The American government consists of three branches: executive, legislative and judiciary.
Політична система США
1. Історія країни – від Британської колонії до світової супердержави.
2. Конституція та Білль про права.
- Уряд: розділення влади та демократичний процес.
Зміст лекції.
1. There were several reasons for the interest in colonizing America. Firstly, the population of Britain had grown to 4 million by the beginning of the 17th century but food supply had not increased. Secondly, a class of merchants had increased and new colonies could help to develop commerce and give such products as lumber, silver, gold for which England wholly depended on foreigners. Thirdly, the English influenced by Thomas Moor's "Utopia", viewed America as a place to create a perfect society, where they could find liberty, security and peace.
In 1606 James I issued a new charter that divided America between two groups: the London Virginia Company got the right to colonize the South and the Plymouth Company got the right to colonize the North.
The London Virginia Company concentrated on developing the colony of Virginia. It was a hard job. The land in many places was swampy, the climate was hot and humid and many people died of malaria. Captain John Smith played a great role in the formation of the colony. He made peace with the natives, established order in the colony, made colonists work hard. When the colonies ran out of food he went into the forest to buy some maize (Indian corn) from the natives. During one of the expeditions he made friends with an Indian princess, the daughter of the chief, Pocahontas, who later on married a tobacco planter and was even presented at the English court.
Captain John Smith managed to explore the northern coast and gave it the name New England.
In England the land was for the rich, in Virginia a poor man could hope for a farm of his own to feed his family. There was plenty of land in Virginia. Life became easier after the colonists learnt to raise tobacco that grew well in Virginia and sold well in Europe.
The Plymouth Company started colonization of America in 1620 when a group of 101 people sailed from Plymouth on board the Mayflower.
Among those people were 37 so-called "saints", Puritans who disagreed with the Anglican Church and questioned many of its teaching. Puritans wished to make religion simpler and less ceremonial, to reduce the power of bishops appointedby the throne. They called themselves "Pilgrims" on their voyage to America. The rest of the passengers on Mayflower were traveling for other reasons, and the Puritans called them “strangers”.
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They arrived at Cape Cod, New England, in December and settled there, building the village of Plymouth. Half of them couldn't survive through the winter but the rest put the colony on its feet. The neighboring Indians were friendly and taught them how to get seafood and cultivate corn.
In the 17th century life for Puritans in England was becoming intolerable. Charles I (1625-1649) persecuted them. A group of Puritan merchants got a grant of land in New England, the area of present-day Massachusetts and New Hampshire and obtained a charter to establish a colony. The Puritan immigrants settled in Boston and started several other towns. They set their colonial government. All citizens met at a General Court that passed laws for the colony, chose officers, and elected them. Puritans adopted the Congregational Church. Each congregation chose its own minister and regulated its own affairs. The colonists introduced taxes to support the Church and a law requiring attendance at services. Any opposition to the church seemed like a threat to the government. Independent thinkers started moving to New Hampshire and Rhode Island. Roger Williams, who believed that the state had no power over people's beliefs, established a liberal, tolerant society on Rhode Island quite different from the community founded by the stern ideologues of Massachusetts.
In 1632 the colony of Maryland was set up by Catholics. Many of them came from Ireland.
After the English civil war and the restoration of monarchy in the 1660s Charles II rewarded his faithful nobles with grants of land in the New World. The King's brother, the Duke of York, got the territory between the rivers of Delaware and Connecticut. The land already belonged to the Dutch who established the city of New Amsterdam. In 1664 the English Navy conquered the city. It was renamed New York which also became the name of the colony.
In 1682 one of the biggest colonies was founded — Pennsylvania. The founder of the colony was William Penn, a noble who got that vast territory as a debt paid by the crown to his father. William Penn was a Quaker. The society of Quakers was founded in England in the middle of the 17th century. Quakers disregarded social distinctions of class or sex and treated women as equals. They refused to participate in taking oaths and fighting wars.
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William Penn made Pennsylvania the best known and most cosmopolitan of all the colonies. The Indians respected him as an honest white man and his colony had no trouble with them. The colony flourished because of mild climate, the fertile soil and his thoughtful planning. Philadelphia became its main city.
By the 1730s there were 13 colonies along the Eastern coasts of North America. The last established colony was Georgia. It was set as a military barrier against the Spaniards in Florida. Poor Englishmen started a new life there.
