I was in graduate school when I first heard the term “millennial.” It was at a conference. The session was about how to serve millennial students, because they have different characteri…
Source: The Gaslighting of the Millennial Generation
I’ve never before shared a post on WordPress, so hopefully this works as intended. But I thought this was an interesting article.
So as Article One created the Legislative Branch, Article Two creates the executive branch. Notably this branch contains the President and Vice President, but it also contains the cabinet and their departments as well as a few other smaller government offices.
This section sets up the Presidency. Who it is, how long he/she is in there, and how they are elected. Continue reading “The Constitution: Article Two (Part One)”
While the first three sections create Congress, the next 7 sections develop exactly what they can and can not do. This included how often they would meet, requirements for those meetings, their ability to regulate taxation, themselves and how they could create laws.
Continue reading “The Consititution: Article One (Part Three)”
When I first started this essay series, I really had no real understanding of what an Impeachment meant. I assumed that it was akin to governmental criminal trial, that you weren’t “impeached” till they found you guilty. And that it was only for Presidents.
Most of that was wrong. Reading the mentions in Article One’s sections 2 & 3 had me doing some research into what exactly is an impeachment and what is the result of it. Turns out it was a lot different then the image I had in my head.
Impeachments are basically administrative reviews in our government. This is one of the many governmental transfers from our time as a colony of Great Britian, where impeachment was a power of Parliament. A committee is formed in the House to look into and investigate claims that are impeachable offenses (which honestly tend to be a little vague and on occasion partisan). After the investigation, the House can either decide there isn’t any evidence (or perhaps not enough) or they feel there is enough and Impeach the person in question. So basically being ‘impeached’ is being accused of doing something that goes against the office you hold, or laws.
Once the House impeaches the officer, it then goes over to the Senate. Impeachments are supposed to be high priority over any other business the Senate might be looking into, and they prepare to hear the evidence on the impeachment. In order to be found guilty, the Senate must vote with a 2/3 majority.
There have been several impeachments over the years, the most known are probably the 2 presidential impeachments: Andrew Johnson and William Jefferson Clinton. Also within the Watergate Scandal, Impeachment was implied.
In 1868, Andrew Johnson was impeached by the House for breaking the Tenure of Office Act, which had been passed the year before overriding Johnson’s veto. The law restricted the President’s ability to remove office holders (like cabinet members) from office without the okay of Congress. This was also part of an ongoing feud between him and congress over the reconstruction plan for the south. The President wanted to accept all the states back immediately while Congress preferred to wait and have them under military law till they proved they could be loyal. (personally, I side with Johnson on this). Johnson wanted to remove his Secretary of War, who was a Republican and indicted under Lincoln’s tenure. When he did, the House began to investigate him for breaking the law. This law would later be thrown out by the Supreme Court and later Congress in 1887 itself for being unconstitutional. He ended up being acquitted and going on to serve as Senator before his death in 1885.
Bill Clinton’s Impeachment trial is probably more familiar to more of us, as it happened only recently in history. Clinton was impeached by the House on December 18, 1998 on charges of perjury and obstruction of justice brought on by an investigation by Ken Starr into the President’s behavior during a recent sex assault trial brought by one of Clinton’s former employees.. The trial was hotly debated and Clinton ended up being acquitted by a single vote.
Richard Nixon was never impeached, although it is considered that had he not resigned and turned over the office to Gerald Ford (who pardoned him) he would have had to go through an impeachment trial. So in effect, his presidency was ended by the threat of impeachment rather then the impeachment itself.
So that explains why I knew of it as being a way to remove a President from office. But it turns out its a way to remove other governmental officials from office. There have been 19 federal impeachments. The Majority of those impeached by the House of Representatives were judges. Only four were not. These were the aforementioned Presidents, a Cabinet Secretary and a US Senator. Only 8 of the 19 were convicted, the rest were acquitted.
Notable impeachments include:
An impeachment trial does not end up like a criminal case does. They are only given the power to remove a person from their position in the government and disqualify them from future office, not to sentence them for their crimes, which would have to be seen to under a civilian criminal court.
