Checks and Balances: Three Branches of American Government - Resources | Timeline of Events

6th century • Emperor Justinian I of the Byzantine Empire oversees the compilation of the Corpus Juris Civilis, or Body of Civil Law. This enormous collection and organization of the laws and legal opinions from emperors and jurists of the Roman Empire affects the development of legal systems in Europe after the Dark Ages (476–1000), and eventually affects the development of American legal systems.

1100s–1200s • England establishes three permanent courts to hear cases that affect the interests of the monarch. The courts, called superior common law courts, influence the development of law in America.

June 1215 • King John of England signs the Magna Carta, a document that proclaims and protects the political and civil liberties of English citizens.

1300s • Political philosopher Niccolò Machiavelli writes Discourses on the First Ten Books of Titus Livius. Machiavelli champions the Roman Republic system of government, which influences the convention delegates in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, nearly five hundred years later.

1648 • British Parliament member Clement Walker writes of a British government that divides its power into three branches.

1689 • British Parliament adopts the English Bill of Rights, strengthening Parliament's power in the constitutional monarchy.

1689 • English philosopher John Locke publishes Two Treatises of Government. In it, he argues that the legislative branch of government should be separate from the executive branch.

1696 • British Parliament establishes the Board of Trade to oversee Great Britain's commercial interests worldwide. The Board of Trade has the power to review and strike down colonial laws that violate British law. In this way, the Board of Trade resembles the U.S. Supreme Court.

1748 • French philosopher Charles Montesquieu publishes The Spirit of Laws, influencing the authors of the U.S. Constitution four decades later.

1765–69 • English legal scholar Sir William Blackstone publishes Commentaries on the Laws of England, a thorough description of English law at the time. In it, he celebrates the checks and balances of the British system. Most of the men who write the U.S. Constitution two decades later were familiar with Blackstone's work.

1773 • American colonists express their displeasure over taxes by dumping tea into the harbor during the famous Boston Tea Party.

1774 • The thirteen American colonies first send delegates to the Continental Congress.

1775 • The American Revolutionary War begins.

1776 • Revolutionary figure Thomas Paine criticizes the British system of checks and balances in his pamphlet Common Sense.

July 1776 • The United States of America is born when representatives from the thirteen American colonies join together to break from English rule by signing the Declaration of Independence.

1777 • Delegates serving in the Continental Congress write the Articles of Confederation, one year after America declared independence from Great Britain.

1777 • Pennsylvania physician and political leader Benjamin Rush publishes Observations on the Government of Pennsylvania, in which he alludes to a checks and balances form of government. He supports men of moderate wealth having representation in one chamber and men of great wealth having representation in another chamber.

1781 • The states adopt a new form of government with the Articles of Confederation. The articles provide for only a Congress, with no president or judiciary.

1783 • The American Revolutionary War ends.

1786 • Farmers protest debtor laws in Massachusetts in Shays's Rebellion.

1787 • Fifty-five state delegates meet at the Constitutional Convention to frame a Constitution for a federal government.

1787 • In the draft of the Constitution, delegates James Madison and Elbridge Gerry suggest changing Congress's power to "make war" to "declare war."

1787 • The Constitution is presented to the states for approval.

May–June 1787 • Virginia delegate Edmund Randolph proposes that the free men of the states elect members to the

House of Representatives. In turn, members of the House would choose the members of the Senate from nominations made by the state legislatures. Most of the large states, however, want free men to control elections to Congress. They also want state population to be the basis for determining how many members each state would have in each chamber. Most of the small states want at least one chamber of Congress to be elected by the states, and they want that chamber to provide equal representation to each state. A set of compromises leads to the delegates agreeing that free men will elect the members of the House and state legislatures will elect the members of the Senate; also, representation in the House will be based on population, while representation in the Senate will be equal for each state.

1787–88 • New York politician Alexander Hamilton and Secretary of Foreign Affairs John Jay write a series of essays called "The Federalist," an attempt to convince Americans to adopt the U.S. Constitution.

1788 • Virginia delegate and future U.S. president James Monroe writes Observations upon the Proposed Plan of Federal Government, in which he states that a preamble would be an important part of the Constitution.

