Civics_Ch2_webquest_structure

=**Structure of your government**= Now you are ready to start writing your constitution. Follow the steps below:

This section will help you to write your constitution. You, as the leader of the convention, have helped the other captains and delegates develop several principles to guide your new government. Your principles include faith as a founding principle. Other values to guide your constitution are forming a republic (you'll be setting up a system in which the voters elect candidates to make decisions for them); having a federal system in which you'll have a central government but also allow each captain to maintain control over their regions; you plan to have limited government with consent of the governed; separation of powers and checks and balances will also be part of your system in order to be sure there is no abuse of power. Okay, looks like you're ready to go. Follow the steps through writing your constitution.

Your new nation's constitution will start by listing the goals of the new nation. Then, you will create the structure. Here we go....and good luck!

__Goals__: You need to start with the overall goals of this new constitution. You want to be certain that everyone else on the island knows why you're replacing 13 individual governments with one overall government. You and the other delegates decide that you can sum up your goals in six simple sentences. Write your six goals, being certain to address the following six issues: unity, freedom, fairness, security from other nations, safety for people within the nation, and peace on the island.

__Structure__: Now that you have your goals written, you need to write down how your government works.
 * 1.** In creating your structure, your first step is to create your branches. Remember, when you and the other delegates were deciding on principles in your new government, you decided on separation of powers. That is a legislative branch that makes the laws, and executive branch to enforce the laws, and a judicial branch to interpret the fairness of laws. So, let's get started. Under structure, let's start with the legislative branch. Article 1 of your constitution (each major category of your constitutional structure is considered an article) is the legislative branch to make the laws.
 * (a)** Name your legislative body.
 * (b)** This next decision is a tough one. Right off the bat a major argument starts. You see, 5 of the ships didn't have many people on while 8 had full ships. What this means is there are 5 areas on the island with a lot of people and 8 with very few people. Why is this a problem? Well, the 5 smaller ships are worried that the 8 bigger ships will dominate the new government and they won't get anything they want when it comes to laws or money. Therefore, the 5 smaller ships are proposing that each ship gets to send the same number of delegates to the new legislative body to make laws. The 8 bigger ships do not think that's fair because they wonder why they should get punished just because they have more people. The believe that ships with more people should get to send more delegates than the ships with fewer people. Neither side is willing to compromise. The 5 small ships say their willing to forget the whole thing and just stay independent like they've been and the 8 big ships say the same thing. You realize that compromise is needed so you sit down with Roger Sherman, a guy who is great at getting deals, and try to work out a compromise. What are you going to do about this situation? Again, here's the issue to solve: the small ships want the number of delegates in the legislative body to be the same number from all ships while the big ships want it to be based on population. What do you and Roger Sherman decide?
 * (c)** How long will your legislators serve for before needing to be re-elected and how often can your legislators run for re-election (in other words are you going to have term limits or not)?


 * 2.** Article II of your constitution will be on the executive branch, which is suppose to enforce, or carry out the laws. The executive is the overall leadership of the nation or is the administration.
 * (a)** Are you going to have an executive council (group be the leadership of the nation) or one chief executive who is the leader.
 * (b)** What are you going to call your chief executive or your executive council?
 * (c)** How long will your executive or council serve for before needing to be re-elected and how often can your executive or council run for re-election (in other words are you going to have term limits or not)?


 * 3.** Article III of your constitution will be on the judicial branch, which is suppose to interpret the fairness of laws.
 * (a)** Name your judicial body.
 * (b)** Judges will make up your judicial body. Do you want to elect judges or have them be appointed by either the executive branch, the legislative branch. or both? If they are elected, then that gives the people the power of who is interpreting laws, but then maybe judges will be hesitant to rule in some cases so not to upset those who elect them. Having them be appointed keeps them from from having to rule based only what will get them elected. Which do you want and why?
 * (c)** How long will your judges serve for?

Okay, you have a couple of principles in place: Time to create the rest of the structure. Here we go!
 * Separation of powers - you have created 3 branches dividing powers.
 * Republic - you set up a system in which officials are elected to rule for the people.


 * 4.** Federalism is another principle that your delegates agreed to from the "At your convention" section. This means that you are going to have a strong, central government but allow the 13 ships to have some power too. In Article IV, you need to specify how the 13 individual ships will work together with the central government that you're creating being in charge. Okay, let's do this one piece at a time:
 * (a)** Do you think public records from one of the 13 sections should be recognized by the others - for example, if someone gets married in one of the 13 sections then moves to another, should that marriage still be considered legal; if someone gets a drivers' license in one of the 13 sections, should that person be allowed to drive in the other sections too? What do you think?
 * (b)** If someone commits a crime in one of the 13 sections and flees to a different section on the island, should that person be forced back into the section where the crime was committed to be put on trial or is that person safe because he/she escaped to another section of the island?
 * (c)** Are you going to make sure that each of the 13 sections set up a republic within their section too (are you going to make sure that each section allows the people to vote for officials to make decisions on their behalf)?


 * 5.** Are you going to allow your constitution to be changed or have parts added on if new situations develop in the future? Why or why not?


 * 6.** Are you going to make this constitution the supreme law of the whole island or are you going to allow the 13 sections to have more power than the central government in certain cases? Why?


 * 7.** How many of the 13 sections will be required to agree to your document before it goes into effect? Why that number?

Okay, let's see how close you came to the U.S. Constitution created by our Founding Fathers. Click here to view our original structure.


 * Did you meet the objectives?** Click here to answer key questions.