Four Major Principles of the COnstitution
...hreaten the existence of the separate states. This is done through federalism and through a Congress connected to the states through elections. Federalism is the division of governing authority between the state and national levels. Each directly governs the people and gets their power from them. The founding fathers believed that federalism was essential; claiming that it would protect freedom, moderate the power of government, and provide the foundation for a strong and active national government. The third goal of the Constitution is to create a government that would not threaten freedom. This would be the reason for our elaborate system of checks and balances. The idea was to divide power amongst the different branches of government so that no single institution could apply significant amounts of power without the agreement of other institutions. This led to the separate branches being intertwined in such a way that an elaborate system of checks and balances was created. An example might be the shared judicial power amongst the Supreme Court and the federal courts, which are subject to checks by the other branches of the federal government. The final goal of our Constitution was the creation of a government based on popular sovereignty. This is carried out in the direct and indirect election of public offi...