June 1788 • The Constitution becomes law in the United States following ratification.

1789 • The new federal government begins to operate under the Constitution, with George Washington as the country's first president.

1789 • The Judiciary Act of 1789 creates a federal judiciary with trial courts (district and circuit courts) and appellate courts to serve under the Supreme Court, as well as the position of attorney general, who is the lead attorney for the United States, and U.S. attorneys to assist the attorney general with the government's caseload. Congress sets the number of

Supreme Court justices at six, a number that is raised and lowered seven times until 1869, when it settles on nine justices.

1789 • Congress creates four departments to oversee certain aspects of the government: State, Treasury, War, and Navy.

1789 • President George Washington signs the first appropriations law for the United States. He approves of $568,000 to fund the Departments of War and Treasury, as well as to fund government salaries and pensions.

January 1790 • President George Washington delivers the nation's first annual message, as required by the Constitution.

1790 • Maryland donates land to the U.S. government to be used as the location for the federal capital. The new city is called Washington, D.C., or the District of Columbia.

1791 • The states approve the first ten constitutional amendments, often called the Bill of Rights.

1794 • President George Washington helps end the Whiskey Rebellion by granting a full pardon to rebels involved in the skirmish. The rebellion was a protest by grain farmers against a tax on whiskey.

1797 • The House of Representatives impeaches U.S. senator William Blount of Tennessee, the only time in U.S. history a member of Congress has been impeached. Blount is accused of conspiring to conduct military activities for the king of England; the Senate opts not to conduct an impeachment trial, reasoning that it does not have power under the Constitution to conduct an impeachment trial of a senator.

1798 • Congress passes and President John Adams signs into law the Sedition Act. The new law makes it a crime to say or write anything "false, scandalous and malicious" against the government.

1798 • The Eleventh Amendment is officially declared part of the Constitution, nearly three years after it was ratified. The amendment decrees that a citizen of one state (or foreign country) may not use the federal court system to sue the government of another state.

1800 • Congress creates the Library of Congress; one year later, it receives its first collection of materials.

1800 • Vice President Thomas Jefferson and New York politician Aaron Burr receive the same number of electoral votes in the presidential election, forcing the House of Representatives to break the tie vote, as required by the Constitution (even though the electors clearly intended Jefferson to be president and Burr to be vice president). Jefferson wins on the thirty-sixth ballot.

1801 • President Thomas Jefferson begins the tradition of delivering his messages to Congress in written form. This form of communication between president and Congress continues for 112 years.

1801 • President Thomas Jefferson repeals the Sedition Act.

1801 • The Federalist-controlled Congress lowers the number of Supreme Court seats from six to five so that the new president, Democratic-Republican Thomas Jefferson, would be unable to appoint a replacement if Justice William Cushing, who was ill at the time, died.

1802 • The Democratic-Republican Party gains control of Congress, and raises the number of justices back to six.

1802 • Congress assigns one Supreme Court justice to travel to each circuit to hear trials.

1803 • In Marbury v. Madison, the U.S. Supreme Court rules that a federal law giving the Supreme Court the power to hear cases for compelling government action is unconstitutional.

Under the Constitution, such cases must begin in a lower federal court, with the Supreme Court permitted to review them only on appeal.

1803 • Federal district court judge John Pickering is the first judge to be impeached. He is convicted of drunkenness and removed from office.

1803 • Judicial review becomes a permanent part of the federal judiciary after the U.S. Supreme Court announces its power to strike down congressional laws that violate the U.S. Constitution.

1804 • The House of Representatives impeaches Supreme Court justice Samuel Chase; the Senate, however, votes not to convict him.

1804 • The Twelfth Amendment to the Constitution is adopted, requiring that electors label their two votes: one for president and the other for vice president. Previously, electors voted for their top two choices, with the leading vote-getter becoming president and the runner-up being elected vice president. In 1800, this flawed system resulted in a tie vote between two members of the same party.

1812 • Congress uses its constitutional right by declaring war (the War of 1812).

