Constitution of the United States

The U.S. Constitution was drafted in 1787 in Philadelphia by delegates to the constitutional convention. The delegates decided soon after their arrival that the articles of confederation could not be saved through amendment and that an entirely new constitution should be written to replace it. The document that emerged from the convention was the product of a series of compromises.

Once the Constitution had been offered to the states for ratification, critics opposed it on several grounds. Most importantly, they argued that the Constitution created an overly powerful central government that could abuse the rights of citizens and criticized the Framers for failing to include a bill of rights. To win over the opposition, the supporters of the Constitution agreed that the enactment of a bill of rights should be among the business of the first Congress. By June 21, 1788, the requisite nine states had ratified the Constitution. Virginia and New York ratified it a few days later, while North Carolina did so in 1789 and Rhode Island agreed to the Constitution in 1790.

Since the Constitution went into effect in 1789, only twenty-seven amendments have been added to correct deficiencies in the original document or to adapt it to changing needs and principles.

Constitution of the United States

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

ARTICLE I

Section 1. All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives.

Section 2. The House of Representatives shall be composed of Members chosen every second Year by the People of the several States, and the Electors in each State shall have the Qualifications requisite for Electors of the most numerous Branch of the State Legislature.

No Person shall be a Representative who shall not have attained to the Age of twenty five Years, and been seven Years a Citizen of the United States, and who shall not, when elected, be an Inhabitant of that State in which he shall be chosen.

Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons.¹ The actual Enumeration shall be made within three Years after the first Meeting of the Congress of the United States, and within every subsequent Term of ten Years, in such Manner as they shall by Law direct. The Number of Representatives shall not exceed one for every thirty Thousand, but each State shall have at Least one Representative; and until such enumerations shall be made, the State of New Hampshire shall be entitled to chuse three, Massachusetts eight, Rhode-Island and Providence Plantations one, Connecticut five, New-York six, New Jersey four, Pennsylvania eight, Delaware one, Maryland six, Virginia ten, North Carolina five, South Carolina five, and Georgia three.

When vacancies happen in the Representation from any State, the Executive Authority thereof shall issue Writs of Election to fill such Vacancies.

The House of Representatives shall chuse their speaker and other Officers; and shall have the sole Power of Impeachment.

Section 3. The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each State, chosen by the Legislature thereof,² for six Years; and each Senator shall have one Vote.

Immediately after they shall be assembled in Consequence of the first Election, they shall be divided as equally as may be into three Classes. The Seats of the Senators of the first Class shall be vacated at the Expiration of the second Year, of the second Class at the Expiration of the fourth Year, and of the third Class at the Expiration of the sixth Year, so that one third may be chosen every second Year; and if Vacancies happen by Resignation, or otherwise, during the Recess of the Legislature of any State, the Executive thereof may make temporary Appointments until the next Meeting of the Legislature, which shall then fill such Vacancies.³

No Person shall be a Senator who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty Years, and been nine Years a Citizen of the United States, and who shall not, when elected, be an Inhabitant of that State for which he shall be chosen.

The Vice President of the United States shall be President of the Senate, but shall have no Vote, unless they be equally divided.

The Senate shall chuse their other Officers, and also a President pro tempore, in the Absence of the Vice President, or when he shall exercise the Office of President of the United States.

The Senate shall have the sole Power to try all Impeachments. When sitting for that Purpose, they shall be on Oath or Affirmation. When the President of the United States is tried, the Chief Justice shall preside: And no Person shall be convicted without the concurrence of two thirds of the Members present. Judgment in Cases of Impeachment shall not extend further than to removal from Office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy any Office of honor, Trust or Profit under the United States: but the Party convicted shall nevertheless be liable and subject to Indictment, Trial, Judgment and Punishment, according to law.

Section 4. The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations, except as to the Places of chusing Senators.

The Congress shall assemble at least once in every Year, and such Meeting shall be on the first Monday in December,⁴ unless they shall by Law appoint a different Day.

Section 5. Each House shall be the Judge of the Elections, Returns and Qualifications of its own Members, and a Majority of each shall constitute a Quorum to do business; but a smaller Number may adjourn from day to day, and may be authorized to compel the Attendance of absent Members, in such Manner, and under such Penalties as each House may provide.

