Introduction- CM1

Simple comparison .In 2008 there are lots of chats about ending the Fifth Republic, and starting the Sixth. The Balladur commission has made propsition that change the Republic to the core, and we might ask if those propostitions didn't make the idea of a sixth republic obvious.Ther's a huge lack of stability in the constitutionnal organization of France. It leads to joxes about our constitutions. Why is it that two republics that have so much in common, like France and United States, who were declared republic neatly at the same time, had the same philosophies to inspired them have such different political system.. Both France and the United States aspired to be an example that would be followed all around the world. There's a huge mistrust between the two countries because the two of them want to be the world example.
The last major change in the US Constitution was made in 1791, it's the Bill of Rights. Since that date, the only major change is the addition of 16 amendment, but there are no other major change.

The Alien and Sedition Act Crisis
Adopted in the end of the 18th century. They were contrary to the 1st amendment which says that Congress shall make no law that breaks the freedom of speech... At the time of the adoption of this Act, it was the Northern States which wanted to secceed from the union. Political crises in the US often, nearly always resolted in tensions in the Union, tensions along the vertical axes of separation of powers. The originality of the American Constitution is to enact, implement, separation of powers along both a vertical and an horizontal line.
Vertical Separation: The American Constitution provides a separation between the federal government and the States, the two governments do not do the same thing, this separation is strict because the Constitution is a delegation of powers from the States to a federal government. The States existed before the US and gave a part of their sovereignty to the US and keep some for themselves. The Constitution doesn't say anything about education, that's why the federal government plays very little part in the education(5% in primary and secondary school) which remains a power of the States. Primary elections: somes staes vote with machines, some with paper, some allows former criminals to vote, some don't. That is because nothing was said in the Constitution and then, the organisation of election,just like the penal code, is a power of the States.
Any expanse of the federal government would be made against the States pwer.
Federalism is the way to see how the US health is going. When American society changed itself around the idea of desegregation, there was a great tension in the Southern States because those states felt that their power was taken from them by the federal government. In the 1980's, under Reagan's presidency.
When a crisis stikes, it appears in problems between States and Federal Government.
Horizontal Separation: The main idea is that the 3 branches are co equal. On paper, you can't say that Congress is more powerful than the executive or the judiciary. Actually, the writers had to lay the emphasis on one branch. In the minds of the founding fathers, there is a hierarchy, and Congress is the first branch.

There's a Congressionnal ascendency in the early part of the 19th century and american plitical life is dominated by what is decided in the US Congress. There are a few times when hte judiciary has the ascendant power. Nowadays, it's obvious that the power is in the hand of the executive, it's an imperial presidency. The System of the US is caracterized by perids during which one of the three branches is ascendent and caracterized by the regime. The US political system changes extremely slowly, it changes only in times of crisis but it is a system which is caracterized by it's flexibility. What makes it flexible is it large part of the rôle of the judiciary. The aftermath Civil War and the New Deal and Second World War are the huge changes in the political system of the US.
There is constitutionnal stability in the US because there is a regulator, the Supreme Court. Ine France there's only one access to separation of power and the legitimity of one of the wo heads of the executive procceeds from an other power. In the US, there's a strict separation. A third difference is that Frace is still trying to build an independant power whereas in the US, the judiciary is independant. Federal juges are appointed for life.

3 major differences between France and US:
Two access of separation of powers (vertical and horizontal) in the Us, 1 in France
The judiciary is a co equal branch