1824 • None of the presidential candidates receives a majority of electoral votes, forcing the U.S. House of Representatives to choose between the leading three vote-getters. Secretary of State John Quincy Adams wins the election after the candidate who was no longer eligible, Speaker of the House Henry Clay, convinces the states that had voted for him to support Adams. Later, Clay becomes Adams's secretary of state, leading many to believe that Adams had promised Clay the position in exchange for his votes.

April 1841 • President William Henry Harrison dies after only a month in office. His vice president, John Tyler, insists that the Constitution allows him to fill the office of the presidency for the remainder of Harrison's term. Evidence to the contrary does not exist, so Tyler stays on as president, establishing a line-of-succession tradition.

1846 • Congress uses its constitutional right by declaring war (the Mexican War).

1857 • In Scott v. Sandford, the U.S. Supreme Court rules that former slave Dred Scott is not a citizen of the United States because African Americans could not be citizens under the U.S. Constitution.

1860 • Congress creates the Government Printing Office, which serves as a printer for Congress and collects and publishes information about the federal government for all three of its branches.

1861 • The American Civil War begins.

1862 • U.S. district judge West H. Humphreys of Tennessee is impeached by the U.S. House of Representatives and removed by the Senate, on charges of joining the Confederacy without resigning his judgeship.

1862 • President Abraham Lincoln creates the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

1863 • Congress raises the number of justices on the U.S. Supreme Court to ten. This allows President Abraham Lincoln to appoint a new justice at a time when he is stretching his constitutional powers to conduct the American Civil War.

1865 • The Thirteenth Amendment bans slavery.

1865 • The American Civil War ends.

1866 • Congress reduces the number of U.S. Supreme Court seats from ten to seven. Congress fears that President Andrew Johnson, who is against many of Congress's Reconstruction Acts for rebuilding the country after the American Civil War, will appoint justices who will strike down the acts as unconstitutional.

1868 • The states adopt the Fourteenth Amendment, which declares that all people born or naturalized in the United States are citizens of the country and of the state in which they live.

1868 • Andrew Johnson is the first U.S. president to be impeached. He escapes removal from office by a single vote in the U.S. Senate.

1869 • Congress raises the number of Supreme Court seats from seven to nine, shortly after the inauguration of Ulysses S. Grant. The number has been fixed there ever since.

1870 • The Fifteenth Amendment makes it illegal to deny a person the right to vote based on race or color.

1870 • The attorney general becomes head of the U.S. Department of Justice.

1873 • England combines common law and equity courts into one court. U.S. federal courts would later do the same thing.

1875 • Congress passes the Civil Rights Act of 1875, making discrimination illegal in places of public accommodation, such as inns and theaters.

1875 • Congress reorganizes the judiciary by passing the Judiciary Act of 1875. It shifts some kinds of trials from the circuit courts to the district courts and gives the circuit courts more responsibility for hearing appeals.

1883 • The U.S. Supreme Court strikes down the Civil Rights Act of 1875, saying the Fourteenth Amendment only made discrimination by states illegal, not by private persons in their businesses.

1891 • Congress passes the Circuit Courts of Appeals Act, finishing the judicial branch reorganization that began in 1875. The act transfers most federal trials to the district courts, creates nine new circuit courts of appeals, and requires the Supreme Court to hear only certain kinds of appeals from the district and circuit courts and from the circuit courts of appeals.

1896 • The U.S. Supreme Court decides in Plessy v. Ferguson that the Fourteenth Amendment does not prevent states from requiring whites and blacks to use separate railway cars. The Court rules that "separate but equal" facilities satisfy the "equal protection" requirements of the Fourteenth Amendment.

1898 • Congress uses its constitutional right by declaring war (the Spanish-American War).

1899 • The U.S. House of Representatives names its first official whip.

1912 • The number of members of the U.S. House of Representatives reaches 435, a total that has not changed in subsequent years.

1913 • President Woodrow Wilson revives the practice of delivering his annual address to Congress orally.

February 1913 • The Sixteenth Amendment is ratified, giving Congress the power to collect an income tax.

May 1913 • The Seventeenth Amendment is ratified, which changes the way U.S. senators are elected to office. Instead of state legislatures electing them, citizens vote them in.

1917 • Congress uses its constitutional right by declaring war (World War I).

January 1919 • The Eighteenth Amendment is ratified, making the manufacture, sale, and transportation of alcoholic beverages illegal.