Each House may determine the Rules of its Proceedings, punish its Members for disorderly Behaviour, and, with the Concurrence of two thirds, expel a Member.

Each House shall keep a journal of its Proceedings, and from time to time publish the same, excepting such Parts as may in their Judgment require Secrecy; and the yeas and Nays of the Members of either House on any question shall, at the Desire of one fifth of those Present, be entered on the Journal.

Source: The United States Government Manual.

¹ Provisions that have been changed by amendments or other legislation or have become obsolete have been printed in italic type. The Sixteenth Amendment overturned the provision on direct taxes. The provision on apportionment was overturned by the Thirteenth Amendment, which abolished slavery, and by the Fourteenth Amendment, which stipulated that all persons excluding Indians should be counted. Since 1940 Indians have also been counted.

² Changed by the Seventeenth Amendment.

³ Modified by the Seventeenth Amendment.

⁴ Changed by the Twentieth Amendment, Section 2, to January 3.

Neither House, during the Session of Congress, shall, without the Consent of the other, adjourn for more than three days, nor to any other place than that in which the two Houses shall be sitting.

Section 6. The Senators and Representatives shall receive a Compensation for their Services, to be ascertained by Law, and paid out of the Treasury of the United States. They shall in all Cases, except Treason, Felony and Breach of the Peace, be privileged from Arrest during their Attendance at the Session of their respective Houses, and in going to and returning from the same; and for any Speech or Debate in either House, they shall not be questioned in any other Place.

No Senator or Representative shall, during the Time for which he was elected, be appointed to any civil Office under the Authority of the United States, which shall have been created, or the Emoluments whereof shall have been encreased during such time; and no Person holding any Office under the United States, shall be a Member of either House during his Continuance in Office.

Section 7. All Bills for raising Revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives; but the Senate may propose or concur with Amendments as on other Bills.

Every Bill which shall have passed the House of Representatives and the Senate, shall, before it become a Law, be presented to the President of the United States; If he approve he shall sign it, but if not he shall return it, with his Objections to that House in which it shall have originated, who shall enter the Objections at large on their Journal, and proceed to reconsider it. If after such Reconsideration two thirds of that House shall agree to pass the Bill, it shall be sent, together with the Objections, to the other House, by which it shall likewise be reconsidered, and if approved by two thirds of that House, it shall become a Law. But in all such Cases the Votes of both Houses shall be determined by yeas and Nays, and the Names of the Persons voting for and against the Bill shall be entered on the Journal of each House respectively. If any Bill shall not be returned by the President within ten Days (Sundays excepted) after it shall have been presented to him, the Same shall be a Law, in like Manner as if he had signed it, unless the Congress by their Adjournment prevent its Return, in which Case it shall not be a Law.

Every Order, Resolution, or Vote to which the Concurrence of the Senate and House of Representatives may be necessary (except on a question of Adjournment) shall be presented to the President of the United States; and before the Same shall take Effect, shall be approved by him, or being disapproved by him, shall be repassed by two thirds of the Senate and House of Representatives, according to the Rules and Limitations prescribed in the Case of a Bill.

Section 8. The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;

To borrow Money on the Credit of the United States;

To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes;⁵

To establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization, and uniform Laws on the subject of Bankruptcies throughout the United States;

To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures;

To provide for the Punishment of counterfeiting the Securities and current Coin of the United States;

To establish Post Offices and post Roads;

To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;

To constitute Tribunals inferior to the supreme Court;

To define and punish Piracies and Felonies committed on the high Seas, and Offences against the Law of Nations;

To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal,⁶ and make rules concerning Captures on Land and Water;

To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years;

⁵ Formal treaty arrangements with the Indians were abandoned after 1871.

⁶ The Declaration of Paris in 1856 and other treaties have outlawed letters of marque and reprisal.

To provide and maintain a Navy;

To make rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces;

To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions;

To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;

To exercise exclusive Legislation in all Cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten Miles square), as may, by Cession of particular States, and the Acceptance of Congress, become the Seat of the Government of the United States,⁷ and to exercise like Authority over all Places purchased by the Consent of the Legislature of the State in which the Same shall be for the Erection of Forts, Magazines, Arsenals, dock-Yards, and other needful Buildings;—And

To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof.

