ABSTRACT
Constitutionalism is a normative political theory of limited government and the rule of law. In the United States, constitutionalism is combined with representative democracy to form constitutional democracy. The central tension of constitutional democracy concerns the balance between the powers of the people and the ideals and principles of constitutionalism that seek to restrain them. Constitutionalism assumes that people are by nature free and should protect their rights through a system of government in which they give permission for others to rule them but limit that permission in time and scope through an institutional structure based on rights and rule of law. In the United States, there are a number of structures that combine to form a constitutional democracy. The Achilles heel of constitutionalism is that there are certain political questions such as abortion and the death penalty that are either "zero-sum" or have no "correct" answer and are simply too controversial for resolution.