During most cases, the Vice President resides over the trial as leader of the Senate. However, during Presidential impeachments it is left to the Chief Justice. The prosecutors are members of the House, choose to represent them in the case. The Senate acts like the jury.
The House has looked into over 60 impeachments, but only 19 have actually been passed on to the Senate.
Further Reading/Sources
The Impeachment of Bill Clinton (Wikipedia)
Impeachment in the United States (Wikipedia)
The Impeachment Trial of Alcee L. Hastings (Senate.gov)
Briefing on Impeachment (Senate.gov)
Complete list of Impeachment trials by Federal Senate (Senate.gov (same link as above, only more specific)
Impeachment: US House of Representatives (House.gov)
In our previous post, I talked about Article One’s second section, which developed the House of Representatives. The third section likewise develops another branch of the government
Section Three: The Senate
In the Articles of Confederation, our original constitution, there was only a single body legislative branch. It gave each state one vote, with the ability to have a delegation team making said vote. Many people wanted to keep this when they sat down to revise and come up with a new Constitution. The Senate is inspired by the Ancient Roman equivalent, which each region had Senator representing them. These were meant to be wise statesmen who had the best interests of their people at heart.
Well, in compromise with those who wanted more democracy and less republic, they made two. The House of Representative which contains representation by population, and the Senate which has representation by set amount.
Under Section Three, the senate gives each state two votes. This has not changed. We continue to have 2 Senators per state admitted to the union (So the first Senate had 26 Senators. much smaller room then the 100 Senators we have now.)
Each Senator had to abide by a few guidelines. They had to be over 30, been a US citizen for at least 9 years. This was important because when the nation first started, there were no technical “naturally born” US Citizens as the country hadn’t existed at the time. Now, it allows for immigrants to be a part of their new country’s government.
Term limits were given at 6 years per term to provide them an ability to avoid being caught up in short term trends and fads on the political scene. Starting during the first congress in 1789, they began a three class rota of elections (Class A would be elected the first 2 year election, Class B would be at 4 years, class C would be at 6 years, this making sure that every six years we didn’t end up with all our Senators running for re-election.
Section three also talks about the Senate leadership. The House of Representatives chooses their own head, known as the Speaker of the House. The Senate on the other hand does not, instead the Vice President (and Section 3 is the first to mention the post) is the lead officer. There are various other leadership positions that are elected by their fellow senators but the Vice President presides over the Senate, only voting when there is a tie.
When it was originally written, the constitution supplied Senators by appointment rather then public elections. They were voted on by the state legislatures. However in 1913, this was changed to public elections with the 17th Amendment, which we still hold. It also allowed for the Governor to have a election to fill the spot if there was a vacancy for some reason during a non election year. Originally they could only fill the vacancy until the next meeting of the legislature who when then choose who would fill in.
The Senate also has the power to try all impeachments made by the House of Representatives. I have decided that because it would take up a lot of space to do a separate post on Impeachment. In summary however, the basic process is the House makes the charge, and then the Senate is the jury/judge.
The Senate convened for the first time, according to their website, on March 4, 1789 in New York City’s Federal Hall. It had to wait till April 6 to complete business, as that required that half +1 of the elected were present. (Currently that would be 51 people). Their first act was to elect a doorkeeper, who kept the public out till the Senate was open for public viewing in 1790, and afterwards kept the galleries in order as well as make sure any shipment of Senate materials be kept in order as the Capital changed.
That position still exists, actually. Currently it is held by Frank J. Larkin. The position is elected by the Senate and serves as an officer of the law, protocol enforcement, and administrative managing.
Further Reading/Sources
The US Senate: Origins and Development (Senate.gov)
Senators of the 114th Congress (Senate.gov) – You can find contact information for your senator here. They have it available to filter by class, state or last name.
