When crafting the Constitution, one of the central concerns of the Founding generation was how best to control government power. With the new Constitution, the Framers looked to strike an important balance—creating a new national government that was more powerful than the one that came before it while still protecting the American people’s most cherished liberties. They settled on a national government with defined but limited powers. Instead of placing authority in the hands of a single person (like a king), a small group of people (like an aristocracy), or even the whole people (like a direct democracy), the Framers divided power in two ways. At the national level, the Framers divided power between the three branches of government—the legislative branch, the executive branch and the judicial branch. This process of dividing power between different branches of government is called the separation of powers. From there, the Framers further divided power between the national government and the states under a system known as federalism. In this module, students will explore the key functions of the different parts of government and the role that the Constitution plays in controlling government power.
Purpose
When crafting a new Constitution, the framers were concerned about the threats posed by a powerful new national government. To guard against potential abuses of power, the Founding generation divided power.
In this activity, you will explore the separation of powers and federalism.
Process
Complete the Activity Guide: Separation of Powers, Checks and Balances, and Federalism Reflection worksheet. Discuss with your group your understanding of the separation of powers, checks and balances, and federalism.
After your discussion, your teacher will lead you through an activity to determine your understanding of separation of powers and checks and balances, in particular.
Launch
Open the discussion by asking students what they know about separation of powers, checks and balances, and federalism. Then, ask them whether there's anything they wonder about those key principles.
Activity Synthesis
After students complete their group discussions, lead them through the Activity Guide: Separation of Powers and Federalism: Whose job (or check), is it? document. You may distribute the document or use it to lead class discussion.
Now that students have a better understanding of the separation of powers, ask students to identify examples of when a branch has the sole power to work alone and when a branch must work with another branch to take action.
Ask the students these follow-up questions:
As part of the discussion, connect the principles of the separation of powers, checks and balances, and federalism to the broader theory of our republic: the need to both check abuses of power and create a government that creates policy that serves the common good (by slowing politics down, blocking bad ideas, curbing abuse, promoting deliberation, valuing principled compromise, etc.).
Students should see not only the value of checking government abuse, but also the constructive parts of our complicated system—how it might promote good policy—and also reflect on whether they think that the founders struck the right balance.
To frame this part of the discussion, ask students to reflect on the following questions: