Thursday, March 19, 2020

Preamble to the U.S. Constitution

Preamble to the U.S. Constitution The Preamble to the U.S. Constitution summarizes the Founding Fathers’ intention to create a federal government dedicated to ensuring that â€Å"We the People† always live in a safe, peaceful, healthy, well-defended- and most of all- free nation.  Ã‚  The preamble states: â€Å"We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.† As the Founders intended, the Preamble has no force in law. It grants no powers to the federal or state governments, nor does it limit the scope of future government actions. As a result, the Preamble has never been cited by any federal court, including the U.S. Supreme Court, in deciding cases dealing with constitutional issues. Also known as the â€Å"Enacting Clause,† the Preamble did not become a part of the Constitution until the final few days of the Constitutional Convention after Gouverneur Morris, who had also signed the Articles of Confederation, pressed for its inclusion. Before it was drafted, the Preamble had not been proposed or discussed on the floor of the convention. The first version of the preamble did not refer to, â€Å"We the People of the United States†¦Ã¢â‚¬  Instead, it referred to the people of the individual states. The word â€Å"people† did not appear, and the phrase â€Å"the United States† was followed by a listing of the states as they appeared on the map from north to south. However, the Framers changed to the final version when they realized that the Constitution would go into effect as soon as nine states gave their approval, whether any of the remaining states had ratified it or not. The Value of the Preamble The Preamble explains why we have and need the Constitution. It also gives us the best summary we will ever have of what the Founders were considering as they hashed out the basics of the three branches of government. In his highly acclaimed book, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States, Justice Joseph Story wrote of the Preamble, â€Å"its true office is to expound the nature and extent and application of the powers actually conferred by the Constitution.† In addition, no less noted authority on the Constitution than Alexander Hamilton himself, in Federalist No. 84, stated that the Preamble gives us â€Å"a better recognition of popular rights than volumes of those aphorisms which make the principal figure in several of our State bills of rights, and which would sound much better in a treatise of ethics than in a constitution of government.† James Madison, one of the leading architects of the Constitution, may have put it best when he wrote in The Federalist No. 49: [T]he people are the only legitimate fountain of power, and it is from them that the constitutional charter, under which the several branches of government hold their power, is derived . . . . Understand the Preamble, Understand the Constitution Each phrase in the Preamble helps explain the purpose of the Constitution as envisioned by the Framers. ‘We the People’ This well-known key phrase means that the Constitution incorporates the visions of all Americans and that the rights and freedoms bestowed by the document belong to all citizens of the United States of America. ‘In order to form a more perfect union’ The phrase recognizes that the old government based on the Articles of Confederation was extremely inflexible and limited in scope, making it hard for the government to respond to the changing needs of the people over time.   ‘Establish justice’ The lack of a system of justice ensuring fair and equal treatment of the people had been the primary reason for the Declaration of Independence and the American Revolution against England. The Framers wanted to ensure a fair and equal system of justice for all Americans. ‘Insure domestic tranquility’ The Constitutional Convention was held shortly after Shays’ Rebellion, a bloody uprising of farmers in Massachusetts against the state caused by the monetary debt crisis at the end of the Revolutionary War. In this phrase, the Framers were responding to fears that the new government would be unable to keep peace within the nation’s borders. ‘Provide for the common defense’ The Framers were acutely aware that the new nation remained extremely vulnerable to attacks by foreign nations and that no individual state had the power to repel such attacks. Thus, the need for a unified, coordinated effort to defend the nation would always be a vital function of the U.S. federal government. ‘Promote the general welfare’ The Framers also recognized that the general well-being of the American citizens would be another key responsibility of the federal government. ‘Secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity’ The phrase confirms the Framer’s vision that the very purpose of the Constitution is to protect the nation’s blood-earned rights for liberty, justice, and freedom from a tyrannical government. ‘Ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America’ Simply stated, the Constitution and the government it embodies are created by the people, and that it is the people who give America its power. The Preamble in Court While the Preamble has no legal standing, the courts have used it in trying to interpret the meaning and intent of various sections of the Constitution as they apply to modern legal situations. In this way, courts have found the Preamble useful in determining the â€Å"spirit† of the Constitution. Whose Government is it and What is it For? The Preamble contains what may be the most important three words in our nation’s history: â€Å"We the People.† Those three words, along with the brief balance of the Preamble, establish the very basis of our system of â€Å"federalism,† under which the states and central government are granted both shared and exclusive powers, but only with the approval of â€Å"We the people.† Compare the Constitution’s Preamble to its counterpart in the Constitution’s predecessor, the Articles of Confederation. In that compact, the states alone formed â€Å"a firm league of friendship, for their common defense, the security of their liberties, and their mutual and general welfare† and agreed to protect each other â€Å"against all force offered to, or attacks made upon them, or any of them, on account of religion, sovereignty, trade, or any other pretence whatever.† Clearly, the Preamble sets the Constitution apart from the Articles of Confederation as being an agreement among the people, rather than the states, and placing an emphasis on rights and freedoms above the military protection of the individual states.

