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War Powers
Article I, Section 8, Clause 11 of the U.S. Constitution, sometimes referred to as the War Powers Clause, vests in the Congress the power to declare war, in the following wording: :'' he Congress shall have Power ...To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water...'' A number of wars have been declared under the U.S. Constitution, although there is some controversy as to the exact number; the Constitution does not specify the form of such a declaration. History and usage Five wars have been declared by Congress under their constitutional power to do so: the War of 1812, the Mexican–American War, the Spanish–American War, World WarI, and World WarII. In a message to Congress on May 11, 1846, President James K. Polk announced that the Republic of Texas was about to become a state. After Mexico threatened to invade Texas, Polk amassed federal troops around Corpus Christi. When Texas became a state, federal t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
United States Constitution
The Constitution of the United States is the Supremacy Clause, supreme law of the United States, United States of America. It superseded the Articles of Confederation, the nation's first constitution, in 1789. Originally comprising seven articles, it delineates the national frame of government. Its first three articles embody the doctrine of the separation of powers, whereby the federal government of the United States, federal government is divided into three branches: the United States Congress, legislative, consisting of the bicameralism, bicameral United States Congress, Congress (Article One of the United States Constitution, Article I); the Federal government of the United States#Executive branch, executive, consisting of the President of the United States, president and subordinate officers (Article Two of the United States Constitution, Article II); and the Federal judiciary of the United States, judicial, consisting of the Supreme Court of the United States, Supreme C ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gulf Of Tonkin Incident
The Gulf of Tonkin incident ( vi, Sự kiện Vịnh Bắc Bộ) was an international confrontation that led to the United States engaging more directly in the Vietnam War. It involved both a proven confrontation on August 2, 1964, carried out by North Vietnamese forces in response to covert operations in the coastal region of the gulf, and a second, claimed confrontation on August 4, 1964, between ships of North Vietnam and the United States in the waters of the Gulf of Tonkin. Originally American claims blamed North Vietnam for both attacks. Later investigation revealed that the second attack never happened; the American claim is that it was based mostly on erroneously interpreted communications intercepts.Robert J. Hanyok"Skunks, Bogies, Silent Hounds, and the Flying Fish: The Gulf of Tonkin Mystery, 2–4 August 1964" Quote: ''This mishandling of the SIGINT was not done in a manner that can be construed as conspiratorial, that is, with manufactured evidence and collusion at ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Elbridge Gerry
Elbridge Gerry (; July 17, 1744 – November 23, 1814) was an American Founding Father, merchant, politician, and diplomat who served as the fifth vice president of the United States under President James Madison from 1813 until his death in 1814. The political practice of gerrymandering is named after him. He was the second vice president to die in office. Born into a wealthy merchant family, Gerry vocally opposed British colonial policy in the 1760s and was active in the early stages of organizing the resistance in the American Revolutionary War. Elected to the Second Continental Congress, Gerry signed both the Declaration of Independence and Articles of Confederation. He was one of three men who attended the Constitutional Convention in 1787 who refused to sign the United States Constitution because it did not include a Bill of Rights at the time it was signed. After its ratification, he was elected to the inaugural United States Congress, where he was actively invo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Philadelphia Convention
The Constitutional Convention took place in Philadelphia from May 25 to September 17, 1787. Although the convention was intended to revise the league of states and first system of government under the Articles of Confederation, the intention from the outset of many of its proponents, chief among them James Madison of Virginia and Alexander Hamilton of New York, was to create a new Frame of Government rather than fix the existing one. The delegates elected George Washington of Virginia, former commanding general of the Continental Army in the late American Revolutionary War (1775–1783) and proponent of a stronger national government, to become President of the convention. The result of the convention was the creation of the Constitution of the United States, placing the Convention among the most significant events in American history. The convention took place in the old Pennsylvania State House (now known as Independence Hall) in Philadelphia. At the time, the convention w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pierce Butler (American Politician)
Pierce Butler (July 11, 1744February 15, 1822) was an Irish-American South Carolina rice planter, slaveholder, politician, officer in the Revolutionary War, and Founding Father of the United States. He served as a state legislator, a member of the Congress of the Confederation, a delegate to the 1787 Constitutional Convention, where he signed the United States Constitution, and a member of the United States Senate. As one of the largest slaveholders in the United States, he defended American slavery for both political and personal motives, even though he had private misgivings about the institution and particularly about the African slave trade. He introduced the Fugitive Slave Clause into a draft of the U.S. Constitution, which gave a federal guarantee to the property rights of slaveholders. He supported counting the full slave population in state totals for the purposes of Congressional apportionment. The Constitution's Three-fifths Compromise counted only three-fifths of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Separation Of Powers
