During the American Revolution, delegates from each state went to Philadelphia for the Constitutional Convention.  They were to rewrite the Articles of Confederation, but instead they published our constitution.  This document was written over 200 years ago and it still applies to every American today.  This has made the United States of America run very smoothly even during hardships.  This helpedshape our country into a world power. 

       The delegates, who were representatives from the colonies, were afraid of a powerful central government.  This is why they created the checks and balances system.  This means that none of the branches of government could have more power over another.   They believed that this would be efficient without taking away the people’s freedom.   These are some of the checks and balances:

Executive branch over the judicial branch
The President appoints all federal judges.

Legislative branch over the executive branch
The legislative branch must approve appointments that the President
makes. The Senate must approve treaties that the President makes, and the legislative branch can investigate the executive branch.

Legislative branch over the judicial branch
The legislative branch must approve the President’s choice of judges in the judicial branch. 

Legislative branch over the executive branch and the judicial branch
The legislative branch has impeachment powers over federal officers.

       Congress is split into two houses.  The Senate, the main body, has 50 members, 2 from each state, and The House of Representatives, which has 435 members, depending on each state’s population.  These numbers came when the Constitutional Convention was deciding how many member to have.  The big states and littler states wanted to be equal.  So they agreed on 2 Senators from each state and epresentatives relied on the state’s population.  The Congress makes our country’s laws.  They pass bills that they hope the President will not veto.  The Senate approves treaties and they approve the selection of certain federal officers by the President.  They are also the jury in peachment trials.  The House of Representative’s duties are a little bit different.  All revenue bills must start in the House.  The House of Representatives also has the sole power for impeachment against any federal officer.  They also have a very important duty and that is the duty of selecting the President if neither of the Presidential candidates has a majority in the electoral college. 

    As you can see, the role of Congress is very important to The United States of America.  Congress tries very hard to help every American citizen’s life and they try their hardest to make our country the best.  There are not many differences between the Senate and House of Representatives then and now.  When the Constitution was founded, there were only 13 states, meaning that there were not a lot of Senators or Representatives.  Another thing that changed was that not everyone was included in the Constitution because of slavery.  Now every person is included.  There are not that many differences because the delegates wrote a Constitution that was perfect and wouldn’t needed to be changed.  There have been some amendments added, but it is the same Bill of Rights that have never been changed.

       I believe that The United States Congress continues to function as the framers of the Constitution wanted it to because we have been following the same Constitution for over 200 years!  The United States of America may not have become the country we know if we didn’t follow the Constitution.  We wouldn’t have become the most powerful country in the world.