1) Popular Sovereignty- All of the power lies in the hands of people of the United States who are sovereign. Government can only govern if it is given permission by those who are governed. The overall meaning of popular sovereignty is that the National Government draws its power from the people of the United States and that the people have given their government the power that it has threw the constitution. The government only has the power to make decisions because the people who are governed by them give them the power to do so but if the government abuses the power that they have been given the people have the right to overthrow their government and change it.
2) Limited Government- The principle of limited government explains itself in the title. Limited Government means that the government may only do things that the people that they have government give them the power to do. Unlike popular sovereignty limited government is the opposite where the people are the only source of any and all of governments authority and government has only that authority that people have given to it. The overall theme of this principle is that the government must follow the law. The government must follow all constitutional laws and principles for it to be able to have control over the people and to make decisions.
3) Separation of Powers- In a parliamentary system the legislative, executive, and judicial powers of government are all gathered in the hands of a single agency. Our government runs almost the same except the three powers are separated. This is called a presidential system where the three powers are separated into three distinct and independent branches. Our constitution distributes the powers of the National Government among Congress, the President, and the courts.
4) Checks and Balances- The government is organized around three separate branches. Though the constitution says that these three powers must be separated they are still connected and are not completely independent of each other. What ties them together is known as checks and balances. This means that each branch is subject to a number of constitutional restraints or checks by the other branches. This means that each branch has certain powers with which it can check the operations of the other two. Congress has the power to make laws but the president may veto any act of congress but Congress can also override a presidential veto by two-thirds vote in each house. Checks and balances gives power to each branch to override the other and make sure they are in line.
5) Judicial Review- The power of judicial review is the power of courts to determine whether what government does is in accord with what the constitution provides. The role of the Judicial branch is to determine whether or not a law is constitutionally acceptable. That means that any laws that the government creates cannot break any of our constitutional rights such as freedom of speech. Judicial review is the power to declare unconstitutional, illegal, null, and void of a government action that violates some provision in the Constitution.
6) Federalism- Our government works in a federal form by distributing the powers that they have on a territorial basis. The principle of federalism is the division of power among a central government and several regional government. By spreading the powers throughout the different states the Framers of the constitution built a stronger, more effective national government while preserving the existing states and the concept of local self government.
