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Constitution of the United States: Difference between revisions
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The United States Constitution has been a notable model for governance worldwide, especially through the 1970s. Its international influence is found in similarities in phrasing and borrowed passages in other constitutions, as well as in the principles of the [[rule of law]], [[separation of powers]], and recognition of [[civil liberties|individual rights]].{{Citation needed|date=June 2024}} | The United States Constitution has been a notable model for governance worldwide, especially through the 1970s. Its international influence is found in similarities in phrasing and borrowed passages in other constitutions, as well as in the principles of the [[rule of law]], [[separation of powers]], and recognition of [[civil liberties|individual rights]].{{Citation needed|date=June 2024}} | ||
The American experience of fundamental law with amendments and [[judicial review]] has motivated [[Constitutionalism|constitutionalists]] at times when they were considering the possibilities for their nation's future.{{sfn|Billias|2009|loc=xi–xv}} It informed Abraham Lincoln during the | The American experience of fundamental law with amendments and [[judicial review]] has motivated [[Constitutionalism|constitutionalists]] at times when they were considering the possibilities for their nation's future.{{sfn|Billias|2009|loc=xi–xv}} It informed Abraham Lincoln during the American Civil War,{{refn|group= lower-alpha |"Secession was indeed unconstitutional ... military resistance to secession was not only constitutional but also morally justified.{{sfn|Farber|2003|p=3}} "the ''primary'' purpose of the Constitution was ... to create 'a more perfect union' ... the Constitution was an exercise in nation building.{{sfn|Farber|2003|p=198}}}} his contemporary and ally [[Benito Juárez]] of Mexico,{{refn|group= lower-alpha |Juarez regarded the United States as a model of republican democracy and consistently supported Abraham Lincoln.{{sfn|Stacy|2003|p=436}}}} and the second generation of 19th-century constitutional nationalists, [[José Rizal]] of the Philippines{{refn|group= lower-alpha |The institutions of the two countries which have most influenced constitutional development are Spain and the United States". One of the reforms, "sine quibus non", to use the words of Rizal and Mabini, always insisted upon by the Filipinos, was Philippine representation in the [[Cortes Generales|Spanish Cortes]], the promulgation in the Islands of the Spanish Constitution, and the complete assimilation equal to that of any in the Spanish provinces on the continent.{{sfn|Malcolm|1920|p=109}}}} and [[Sun Yat-sen]] of China.{{refn|group= lower-alpha |In the modern history of China, there were many revolutionaries who tried to seek the truth from the West in order to overthrow the feudal system of the [[Qing dynasty]]. [[Sun Yat-sen]], for example, was much influenced by American democracy, especially the U.S. Constitution.{{sfn|Qing Yu|1988|p=193}}}} The framers of the [[Australian constitution]] integrated federal ideas from the U.S. and other constitutions.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Aroney|first=Nicholas|url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/constitution-of-a-federal-commonwealth/E685089E543B0D14B22136FD7FEA922D#fndtn-information|title=The constitution of a federal commonwealth: the making and meaning of the Australian constitution|date=2009|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-1-139-12968-8|location=Cambridge, UK|oclc=774393122}}</ref> | ||
Since the 1980s, the influence of the United States Constitution has been waning as other countries have created new constitutions or updated older constitutions, a process which [[Sanford Levinson]] believes to be more difficult in the United States than in any other country.<ref name=":0" /><ref name="jr-diusc">{{cite news |last=Weigel |first=Margaret |date=April 9, 2013 |title=The Declining Influence of the United States Constitution |url=http://journalistsresource.org/studies/government/federalstate/decline-influence-united-states-constitution/ |access-date=April 23, 2015 |website=Journalist's Resource |publisher=[[Harvard Kennedy School of Government]] [[Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy]]}}</ref><ref name="diusc">{{cite journal |last1=Law |first1=David S. |last2=Versteeg |first2=Mila |year=2012 |title=The Declining Influence of the United States Constitution |journal=[[New York University Law Review]] |volume=87 |issue=3 |pages=762–858 |ssrn=1923556}}</ref> | Since the 1980s, the influence of the United States Constitution has been waning as other countries have created new constitutions or updated older constitutions, a process which [[Sanford Levinson]] believes to be more difficult in the United States than in any other country.<ref name=":0" /><ref name="jr-diusc">{{cite news |last=Weigel |first=Margaret |date=April 9, 2013 |title=The Declining Influence of the United States Constitution |url=http://journalistsresource.org/studies/government/federalstate/decline-influence-united-states-constitution/ |access-date=April 23, 2015 |website=Journalist's Resource |publisher=[[Harvard Kennedy School of Government]] [[Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy]]}}</ref><ref name="diusc">{{cite journal |last1=Law |first1=David S. |last2=Versteeg |first2=Mila |year=2012 |title=The Declining Influence of the United States Constitution |journal=[[New York University Law Review]] |volume=87 |issue=3 |pages=762–858 |ssrn=1923556}}</ref> | ||
