The American Constitution

A few days ago we had a visitor in class. Her name was Lee Ann Potter and she spoke about the American Constitution. She was a good speaker and it was interesting to listen to her. In this entry I will try to recapture what she told us in a short summary. Enjoy!

The American form of government was written down in a Constitution adopted in 1787, not long after the thirteen colonies gained independence from Great Britain. They decided to have a representative democracy. The system worked like this; elected representatives would regularly be shifted out. For the first time the power belonged to the people, and not to a king. They also decided to have a federal system. This was made up of individual states, which gave only certain specific powers to a central government. This is known as federalism. The last thing they decided was to divide the powers of the federal government into three. Each of these branches kept track of the other two so that none of them could become too powerful. This is known as the separation of powers.

As you see, the Americans were very eager to make sure that no person or persons would be allowed to have too much power. This is understandable after fighting war against what they viewed as the tyranny of King George III.

Lee Ann Potter showed the class a clip on YouTube. The clip was a jingle that aired on television when she was a little girl. It was named “We – the people” and the text of the refrain is the Preamble (which is the beginning part of the American Constitution). It was pretty funny. Check it out!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aNb9AoY5XXE