2. The colonies in North America began to develop rapidly. However, there were great differences between the North and the South. In the northern colonies which were rich in material and natural resources, and where there was a constant arrival of immigrants from the Old World, industry and trade made great progress. The land was cultivated mainly by farmers. In the southern colonies agriculture was most important, and Negro slave labor was widely used on the cotton, rice and tobacco plantations. The North was against slavery, while the South supported it. The growing strength of the colonies worried Britain, which began to take measures against the development of the colonies. This led to protest and then to the War of Independence which brought freedom to the colonies.
The Declaration of Independence written by Thomas Jefferson was adopted July 2 and read July 4, 1776, proclaiming the 13 colonies an independent formation. It also proclaimed that all men are created equal, that they have basic human rights; that government’s function is to secure these rights. It enumerated the complaints of the colonists against the King and Parliament. It indicated that governments should be founded on consent and, consequently, a tyrannical government can be removed. It enhanced the necessity of a representative government. The Declaration cut all ties with Britain.
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During the war the colonies began to construct new political system, they wrote constitutions and established republican governments. In 1777 they adopted "The Articles of Confederation". The Continental Congress became the national government though its powers were limited.
In 1783 Peace treaty was signed. Britain recognized the United States as a free and independent nation. But the Articles of Confederation didn’t work very well. The National (central) government was weak. Each state had its own government and considered itself an independent country. Several states began to fight over the frontier. Americans were facing a political and economic crisis. The powers of the Congress were limited. It had no right to collect taxes or raise money. No money, no power. But the states were afraid of the centralized power.
Leaders of the States met again in Philadelphia in May 1787 to review The Articles of Confederation, but instead they adopted the document called the Constitution of the United States. It was officially adopted in 1789. They worked out a completely new system of government unlike the British one. The Constitution was an effort to ease the tensions and to create a single political entity from the 13 independent former colonies – the ideal expressed in the motto of the US, E Pluribus Unum (From Many, One).
It was a basic decision to have a written constitution. The constitution set out laws and principles of the government. The government became federal: the power to rule was shared. The Central (or National) government got the power to collect taxes, organize armed forces, make treaties with foreign states, control trade of all kinds; the rest was left in the hands of local governments.
Article I of the Constitution gave legislative power to Congress. Article II created the executive branch headed by the President. So it established the famous system of “checks and balances”. Article III directed that the federal judicial power be placed in a Supreme Court and in other courts as directed by Congress. The Constitution created a republic. The concept of equality was the basic point of the new political ideology. This way Americans acquired the rights that in any other country belonged exclusively to the elite. The US Constitution is a surprisingly short document, about 12 pages. No wonder that it did not cover all the problems, and some amendments were needed. The first 10 amendments were called The Bill of Rights and ratified in 1791. They guarantee personal liberties and prevent the federal government from infringing on the rights of states and citizens. Besides the Bill of Rights, there have been only 17 other amendments to the Constitution in the more than 200 years of its existence.
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The American government consists of three branches: executive, legislative and judiciary.
The executive branch
The president and vice president are the only officials elected by all citizens of the US; both serve 4-year terms. Although the president shares power with Congress and the judiciary, he is the most powerful and important officeholder in the country.
At first, the Founders were uncertain about the kind of executive power they desired for the United States. In 1787 they debated about how to choose a president and how much authority to give such a person. The drafters of the Constitution gave the president fewer specific powers than they extended to Congress because they were worried about placing too much power in the hands of one individual. The Founders then created an electoral college as the means of selecting the executive of their new country. The Electoral College is composed of presidential electors representing each state. The number of electors per state is equal to the sum of the state's senators and representatives in Congress. The Founders intended these electors, chosen as each state thought best, to meet and vote according to their individual preferences. This process excluded the influence of Congress as well as that of voters, who were not believed to be competent to choose a president. Even today Americans do not vote directly for a presidential candidate.
Such a process makes some Americans fear the possibility of a presidential candidate winning the popular vote and losing the electoral vote. Since the system works mostly on a winner-take-all basis, the electoral vote of most states is always unanimous, but the popular vote may be very close. It is possible for a candidate to win a majority of the popular vote but then, by losing certain key states with large numbers of electoral votes, to fail to win a majority in the electoral college.