1920s • U.S. senators of both the Republican and Democratic parties began to elect official majority and minority leaders.

August 1920 • The Nineteenth Amendment is ratified, giving women the right to vote.

1921 • Congress passes the Budgeting and Accounting Act. The act gives the president the job of preparing an initial budget plan each year, and also creates the Bureau of the Budget (later renamed the Office of Management and Budget), a governmental office for helping the president prepare the budget.

1923 • President Calvin Coolidge is the first president to broadcast his annual address to Congress on the radio.

1933 • The Twentieth Amendment is ratified, changing the dates the president, vice president, and members of Congress take office, following the November election. The amendment also states that the vice president–elect becomes president in the event of the death of the president-elect.

1933 • The Twenty-first Amendment is ratified, ending nationwide prohibition by repealing the Eighteenth Amendment.

1937 • President Franklin D. Roosevelt tries to change the philosophical makeup of the Supreme Court by asking Congress to increase the number of seats on the Supreme Court from nine to fifteen and allow Roosevelt to fill the new seats

whenever a justice over seventy years of age does not resign. (Four justices who regularly voted against Roosevelt's New Deal program were already over seventy, and the president wanted to appoint new justices who would support his New Deal.) The plan is controversial, and is proved to be unnecessary; the Court winds up approving much of Roosevelt's New Deal legislation and the president names five replacement justices through 1940 as a result of three retirements and two deaths. Congress does not approve of Roosevelt's "court-packing."

1939 • President Franklin D. Roosevelt creates the Executive Office of the President to help the president manage the executive branch. Four of the most important positions in the department are the chief of staff, director of the Office of Management and Budget, director of the National Economic Council, and national security advisor.

1940 • President Franklin D. Roosevelt tells Democratic Party officials he will not run for a third term unless they select Secretary of Agriculture Henry A. Wallace as his vice presidential running mate. The party grants Roosevelt's wish, thus beginning the tradition of presidential candidates choosing their running mates.

1941 • Congress uses its constitutional right by declaring war (World War II).

1947 • President Harry S. Truman is the first president to broadcast his annual address to Congress on television.

1947 • The War Department, Navy Department, and Department of the Air Force combine to form the Department of Defense.

1947 • The National Security Council is created to advise the president on national security affairs.

1949 • Congress passes a law making the vice president an official member of the National Security Council.

March 1951 • The Twenty-second Amendment is ratified, limiting presidents to a maximum of two terms, or two terms and two years if the president was finishing no more than half of his predecessor's term.

1954 • The U.S. Supreme Court unanimously decides in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka that separate public services are not equal under the Fourteenth Amendment. This is an example of an amendment not changing but the Supreme Court's interpretation of it changing.

1961 • The Twenty-third Amendment is ratified, allowing Washington, D.C., to select a number of electors equal to the number of senators and representatives it would have if it were a state, but no more than the number of electors allowed for the least populous state. This gives electors from Washington, D.C., the chance to vote in a presidential election.

January 1964 • The Twenty-fourth Amendment is ratified, making it illegal for the United States or any state to charge a poll tax for participating in presidential and congressional elections.

July 1964 • President Lyndon B. Johnson signs into law the Civil Rights Act, making discrimination illegal in public places, such as motels and restaurants. Congress says it passed the act using its power under the Interstate Commerce Clause. Later, in Heart of Atlanta Motel v. United States and Katzenbach v. McClung, the U.S. Supreme Court rules that the Civil Rights Act is lawful under the Constitution because Congress can outlaw private discrimination under its power to regulate interstate commerce, but not under the equal rights provisions of the Fourteenth Amendment.

1967 • The Twenty-fifth Amendment is ratified, officially providing for the vice president to become president "in case of the removal of the president from office or his death or resignation." Prior to the adoption of this amendment, the vice president's swearing-in to office—which had happened seven times before—was by tradition only.

1967 • The Department of Transportation is established.

1968 • Congress passes the Federal Magistrates Act, giving district courts the power to appoint magistrate judges to help district court judges do their jobs.

July 1971 • The Twenty-sixth Amendment is ratified, lowering the voting age to eighteen.

