By the 1930s, a railroad passenger could cross the country in 3 days. The Post Office had been using airmail since 1918. But vastly improved travel times and communications were not the only reasons behind the Twentieth Amendment. The joint resolution calling for the amendment was sponsored by Republican Senator George William Norris of Nebraska. Called the "Lame Duck" Amendment, it acquired this name because Norris wanted to eliminate the lame-duck sessions of Congress where outgoing members still held office and voted on bills for several months before the new members could be sworn in. The bill he wrote applied to both houses of Congress, the offices of President and Vice-President.
Another area the amendment addressed was with the succession of the president if the president-elect died before taking office. It provides for the vice-president elect to become the president-elect and take office on January 20. The amendment also give Congress the power to legislate on other issues dealing with the succession of the president.
The sessions of Congress between the election and the beginning of a new term are called "lame duck" sessions because members of Congress who were voted out of office still attend and can still vote. Originally the term "lame duck" was a financial term meaning those who could not repay a loan. As used in politics, a representative who lost an election was no longer accountable to the voters. As the framers of the Twentieth Amendment saw it, lame duck representatives should not be able to vote since voters had already rejected their views. The Twentieth Amendment only shortened the lame duck period by six weeks. Between 1933 and 2012, 18 lame-duck sessions of Congress have passed laws.
Noura Ghazi
Noura Ghazi (نورة غازي) also Noura Ghazi al-Safadi ( نورة غازي الصفدي ) was born September 30 1981 in Damascus, Syria. She is a Syrian lawyer. Her husband, Bassel disappeared in Syria in 2014.
Ghazi's father was an activist for workers. When Ghazi was five years old, her father was sent to prison by the Supreme Court of State Security. Noura Ghazi studied law at Damascus University.
Ghazi became a human rights lawyer in 2004. She defends people who are in jail because they are prisoners of conscience in Syria.
Ghazi's husband Bassel Khartabil (Arabic: باسل خرطبيل‎), or Bassel Safadi (Arabic: باسل صفدي‎), a Syrian-Palestinian who wrote open-source software, was arrested on March 15, 2012. They were married at Adra prison on January 7, 2013.
While Bassel was in prison, from 2012-2015, Ghazi wrote a book about him called "Waiting". Bassel translated the book into English.
Preamble to the United States Constitution
The Preamble to the United States Constitution is a brief introduction to the Constitution's purposes and guiding principles. It provides the Founding Fathers' intentions for creating the Constitution and what they hoped the Constitution would achieve. It was added to the Constitution as an afterthought and was not discussed on the floor of the Constitutional Convention nor was it voted on. Gouverneur Morris, one of the writers of the Constitution, wrote and added it at the last moment. The Preamble itself did not have any legal meaning. The Supreme Court upheld this view in "Jacobson v. Massachusetts" (1905).
"We the People" means all of the citizens of the United States.
The first few words of the Preamble "We the People of the United States" were very different than any treaty or law the United States had ever written before. For example, the United States' first constitution, the Articles of Confederation, describes itself as "Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union between the States," and then gives a list of all thirteen states. The treaties the United States had signed were the same. They were agreements between states, not people.
At the time, Gouverneur Morris chose to write "We the People" instead of saying "We the United States of..." and then listing all thirteen states. First of all, Article Seven of the Constitution said that only nine states had to approve the Constitution for it to take effect. At the time, nobody knew which states would ratify the Constitution and which would not. Because of this, the Preamble could not list all thirteen states as if they had all already agreed. Also, if other states joined the United States later, it would be impossible to add their names to the list. For these reasons, the Preamble had to start with "We the People."
The words "We the People" turned into a strong statement that this new government was made by the people of the United States, to benefit the people of the United States. When Virginia's delegates were debating the Constitution, Governor Edmund Randolph pointed out: "The government is for the people; and the [problem] was, that the people had no [power] in the government before." If the people are going to have to follow the government, he said, should not the people be the ones to create that government?
"In order to form a more perfect union" is a concept most likely based on "Commentaries on the Laws of England" by Sir William Blackstone. It was widely read at the time and many of the framers were students of his work. Blackstone stated the constitution of England was perfect, but steadily improving. The phrase "a more perfect union" simply meant a better one than any before the Constitution.
Before the government based on the Constitution, the United States was based on the Articles of Confederation. However, had very little power as a federal government. They did not give the United States government enough power for the country to work and grow. Every state was for itself, instead of working cooperatively. Sometimes they acted like thirteen separate countries that would only come together if another country attacked them.
"Establish justice" meant to establish the rule of law. It meant that everyone was equal before the law with no distinction between the status or wealth of a person. With their new government, the Founding Fathers wanted to establish (create) justice and fairness. When the British Empire governed the American colonies, the colonists did not think the government was fair. For example, Parliament would decide that the colonists had to pay taxes on items like stamps and things that were made in other countries. The colonists did not have any say in this.
Even after the United States became independent, many of the Founding Fathers thought that the states had too much power under the Articles of Confederation. They thought the states had taken away people's rights.
For example, during the Shays' Rebellion in Springfield, Massachusetts, the state of Massachusetts:
Shays' Rebellion was still fresh in the minds of the framers. It cause many to fear the spirit of the American Revolutionary War might be getting out of hand. There was a need to keep peace in the new country.
Just five years after the Articles of Confederation were ratified in 1781, many Americans were unhappy with the Articles. Many of the Founding Fathers thought that the Articles had made the United States government too weak. Shays' Rebellion made it very clear that the national government under the Articles of Confederation was not strong enough. Daniel Shays, a veteran of the American Revolutionary War, led the rebel farmers trying to overthrow the Massachusetts government. The farmers had formed an entire army, which neither the state or federal governments had enough soldiers or money to fight. In desperation Massachusetts offered to pay for a private army to fight the rebellion. Finally, in 1787, that private army defeated the rebels.