Of the three branches of government, the presidency has changed the most in the last 200 years. At first, presidents mostly served as administrators carrying out the laws passed by Congress. But in time they have come to stand at the center of the national government. In fact, presidential power had increased so much by the middle of the 20th century that in 1951 the states ratified the 22nd Amendment, which limited the presidency to two terms.
It would be difficult for one individual to oversee all aspects of a modern industrialized society like that of the United States. Thus the executive branch has established a large number of agencies that carry out some of the executive functions of the government. Many full-time government employees participate in defining, regulating, and carrying out the various functions of the executive branch.
There are 15 departments of the executive branch. The heads of these departments, called secretaries, make up the Cabinet, a body that advises the president on matters of policy and government administration. There are also more than 140 executive agencies, including the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), the National Labor Relations Board, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), and the United States Postal Service.
Executive agencies have expanded in the 20th century to keep pace with a changing society and its growing needs. Large programs, such as Social Security, have grown to require more government workers to administer them. National security needs have also grown as the United States has taken a more active role in the world. The CIA and the National Security Agency (NSA) were created to protect Americans and maintain the security of the United States.
Despite their wide-ranging authority, presidents have limits on their power. While the Supreme Court, the media, and public opinion can affect presidential actions, Congress has the greatest ability to limit the president's power. Congress can check presidential power by refusing to appropriate funds for a presidential initiative. It can also refuse to confirm presidential appointees, such as ambassadors or Supreme Court justices. And ultimately only Congress can write and pass the laws that the executive branch is constitutionally obligated to implement.
Legislature
Congress is the legislative branch of the government of the United States. The Constitution divides Congress into two structures—a House of Representatives and a Senate.
The Founders expected Congress to be the dominant branch of the national government. In fact, Congress was the center of government until the power of the presidency began to increase in the 20th century.
Structure of the House
The House of Representatives is made up of 435 representatives — the number per state varies by population—elected every two years. Today there is one representative for approximately every 621,000 residents.
The internal organization of the House is based on a system of committees and subcommittees. All representatives serve on several committees, and these committees consider all legislation before it is presented to the House as a whole. The committees work to transform ideas into detailed, complex bills.
The most important House committees are the Rules Committee, which decides when and for how long every bill will be debated and whether or not it can be amended; the Ways and Means Committee, which studies the president's budget proposals and demands that administrative agencies justify their requests for money; and the Appropriations Committee, which allots money from the federal budget to support approved measures. Because the committee process is very important, committee chairmen and chairwomen are some of the most powerful people in the House.
The most powerful individual in the House is the Speaker of the House, who presides over the chamber, refers bills to committees, appoints representatives to special committees, and grants representatives the right to speak during chamber debates. The Speaker of the House is elected by the entire body and is always a member of the party with a majority of seats in the House.
Structure of the Senate
The Senate is composed of 100 members — two each from the 50 states — who serve six-year terms. The procedures and workings of the Senate are similar to those of the House of Representatives, though because of its smaller membership there are fewer committees and subcommittees.
The Founders designed the Senate to be a deliberative national body, more stable and insulated from popular sentiment than the House. That is why senators serve six-year terms (as opposed to the two-year terms of the House). The Founders also designed the Senate to protect the interests of the states, especially states with small populations, by giving each state the same number of representatives in the Senate. (In the House, states with larger populations have more representatives.)
The vice president of the United States serves as the president of the Senate. But he or she rarely attends its sessions. The Senate selects a president pro tempore (temporary president), who is usually the senior senator of the majority party. He or she supervises the Senate most of the time.
Responsibilities of Congress
The most important of these is lawmaking. Only a small percentage of the bills introduced to Congress actually become law. Congress has the authority to initiate bills to fund federal programs, to set tariffs and taxes, to provide for the national defense, to control immigration, to raise and support a military force, and to declare war. Congress can also impeach and remove federal officials, including the president, from office. Congress is also responsible for congressional investigations. Congress has the authority to investigate and oversee the executive branch and its agencies. Congress can summon senior officials to answer questions, can hold hearings on matters of general public concern. Some congressional investigations, such as those into Watergate and the Iran-Contras Affair, were efforts to limit the growing authority of the executive branch.
Judiciary
The Supreme Court is the highest court in the United States. Those who are dissatisfied with a lower court decision may appeal to the Supreme Court, although very few cases ever reach the court. A ruling of the Supreme Court cannot be appealed. There are currently nine Supreme Court justices, who, like all federal judges, are appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate.
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