Section 9. The Migration or Importation of such Persons as any of the States now existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by the Congress prior to the Year one thousand eight hundred and eight, but a Tax or duty may be imposed on such Importation, not exceeding ten dollars for each Person.

The Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it.

No Bill of Attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed.

No Capitation, or other direct, Tax shall be laid, unless in Proportion to the Census or Enumeration herein before directed to be taken.⁸

No Tax or Duty shall be laid on Articles exported from any State.

No Preference shall be given by any Regulation of Commerce or Revenue to the Ports of one State over those of another: nor shall Vessels bound to, or from, one State, be obliged to enter, clear, or pay Duties in another.

No money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law; and a regular Statement and Account of the Receipts and Expenditures of all public Money shall be published from time to time.

No Title of Nobility shall be granted by the United States: And no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State.

Section 10. No State shall enter into any Treaty, Alliance, or Confederation; grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal; coin Money; emit Bills of Credit; make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts; pass any Bill of Attainder, ex post facto Law, or Law impairing the Obligation of Contracts, or grant any Title of Nobility.

No State shall, without the Consent of the Congress, lay any Imposts or Duties on Imports or Exports, except what may be absolutely necessary for executing its inspection Laws: and the net Produce of all Duties and Imposts, laid by any State on Imports or Exports, shall be for the Use of the Treasury of the United States; and all such Laws shall be subject to the Revision and Control of the Congress.

No State shall, without the Consent of Congress, lay any Duty of Tonnage, keep Troops, or Ships of War in time of Peace, enter into any Agreement or Compact with another State, or with a foreign Power, or engage in War, unless actually invaded, or in such imminent Danger as will not admit of delay.

ARTICLE II

Section 1. The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America. He shall hold his Office during the Term of four Years, and, together with the Vice President, chosen for the same term, be elected, as follows

⁷ Modified by the District of Columbia Home Rule Act of 1973.

⁸ Changed by the Sixteenth Amendment which permits a Federal income tax, and the Twenty-fourth Amendment, which prohibits Federal pollution.

Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress: but no Senator or Representative, or Person holding an Office of Trust or Profit under the United States, shall be appointed an Elector.

The Electors shall meet in their respective States, and vote by Ballot for two Persons, of whom one at least shall not be an Inhabitant of the same State with themselves. And they shall make a List of all the Persons voted for, and of the Number of Votes for each; which List they shall sign and certify, and transmit sealed to the Seat of the Government of the United States, directed to the President of the Senate. The President of the Senate shall, in the Presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the Certificates, and the Votes shall then be counted. The Person having the greatest Number of Votes shall be the President, if such Number be a Majority of the whole Number of Electors appointed; and if there be more than one who have such Majority, and have an equal Number of Votes, then the House of Representatives shall immediately chuse by Ballot one of them for President; and if no Person have a Majority, then from the five highest on the List the said House shall in like Manner chuse the President. But in chusing the President, the Votes shall be taken by States, the Representation from each State having one Vote; A quorum for this Purpose shall consist of a Member or Members from two thirds of the States, and a Majority of all the States shall be necessary to a Choice. In every Case, after the Choice of the President, the Person having the greatest Number of Votes of the Electors shall be the Vice President. But if there should remain two or more who have equal Votes, the Senate shall chuse from them by Ballot the Vice President.⁹

The Congress may determine the Time of chusing the Electors, and the Day on which they shall give their Votes; which Day shall be the same throughout the United States.

No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States.

In Case of the Removal of the President from Office, or of his Death, Resignation, or Inability to discharge the Powers and Duties of the said Office, the Same shall devolve on the Vice President, and the Congress may by Law provide for the Case of Removal, Death, Resignation or Inability, both of the President and Vice President, declaring what Officer shall then act as President, and such Officer shall act accordingly, until the Disability be removed, or a President shall be elected.¹⁰

The President shall, at stated Times, receive for his Services, a Compensation, which shall neither be encreased nor diminished during the Period for which he shall have been elected, and he shall not receive within that Period any other Emolument from the United States, or any of them.