Office of the Sergeant at Arms and Doorkeeper (or the dude who does everything but sit and vote) (Senate.gov)
The Constitution (2007 Edition, GPO.gov)
The Articles of Confederation (Yale Law School: Lillian Goldman Law Library)
The Constitution in its first article goes about the design of our legislature.
Section One: Congress
This section is brief. In fact, It’s probably shorter than the paragraph I’m writing about it. It essentially gives the powers to legislate to ‘Congress’ and explains its design. In the United States, we have a bicameral legislature – meaning we have two governing bodies. In the original Articles of the Confederation, we were unicameral and each state got one vote when it assembled. There was quite a debate about staying that way. However, in the end, it was decided that a bicameral design was best for the new nation.
Section Two: The House Continue reading “The Consitution: Article One (Part 1)”
Since I did a series on the amendments of the constitution, I decided to do a series on the actual articles. The seven sections of our constitution that tell us how our government is set up and the basic rules it is guided by.
This page will be set up as both the introductory Post (as of July 9, 2016) and afterwards as a master-post of all the posts I write about it. This may become more than just seven posts, as each article has sections that might require their own post, or in the case of the 7th, discussion on who actually signed.
I hope you enjoy this series of blog posts.
In 1776 the Continental Congress, a group made up of representatives from various colonies in British North America, got together to write and release a document known as the Declaration of Independence. This was already a year into what would become known as the American Revolution. On November 15, 1777 they adopted the Articles of Confederation to base their new government on. It was not untill March 1, 1781 that it was finally ratified by all 13 of the original states.
However, it was soon found to be problematic as it had too weak of a central government. The Central government relied heavily on the states for finding funds to fund all their responsibilities and also required unanimous votes during key issues, which caused many problems because as with today, hardly ever is America 100% unanimous. As a result, a Constitutional Convention was brought together to work on a new and improved constitution in 1787 with delegates from 12 of the states (Rhode Island stayed home). Two years later on March 4, 1789, the new and improved (and still existing) Constitution of the United States was created.
However the balance of power between the central and state governments remains a heated debate in American Politics. In the years since the creation of the current constitution of the United States, the government has found it necessary to “amend” it 27 times to strengthen or restrict the central governments powers. On occasion it was a necessary need due to social improvement, and other times it was simply to change to suit the needs of a continuously changing people.
It has one of the most well-known opening lines. Here is the Preamble:
We The People of the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this constitution fo the United States of America.
Continue Reading:
Article One Part Two Part Three
Article Two Part Two
Article Three
Article Four
Article Five
Article Six
Article Seven
The Amendment Series
Intro | One | Two | Three | Four | Five
Six | Seven & Eight | Nine & Ten
Eleven | Twelve | Thirteen | Fourteen | Fifteen
Sixteen | Seventeen | Eighteen | Nineteen | Twenty
Twenty One | Twenty Two | Twenty Three | Twenty Four | Twenty Five
Twenty Six | Twenty Seven | Unratified
The Constitution Tag (All posts related to the Us Constitution, the Articles of the Confederation and the Amendments to the Constitution)
Sources/Other Reading Material/Further Reading
Articles of Confederation (Library of Congress)
The Constitution of the United States (Archives.Gov)
The Constitution (WhiteHouse.gov)
When looking at my daily email about events in history on this day, I found out today in 1776, The Second Continential Congress voted to adopt the resolution of Independence from Great Britian.
The resolution was presented by Richard Henry Lee on June 7th, but due to some lingering doubts from some of the colonies, they decided to wait to vote on July 2nd. In the meantime they set a group off the write up a declaration. This group included John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman, Robert Livingston, and of course Thomas Jefferson. In the end Jefferson was selected to be the primary author (which is why he often gets credit but we don’t often hear about Sherman or Livingston). They managed to present the declaration to Congress on June 28 for review. Not bad, writing a document that will literally change the world in only three weeks.
Since I think most Americans (and probably alot of non-americans) can remember something about Adams Franklin and Jefferson (and not just that two are on our money) I googled the other two.
