A government of limited powers 7Constitution. The Americans had moved back somewhat, therefore, towards
the ideas behind the eighteenth-century constitution of England, but they
did not go all the way. They were not prepared to give to their president the
prerogatives that had been exercised by the British monarch. They gave to
Congress the power to declare war, they subjected the making of treaties and
of the appointment of senior officials and judges to the approval of the Sen-
ate, and they provided that the president’s legislative veto could be overrid-
den by a two-thirds majority of both Houses of Congress. Thus they erected
the structure of government in such a way that no single part could of itself
exercise supreme power. To obtain effective action there had to be agree-
ment between the differing parts of the system of government. To ensure the
stability of this system they provided that the Constitution could be amended
only by a long and difficult process, which required the agreement of three-
quarters of the legislatures of the states. Thus the major political problem in
the United States has been the working of this Constitution, particularly in
moments of crisis, in order to get the necessary decisions taken.
The Bill of Rights
The Constitution came into effect in 1789 and set up the institutions of the
new government, but only after a heated debate that brought about a com-
promise between the supporters and the opponents of the proposed new
regime. The Convention which produced the constitutional framework was
dominated by the Federalists, the proponents of a central authority with suf-
ficient powers to establish and maintain an effective system of government to
serve the needs of the ‘United States’ as a whole. In order to come into force,
however, the constitution had to be ratified by at least nine of the twelve
states that had been represented at the convention. There was great opposi-
tion to the new system from the Anti-Federalists, those who feared that the
federal government would become dominant over the states and would be
able to oppress their citizens. In state after state there were demands for
amendments to be made to the draft constitution to meet these fears. The
formal requirement of ratification by nine of the states was achieved on 21
June 1788, but two of the largest states, Virginia and New York, had still not
agreed to implement the constitution. Without them the new government
would hardly be able to survive. The leaders of the Federalists pledged them-
selves to make changes in the Constitution, and as soon as the first Congress
was assembled, a resolution was introduced to add ten amendments to the
Constitution, which were ratified in 1791 and became the Bill of Rights. It
set out in detail the protection that was felt to be necessary to guard Ameri-
can citizens against possible oppression by the new federal government. The
freedom of religion, of speech, of the press, the freedom to bear arms, free-
dom from arbitrary arrest, and the right not be deprived of life, liberty or
property without due process of law were set out in the Bill of Rights.
Federalism and the separation of powers fragmented the constitutional