Election Series
IN 1787, America’s Founding Fathers met to write the new country’s Constitution. A short time before, they had broken free of the rule of the king of England, so you could understand that they didn’t want to have another leader with too much power.
Their plan was a good one. They decided to have a government that was divided into three parts so that there would be shared power. The three parts, or branches, that they designed were the legislative branch (Congress, which is the Senate and the House of Representatives), which would make laws; the judicial branch, which would examine and explain the laws through courts and judges; and the executive branch, which had the power to “execute,” or carry out, the country’s laws. The executive branch would not be headed by a king who was born to the job but by a president who would be chosen by the people.
Clearly the Founders thought that being the president was an important job. They had careful rules about who could serve. Those rules still exist today. A candidate for the presidency must be a “natural-born” citizen of the United States, be at least 35 years old, and have lived in the United States for at least 14 years.
Our Founding Fathers felt that an understanding of the nation was very important for the president. They strongly believed that a person had to have been born in the United States (or been a child of U.S. citizens born in a foreign country) in order to fully understand the country. Today, some people believe this rule isn’t necessary anymore. They think we should allow any current U.S. citizen, even someone who wasn’t born a citizen, to be president. Some think we should amend the Constitution and change this rule, but it still stands.
Life experience was also very important to the framers of the Constitution. They felt that people under 35 weren’t experienced enough to run a country.
Presidents have to deal with probems at home and in foreign countries. In order to face these problems, knowledge of the nation’s history with these issues is necessary. The framers thought that 14 years was the right time to have developed that understanding.
The framers also chose to have presidents serve four-year terms but didn’t limit how many terms a president could serve. That came later, in 1951, when a Constitutional amendment set a limit of two terms per president.
Credits
This Hot Topics Hot Serials supplement was:
Written by Debby and Ned Carroll
Edited by Ken Bookman
Designed and illustrated by Roel Wielinga
Studio De Phantasm
© Copyright 2008.
News Story Learning standards: brainstorming, writing for fluency
What do you think a presidential candidate does during a campaign? Brainstorm some ideas, then find a story in the news about one of the candidates in the upcoming election. Write a paragraph telling what he is doing. Also, check for any details about their campaign workers. Why do candidates need workers and an office?