Daniel Cintron                            assignment 3                                                                    10/1/15

No. 78 is an early defense of the principle of "judicial review" which gives power to the Supreme Court to strike down laws or other actions that contradicts the Constitution

What were the flaws of the government under the Articles of Confederation that Hamilton was specifically concerned with? Why was a strong national government the solution to the problems that Hamilton saw? Consider the following quote by Hamilton from no. 15, “Power controlled or abridged is almost always the rival and enemy of that power by which it is controlled or abridged” (p. 112), another way of stating the idea of checks and balances, power checks power.

Overall this passage is about questioning power, specifically an abundance of power being giving to one side of government in regards to the Articles of Confederation. Alexander Hamilton was afraid that there would be more power on one side than the other in terms of the form of government, therefore in his quote he mentioned the idea of checks and balances. The concept of checks and balances is to guarantee that based on the government, one side does not obtain more power than the other. The meaning of this paragraph is to question if the national government is getting too much power or not enough power, either situation can cause chaos within the nation, which is why the checks and balances was such a great idea, too balance power under the Articles of Confederation.

In my opinion, I believe this paragraph is important because, from what I understood, a serious problem could have upraised if Alexander Hamilton did not mention the concept of checks and balances in his quote. It is important to have power within a national government, however each part or branch of the national government should have an equal amount of power, or otherwise maybe in the future a civil war will be declared. The reason why I chose this paragraph is because, I feel like power is always be a topic within the discussions of the United States national government. Whether it was in the past, in the present, or in the future, power is somehow related to the conflicts within a nation’s government.

Daniel Cintron                            assignment 1                                                                      9/17/15
A majority (57%) of Americans believe the federal government today has too much power. Most of the rest say the government has about the right amount of power. Few say the government has too little power. Americans were least likely to be concerned about the government's power in the years immediately after 9/11, but half or more since 2005 have said it has too much power. Partisan views about government power are highly dependent on which party controls government, and on the political and social environment at the time of the survey. At this point, 77% of Republicans say the government has too much power, compared with 63% of independents and 32% of Democrats -- which reflects the current Republican position that there is too much government spending and power in domestic and economic affairs.
However, when George W. Bush was president, Democrats were more concerned than Republicans about government power. In Gallup's September 2005 Governance survey, for example, 55% of Democrats said the government had too much power, compared with 50% of independents and 41% of Republicans. At that point, Democrats were almost certainly interpreting this question in terms of government anti-terrorism actions taken after 9/11, including the Patriot Act.

In my opinion, this passage is seems to mainly focus on separation of power within the government political parties. More specifically, the passage emphasizes the opinions of Americans based on the amount of power the government has. Also political parties, such as the Democrats, and Republicans, along with the independents, voiced their opinions about the amount of federal government power between the years 2001 and 2005. According to percentage rates, there was a majority of Americans who believed the government had too much power, along with the political parties, and some thought the government did not have enough power. I think the meaning of this passage is to portray the beliefs of the amount of government power between the time of 9/11 and the years after, to give Americans an idea of how the country had changed in terms of power distribution, based on how the 9/11 tragedy was handled and viewed between political parties.

The reason why I chose this passage is because, the opinions of Americans and political parties in the distribution of the government power, seems to still be discussed in the present, from what I hear on the news. Either one political party thinks the government has too much power, or the other political power thinks the government has very little power, or both parties agree on the amount of power the government has. I thought this passage was important for the simple fact of my knowledge, I was under the impression that the government is not supposed to have too much power. The government should have equal power, along with political parties and the states. I believe it is important and very necessary to take into account the amount of power the government has, and possibly avoid some sort of dictatorship.