Roger Sherman is the only man to sign all the starter papers for the US (The Continnental Association (which I just learned about today), The Declaration of Independence, The Articles of Confederation, and the Consitution. He was greatly involved in the reorganization of the Connneticicut government and worked on developing guidelines for ambassadors, particularly those to Canada. And according to Wikipedia, his Great-great grandson helped create the CIA.
Robert Livingston was the first Secratary of State (then called Secretary of Foriegn Affairs), and later as Ambassador to France. It was then that he helped negociate the Louisana purchase, so a third of the country can thank him for being American and not French. He also developed the first steamboat. He got the honor of swearing George Washington in as President.
On July 1st, Congress, like congress today, choose to debate the issue. Unlike congress now, they unanimously voted for it, with only New York abstaining. John Adams, according to History.com, thought that this would be the day we would celebrate. In the end however, we celebrate the day they actually presented the Declaration to the public, July 4th.
Another key document was also signed today. In 1964, Lyndon B. Johnson signed into law The Civil Rights Act. It was something that John F. Kennedy had fought for and that Lyndon Johnson picked up after Kennedy was killed in 1963. Still, I’m not entirely sure how someone uses 75 pens to sign ‘Lyndon B. Johnson’. Even if he spelled out his middle name and the name of the country.
The Civil Rights Act prohibited discrimination against race in employment, education, and in public places such as buses, schools, parks, and pools.
I’ve started to hate the term “Millennial.” It is so often used to disparage those it puts in the group (and it depends on who you talk to who exactly is included). More often than not I read articles about how millennials are disconnected, selfish, have a poor work ethic, are poor parents and poor spouses, and want everything for nothing and want to live off our parents like parasites.
Ok, I haven’t seen anyone use the word parasite but the intention goes in that direction. Rarely do I come across a message about generations that is positive about Millenials. The only one that comes readily to mind is an article I read once about how Millenials, due to growing up with computers, are able to multitask more efficiently, thus making it look like they are doing less work then they are actually doing. I wish I could find that article again to link, but I think it was based on a Mike Rowe comment, although I can’t confirm that.
Millennials, also known as Gen Y, range in age depending on what article you are reading. In general it appears the generation includes those born between 1980 and 2000. Which, if you think about it, is quite a big group. The oldest members of the generation are around 36 years old, the youngest are 16-17 years old. Some websites include more years, making it range from early forties to early teens. So there is a wide arrange of life steps in there. Teenagers, by virtue of their age and inexperience in life still have a lot to learn about living as adults.
Now, this is not to say that there aren’t people within this age group who fit the criteria, but it largely seems to be a media assumption that the whole generation is like that. And on the other side of the coin, there are many who also use the term to lament all the troubles that are put on Millennials. While I agree with some (especially in regards to economics) some are in my opinion just reactionary to being called Lazy all the time.
After all, you get told often enough that you aren’t worth anything, that you are just lazy and aren’t contributing to society you are going to start to believe it and feel like what’s the point.
So maybe we should stop saying how horrible Millenials are, and start trying to point them in directions in which they can become a larger part of the decision-making, and being in control of their own futures. For now its in the hands of the baby boomers who seem to believe we are just TV-addicted people living in our parents homes out of nothing better to do.
There is alot to be said about mind over matter, and these continuing articles about our laziness, being disconnected, not having worthwhile relationships etc basically are telling Millenials there is nothing good about a fairly large group of people. A group that one day will be the generation holding the power positions. Maybe trying to understand how they might work differently than older generations, might react differently to different situations might improve the poor opinion that the older media (and occasionally millenials themselves) have of the a generation that includes 20 years worth of people.
So in summary: Stop generalizing the generation. Stop looking at how horrible you think they are, Media, and start thinking about the possible good in them.
Of course, being devils advocate and making clickbait articles makes you the money, doesn’t it?
There are several amendments that have not passed congress. There are amendments that passed but failed to ratify before their time was up. And there is even one or two that are still floating around timeless from the 1700s.
Since there are several of them, I’m going to put them under a read more due to length.
Sokorra Lewis 