1972 • The U.S. Supreme Court rules in Roe v. Wade that states cannot ban abortions completely because women have a constitutional right to have abortions in some cases. After that decision, some states rewrite their abortion laws to ban abortions in situations allowed under the Supreme Court's ruling. This is an example of a legislative check on judicial power.

1973 • Congress passes the War Powers Resolution to try to strengthen the constitutional separation of military powers. President Richard Nixon vetoes the bill, but both chambers of Congress vote to override the veto. The resolution says presidents should commit troops only with congressional consultation and authorization.

1973 • President Richard Nixon tries to use executive privilege to hide information about the Watergate scandal from Senate investigators.

October 1973 • Spiro T. Agnew resigns as vice president after it is divulged that he failed to report almost $30,000 on his federal income tax return in 1967 while he was governor of

Maryland. He is also accused of taking bribes while serving as a county official in Maryland.

December 1973 • The Twenty-fifth Amendment is invoked for the first time when U.S. representative Gerald Ford is approved by Congress as the new vice president.

1974 • Congress passes the Budget and Impoundment Control Act, which creates the Congressional Budget Office and standing budget committees in both chambers of Congress.

August 1974 • President Richard M. Nixon resigns from office, the first president in history to do so. The House was almost certainly about to impeach him for his role in covering up a 1972 burglary of the offices of the Democratic National Committee by members of the Republican Party, a scandal known as Watergate. Gerald Ford succeeds him, becoming the only person to serve as both president and vice president without being elected to either office.

September 1974 • President Gerald Ford pardons former president Richard Nixon for any involvement he had in the Watergate scandal. Ford reasons that a long trial involving Nixon would not allow the country to move beyond the scandal.

1980 • Congress creates the Department of Education.

1981 • Sandra Day O'Connor becomes the first female U.S. Supreme Court justice.

1983 • The U.S. Supreme Court decides in INS v. Chadha that the legislative veto violates the Constitution. The Constitution says the only way Congress can pass a bill or resolution is when both chambers approve it and present it to the president for executive veto consideration. Legislative vetoes violate this by giving either one or both chambers of

Congress the power to take official action that the president cannot veto. Despite the Court's ruling, Congress continues to include the legislative veto power in the nation's laws.

1984 • U.S. congresswoman Geraldine Ferraro of New York becomes the first female vice presidential candidate on a major party ticket, running unsuccessfully with the Democratic presidential contender, former vice president Walter Mondale.

1992 • More than two hundred years after it was first proposed by Congress, the Twenty-seventh Amendment is ratified. It says that if Congress passes a law changing the salaries for senators or representatives, the law cannot take effect until after at least one House election passes. This prevents representatives from giving themselves pay raises while in office.

1993 • The National Economic Council is created to help the president develop and implement economic policies, both domestic and international.

1996 • Congress passes the Line Item Veto Act, allowing the president to strike specific dollar amounts and tax benefits from appropriations bills passed by Congress. Congress can override the line item veto only by passing another bill containing the portions the president has stricken.

1997 • Madeleine Albright becomes the first female secretary of state.

1998 • The U.S. Supreme Court strikes down the 1996 Line Item Veto Act. The Court rules that it violates the Constitution, which states that the president may use his veto power to veto only an entire bill.

1998 • President Bill Clinton becomes the second president to be impeached. He is charged with perjury and obstruction of justice relating to an Arkansas real estate deal, a sexual

harassment case, and a relationship with a White House intern. The U.S. Senate vote leaves him in office, however.

2000 • In the extremely tight presidential election of 2000 between Texas governor George W. Bush and Vice President Al Gore, a narrow victory for Bush in Florida leads Gore to sue to have votes in certain counties recounted. Bush appeals one of the cases from the Florida Supreme Court to the U.S. Supreme Court. The U.S. Supreme Court issues a decision in December, stopping the recounts in Florida, giving Bush Florida's twenty-five electoral votes and, therefore, making him the presidential victor.

September 2001 • President George W. Bush delivers a special message to Congress following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Aside from their annual addresses to Congress, it is rare for presidents to speak to the complete Congress.

October 2001 • The Office of Homeland Security is created following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. A year later, it becomes a full department in the executive branch.