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The United States Constitution has faced various criticisms since its inception in 1787. | The United States Constitution has faced various criticisms since its inception in 1787. | ||
The Constitution did not originally define who was [[Voting rights in the United States|eligible to vote]], allowing each state to determine who was eligible. In the early history of the U.S., most states allowed only [[White Americans|white]] male adult property owners to vote; the notable exception was New Jersey, where women were able to vote on the same basis as men.<ref>{{cite web|title=Expansion of Rights and Liberties—The Right of Suffrage|url=https://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/charters_of_freedom_13.html|website=Online Exhibit: The Charters of Freedom|publisher=National Archives|access-date=April 21, 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160706144856/http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/charters_of_freedom_13.html|archive-date=July 6, 2016}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|title=U.S. Voting Rights|url=http://www.infoplease.com/timelines/voting.html|publisher=Infoplease|access-date=April 21, 2015}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal|title=Voting in Early America|journal=Colonial Williamsburg|volume=Spring 2007|url=http://www.history.org/Foundation/journal/spring07/elections.cfm|access-date=April 21, 2015}}</ref> Until the [[Reconstruction Amendments]] were adopted between 1865 and 1870, the five years immediately following the | The Constitution did not originally define who was [[Voting rights in the United States|eligible to vote]], allowing each state to determine who was eligible. In the early history of the U.S., most states allowed only [[White Americans|white]] male adult property owners to vote; the notable exception was New Jersey, where women were able to vote on the same basis as men.<ref>{{cite web|title=Expansion of Rights and Liberties—The Right of Suffrage|url=https://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/charters_of_freedom_13.html|website=Online Exhibit: The Charters of Freedom|publisher=National Archives|access-date=April 21, 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160706144856/http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/charters_of_freedom_13.html|archive-date=July 6, 2016}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|title=U.S. Voting Rights|url=http://www.infoplease.com/timelines/voting.html|publisher=Infoplease|access-date=April 21, 2015}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal|title=Voting in Early America|journal=Colonial Williamsburg|volume=Spring 2007|url=http://www.history.org/Foundation/journal/spring07/elections.cfm|access-date=April 21, 2015}}</ref> Until the [[Reconstruction Amendments]] were adopted between 1865 and 1870, the five years immediately following the American Civil War, the Constitution did not abolish slavery, nor give citizenship and voting rights to former slaves.<ref>{{cite web |url= http://www.gilderlehrman.org/history-by-era/reconstruction/essays/reconstruction-amendments-official-documents-social-history |last= Foner |first= Eric |title= The Reconstruction Amendments: Official Documents as Social History |publisher= The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History |access-date= December 5, 2012 |url-access=subscription}}</ref> These amendments did not include a specific prohibition on discrimination in voting on the basis of sex; it took another amendment—the [[Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution|Nineteenth]], ratified in 1920—for the Constitution to prohibit any United States citizen from being denied the right to vote on the basis of sex.<ref>{{cite web |url= https://www.archives.gov/exhibits/featured_documents/amendment_19/ |title= The Constitution: The 19th Amendment |publisher= National Archives and Records Administration |access-date= December 5, 2012}}</ref> | ||
According to a 2012 study by David Law and Mila Versteeg published in the ''[[New York University Law Review]]'', the U.S. Constitution guarantees relatively few rights compared to the constitutions of other countries and contains fewer than half (26 of 60) of the provisions listed in the average bill of rights. It is also one of the few in the world today that still features the [[right to keep and bear arms]]; the other two being the constitutions of [[Guatemala]] and [[Mexico]].<ref name="jr-diusc" /><ref name="diusc" /> | According to a 2012 study by David Law and Mila Versteeg published in the ''[[New York University Law Review]]'', the U.S. Constitution guarantees relatively few rights compared to the constitutions of other countries and contains fewer than half (26 of 60) of the provisions listed in the average bill of rights. It is also one of the few in the world today that still features the [[right to keep and bear arms]]; the other two being the constitutions of [[Guatemala]] and [[Mexico]].<ref name="jr-diusc" /><ref name="diusc" /> | ||