From which country where our constitution makers influenced by its practice of parliamentary democracy
Answers
From which country were our Constitution makers influenced by its practice of parliamentary democracy?
David Osofsky’s answer is very, very good. But I have a few things to add…
The House of Representatives was very much based on the English House of Commons… even the name of the chief officer is “Speaker.”
The Senate was meant to be somewhat like the non-elected House of Lords, although the name “Senate” obviously originated with the Roman Republic, which the Framers had tremendous respect for. In truth, Senators were always elected, in a way; but until the 17th Amendment, they were not directly elected but elected by the state legislatures… which in turn were elected by the people. So the Senate always represented the popular will, just much less directly. And the 17th Amendment changed that anyway.
(Still, the Senate, with its 2 members per state rule, is fundamentally different from the House of Reps to that extent.)
The Electoral College, by the way, was a truly unique innovation, although one that never quite worked as designed. It has nothing to do with the president’s Cabinet. Members of the E.C. are not supposed to belong to either the legislative or executive branches but to be “private citizens” or maybe local pols.
In fact, the Electoral College probably owes more to the ancient Roman Centurial Assembly, which chose the Consuls and Praetors of the Republic. In that Assembly, all the voters were organized into “centuries” of different sizes; and as a result, there was no “one man one vote” principle any more than in today’s Electoral College. The vote of one rich man could be worth many times the vote of a poor man.
The U.S. Presidency, as I’ve written elsewhere, was a unique position in that it amounted in many ways to a “Citizen King.” The President is not merely chief policy maker (head of government) but a true Head of State, with the power and obligation to officially receive foreign ambassadors, as well as sign laws into effect or (as in ancient Roman times) exercise a veto.
But there’s at least one important difference. The power of impeachment was always a threat the House of Commons could use against the King’s ministers, not the King himself. In monarchies, the King cannot be forced from office except through extreme and/or extra-constitutional means. Some (like Edward VIII) might abdicate, although that “just wasn’t done” for the most part. It was considered a shrinking from duty. The only other means of ousting a monarch was a Revolution.