Separation of powers refers to the division of a state's government into branches, each with separate, independent powers and responsibilities, so that the powers of one branch are not in conflict with those of the other branches. The typical division is into three branches: a legislature, an executive, and a judiciary, which is sometimes called the model. It can be contrasted with the fusion of powers in parliamentary and semi-presidential systems where there can be overlap in membership and functions between different branches, especially the executive and legislative, although in most non-authoritarian jurisdictions, the judiciary almost never overlaps with the other branches, whether powers in the jurisdiction are separated or fused. The intention behind a system of separated powers is to prevent the concentration of power by providing for checks and balances. The separation of powers model is often imprecisely and metonymically used interchangeably with the ' princ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
US Supreme Court
The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point of federal law. It also has original jurisdiction over a narrow range of cases, specifically "all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, and those in which a State shall be Party." The court holds the power of judicial review, the ability to invalidate a statute for violating a provision of the Constitution. It is also able to strike down presidential directives for violating either the Constitution or statutory law. However, it may act only within the context of a case in an area of law over which it has jurisdiction. The court may decide cases having political overtones, but has ruled that it does not have power to decide non-justiciable political questions. Established by Article Three of the United States Con ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Continuity Of Government
Continuity of government (COG) is the principle of establishing defined procedures that allow a government to continue its essential operations in case of a catastrophic event such as nuclear war. COG was developed by the British government before and during World War II to counter threats, such as that of the ''Luftwaffe'' bombing during the Battle of Britain. The need for continuity of government plans gained new urgency with nuclear proliferation. During and after the Cold War countries developed such plans to avoid (or minimize) confusion and disorder due to a power vacuum in the aftermath of a nuclear attack. In the US, COG is no longer limited to nuclear emergencies; the Continuity of Operations Plan was activated following the September 11 attacks. By country Canada Canada built numerous nuclear bunkers across the country, nicknamed " Diefenbunkers" in a play on the last name of then-Prime Minister John Diefenbaker. In 2016, the Privy Council Office made an agreement ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Quorum
A quorum is the minimum number of members of a deliberative assembly (a body that uses parliamentary procedure, such as a legislature) necessary to conduct the business of that group. According to '' Robert's Rules of Order Newly Revised'', the "requirement for a quorum is protection against totally unrepresentative action in the name of the body by an unduly small number of persons." In contrast, a plenum is a meeting of the full (or rarely nearly full) body. A body, or a meeting or vote of it, is quorate if a quorum is present (or casts valid votes). The term ''quorum'' is from a Middle English wording of the commission formerly issued to justices of the peace, derived from Latin ''quorum'', "of whom", genitive plural of ''qui'', " who". As a result, ''quora'' as plural of ''quorum'' is not a valid Latin formation. In modern times a quorum might be defined as the minimum number of voters needed for a valid election. In ''Robert's Rules of Order'' According to Robert, each ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Living Document
A living document, also known as an evergreen document or dynamic document, is a document that is continually edited and updated. An example of a living document is an article in Wikipedia, an online encyclopedia that permits anyone to freely edit its articles, in contrast to "dead" or "static" documents, such as an article in a single edition of the ''Encyclopædia Britannica''. A living document may or may not have a framework for updates, changes, or adjustments. This type of document without proper context can change away from its original purpose through multiple uncontrolled edits. This can encourage open collaboration within the network, but in some cases there can also be stagnation if no one takes on the initiative of updating the work. One reason why initiative is not taken to update the document could come from a sense of ambiguity. However, a living document may evolve through successive updates, be expanded as needed, and serve a different purpose over time. Livin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Constitutional Amendment
A constitutional amendment is a modification of the constitution of a polity, organization or other type of entity. Amendments are often interwoven into the relevant sections of an existing constitution, directly altering the text. Conversely, they can be appended to the constitution as supplemental additions (codicils), thus changing the frame of government without altering the existing text of the document. Most constitutions require that amendments cannot be enacted unless they have passed a special procedure that is more stringent than that required of ordinary legislation. Examples of such special procedures include supermajorities in the legislature, or direct approval by the electorate in a referendum, or even a combination of two or more different special procedures. A referendum to amend the constitution may also be triggered in some jurisdictions by popular initiative. Australia and Ireland provide examples of constitutions requiring that all amendments are first pa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
A More Perfect Constitution
''A More Perfect Constitution'' is a book published by American political scientist at the University of Virginia, Larry J. Sabato, in which he proposes a constitutional convention to substantially overhaul the United States Constitution. He points out that after the Bill of Rights, there have only been seventeen constitutional amendments over the past 220 years. He argues that a constitutional convention is overdue and is something that the Founding Fathers would have wanted. He offers 23 proposals for revising the Constitution. Sabato's proposals The twenty-three proposals run the gamut from changing the length of the U.S. President's term in office and the number and terms of Supreme Court justices to altering the structure of Congress, modifying the Electoral College, and introducing universal national service. Each of his proposals could be implemented with concurrence of 2/3 of each house of Congress and 3/4 of the states, except for the proposal to give some states mo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