Tuesday, March 3, 2020

Objects in English Grammar

Objects in English Grammar In English grammar, an object is a  noun, a noun phrase, or a pronoun that is affected by the action of a verb. Objects give our language detail and texture by allowing the creation of complex sentences.  Prepositions also have objects. Types of Objects Objects can function three ways within a sentence. The first two are  easy to spot because they follow the verb: Direct objects  are the results of action. A subject does something, and the product is the object itself. For example, consider this sentence: Marie wrote a poem. In this case, the  noun poem follows the transitive verb wrote and completes the meaning of the sentence.Indirect objects  receive or respond to the outcome of an action. Consider this example: Marie sent me an email. The pronoun me  comes after the verb sent and before the noun email, which is the direct object in this sentence. The indirect object always goes before the direct object.Objects of a preposition  are nouns and pronouns in a phrase that modifies the meaning of a verb. For instance:  Marie lives in a dorm. In this sentence, the noun dorm follows the preposition in. Together, they form a prepositional phrase. Objects can function in active and passive voice. A noun that serves as a direct object in the active voice becomes the subject when the sentence is rewritten in the passive  voice. For example: Active: Bob purchased a new grill.Passive: A new grill was purchased by Bob. This characteristic, called passivization, is what makes objects unique. Not sure if a word is an object? Try converting it from active to passive voice; if you can, the word is an object. Direct Objects Direct objects identify what or who receives the action of a transitive verb in a clause or sentence.  When pronouns function as direct objects, they customarily take the form of the objective case (me, us, him, her, them, whom, and whomever). Consider the following sentences, taken from Charlottes Web, by E.B. White: She closed the  carton  carefully. First she kissed her  father, then she kissed her  mother. Then she opened the  lid  again, lifted the  pig  out, and held  it  against her  cheek. Theres only one subject in this passage, yet there are six direct objects (carton, father, mother, lid, pig, it), five nouns and a pronoun. Gerunds (verbs ending in ing that act as nouns) sometimes also serve as direct objects. For example: Jim enjoys gardening on the weekends.   My mother included reading and baking in her list of hobbies. Indirect Objects Nouns and pronouns also function as indirect objects. These objects are the beneficiaries or recipients of the action in a sentence. Indirect objects answer the questions to/for whom and to/for what.  For example: My aunt opened her purse and gave the man a quarter. It was his birthday so Mom had  baked Bob  a  chocolate cake. In the first example, the man is given a coin. The quarter is a direct object and it benefits the man, an indirect object. In the second example, the cake is the direct object and it benefits Bob, the indirect object. Prepositions and Verbs Objects that pair with prepositions function differently from direct and indirect objects, which follow verbs. These nouns and verbs reference a preposition and modify the action of the larger sentence. For example: Girls are playing basketball around a utility  pole  with a metal hoop bolted to  it. He sat in the basement of the building, among the boxes, reading a book on his break.   In the first example, the prepositional objects are pole and hoop. in the second example, the prepositional objects are basement, building, boxes, and break. Like direct objects, prepositional  objects receive the action of the subject in the sentences yet need a preposition for the sentence to make sense. Spotting prepositions is important because if you use the wrong one, it can confuse readers. Consider how odd the second sentence would sound if it began, He sat on the basement...   Transitive verbs also require an object for them to make sense. There are three kinds of transitive verbs. Monotransitive verbs have a direct object, whereas ditransitive verbs have a direct object and an indirect object. Complex-transitive verbs have a direct object and an object attribute. For example: Monotransitive: Bob bought a car. (The direct object is car.)Ditransitive: Bob gave me the keys to his new car. (The indirect object is me; the direct object is keys.)Complex-transitive: I heard  him shouting. (The direct object is him; the object attribute is shouting.) Intransitive verbs, on the other hand, do not need an object in order to complete their meaning. Sources Woods, Geraldine. Using Pronouns as Direct and Indirect Objects. Dummies.com. Staff editors. Pronoun Case. Cliffsnotes.com. Staff editors. Direct and Indirect Object Pronouns. University of Wisconsin-Madison.