Personnel procedures and the constitution Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Personnel procedures and the constitution - Essay Example Whereas before an entire crop of new positions had come upon each time that a new executive took the helm, such a provision ensured that it would be against the law for such an action to continue to take place. However, like many political actions, there were equal and opposite reactions. One of the largest negative reactions that the Pendleton Act evoked was the reliance of government on funds from the private sector and/or businesses. Due to the fact that hopeful executives could not longer rely on donations from hopeful applicants to guaranteed positions, this meant that the government put itself at the mercy of the business sector as a means of accruing revenue. Article Seven of the United States constitution specified how many states were required to ratify the US Constitution in order for it become law. As such, Article VII denotes that 9 of the 13 original colonies would need to ratify the Constitution prior to it becoming the founding charter and law of the newly formed United States. The first ten amendments to the US Constitution, collectively known as the Bill of Rights provides a rigid set of limitations on governmental power with regards to what the founders saw as the natural rights of the citizen. Though these Bill of Rights had little bearing on the way in which the individual states sought to exert their own power, the Fourteenth Amendment made it possible for these rights to be transferred explicitly to the state level. These first ten amendments were originally proposed and written by James Madison in 1789 and were ultimately ratified by 1791 for inclusion in the US Constitution. Although Madison himself proposed that there be 12 amendments, only 10 were ultimately passed and ratified by the states as law. These rights have become fundamental to an interpretation and understanding of what US