The US Constitution, the Madisonian Model and Our Civil Liberties

In the beginning of our US Constitution we have the Bill of Rights. These are the first 10 amendments to the Constitution that limits what our government can and can not do in order to protect our civil liberties. One such civil liberty is the freedom of religion which is protected by the Bill of Rights and also by our Madisonian model of government which relies on separations of power so that they can check and balance each other. This model helps not only to protect our freedoms but also to make sure that no one group has too much power and becomes corrupt.

The first amendment is about our civil liberties and privacy. There are two main principals located in the first amendment that relates to our freedom of religion. The establishment clause says that the government can not share responsibilities with a church and the free exercise clause says that the national government is prohibited from telling people what religion they can follow. The courts, a part of the judicial branch, are allowed to read the amendments and interpret them in their own ways. This power given to the judicial branch of our government is also checked and balanced by the executive and legislative branches.

The legislative branch which is represented by Congress, helps check the above judicial branch. The first amendment stats that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.” Because this branch is responsible for making the laws, its power is hindered since it is not the one responsible for interpreting them. This helps to make sure that neither one party can hurt our freedom of religion since the legislative branch can’t pass laws prohibiting our freedom of religion and the judicial branch can’t interpret laws to go against our freedom of religion.

The last is the executive branch, headed by the president, which also plays a role in the checks and balance system. While the above legislative branch is responsible for making the laws and the judicial branch is responsible for interpreting them, the executive branch is responsible for making sure that those laws are enforced.

An example of these working together is the Religious Freedom Restoration Act passed in 1993 by Congress (legislative branch) who had been hearing a lot of court cases on religion in school settings. This act allowed for the local, state and federal government to work together to bring some kind of uniformity to the rules about religion on schools campuses. This was checked by the supreme court (judicial branch) which ruled this law as unconstitutional.

Another example of the checks and balance systems from the Madisonian model at work to protect out religious freedoms, is the supreme court (judicial branch) checking the executive branch by removing government officials that fail to remain neutral on religious matters and show monetary and endorsement favoritism to certain religions and religious groups.

As we can see all three of these branches of the government play a different role in the laws that protect our civil liberties. This allows for a balance of power which helps to ensure that our freedoms are being protected. These three branches of government are also set up to be able to check each other to make sure that no one group can gain too much power and hinder our freedoms that way through corruption.

The executive branch checks the legislative branch by being able to veto laws and checks the judicial branch by being able to appoint supreme court judges. The legislative branch check the executive branch by being able to impeach the president and over ride his vetoes. It also has power over the judicial branch by being able to create lower courts and impeach judges. Lastly, the judicial branch is able to check the executive branch by appointing judges for life that can’t be checked and has control over the legislative branch by being able to rule laws unconstitutional.

Because of this checks and balance system of government in the Madisonian model, the existence of civil liberties help in adding to this model of government. As we can see from above, the protection of our freedoms – such as the freedom of religion- require the branches of government to follow the checks and balance system of government because without that, any one branch would have too much power and too much control to be able to do with our civil liberties what would be in their own interest instead of in the interest of the people. This is particularly important because the Madisonian model of government is still a type of democracy, which means government for the people, by the people.


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