court.

How to maintain the strength of the U.S constitution

One of the ways of ensuring that the United States constitution retains its strength is through that democracy is maintained and the will of the people is respected. The will of the people being respected means that they are going to elect the leaders that they want into congress and the senate. This will ensure that the leaders who are elected are going to respect the will of the people and in the process make and pass laws to this effect. This maintains the strengths of the constitution. (Bederman, 2011)

An option to correct the weakness of the United States

Amending the constitution to ensure that judges are supposed to serve for a limited time or they are supposed to retire at certain age will ensure that the people’s rights are represented even when one party is in office for a long time. At the same time, rather than change the term limits of the judges, it is possible to take away the powers of appointing the judges from the president and lay that responsibility with the judiciary. Through the judiciary being in charge of hiring judges, the people will get fair representation as the judges will not be appointed in line with their political opinion or inclination. (Watson, 2017)

References

Bederman, D. J. (2011). The classical foundations of the American Constitution prevailing wisdom. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Watson, B. C. (2017). Progressive challenges to the American constitution: a new republic. Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press.