Before he enter on the Execution of his Office, he shall take the following Oath or Affirmation:—"I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."

Section 2. The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States; he may require the Opinion, in writing, of the principal Officer in each of the executive Departments, upon any Subject relating to the Duties of their respective Offices, and he shall have Power to grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offences against the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment.

He shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur; and he shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the Supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United States, whose Appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by Law: but the Congress may by Law vest the Appointment of such inferior Officers, as they think proper, in the President alone, in the Courts of Law, or in the Heads of Departments.

⁹ Modified by the Twelfth and Twenty-third Amendments.

¹⁰ Clarified by the Presidential Succession Act of 1947 and by the Twenty-fifth Amendment.

The President shall have Power to fill up all Vacancies that may happen during the Recess of the Senate, by granting Commissions which shall expire at the End of their next Session.

Section 3. He shall from time to time give to the Congress Information of the State of the Union, and recommend to their Consideration such Measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient; he may, on extraordinary Occasions, convene both Houses, or either of them, and in Case of Disagreement between them, with Respect to the Time of Adjournment, he may adjourn them to such Time as he shall think proper; he shall receive Ambassadors and other public Ministers; he shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed, and shall Commission all the Officers of the United States.

Section 4. The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other High Crimes and Misdemeanors.

ARTICLE III

Section 1. The judicial Power of the United States, shall be vested in one supreme Court, and in such inferior Courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish. The Judges, both of the supreme and inferior Courts, shall hold their Offices during good Behaviour, and shall, at stated Times, receive for their Services, a Compensation, which shall not be diminished during their Continuance in Office.

Section 2. The judicial Power shall extend to all Cases, in Law and Equity, arising under this Constitution, the Laws of the United States, and Treaties made, or which shall be made, under their Authority;—to all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls;—to all Cases of admiralty and maritime Jurisdiction;—to Controversies to which the United States shall be a Party;—to Controversies between two or more States; between a State and Citizens of another State;¹¹—between Citizens of different States;—between Citizens of the same State claiming Lands under Grants of different States, and between a State, or the Citizens thereof, and foreign States, Citizens or Subjects.

In all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, and those in which a State shall be Party, the supreme Court shall have original Jurisdiction. In all the other Cases before mentioned, the supreme Court shall have appellate Jurisdiction, both as to Law and Fact, with such Exceptions, and under such Regulations as the Congress shall make.

The Trial of all Crimes, except in Cases of Impeachment, shall be by Jury; and such Trial shall be held in the State where the said Crimes shall have been committed; but when not committed within any State, the Trial shall be at such Place or Places as the Congress may by Law have directed.

Section 3. Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court.

The Congress shall have Power to declare the Punishment of Treason, but no Attainder of Treason shall work Corruption of Blood, or Forfeiture except during the Life of the Person attainted.

ARTICLE IV

Section 1. Full Faith and Credit shall be given in each State to the public Acts, Records, and judicial Proceedings of every other State. And the Congress may by general Laws prescribe the Manner in which such Acts, Records, and Proceedings shall be proved, and the Effect thereof.

Section 2. The Citizens of each State shall be entitled to all Privileges and Immunities of Citizens in the several States.

A Person charged in any State with Treason, Felony, or other Crime, who shall flee from Justice, and be found in another State, shall on Demand of the executive Authority of the State from which he fled, be delivered up, to be removed to the State having Jurisdiction of the Crime.

No person held to Service or Labour in one State, under the Laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in Consequence of any Law or Regulation therein, be discharged from such Service of Labour, but shall be delivered up on Claim of the Party to whom such Service or Labour may be due.¹²

¹¹ Changed by the Eleventh Amendment.

¹² Made obsolete by the Thirteenth Amendment.

Section 3. New States may be admitted by the Congress into this Union; but no new State shall be formed or erected within the Jurisdiction of any other State; nor any State be formed by the Junction of two or more States, or Parts of States, without the Consent of the Legislatures of the States concerned as well as of the Congress.

The Congress shall have Power to dispose of and make all needful Rules and Regulations respecting the Territory or other Property belonging to the United States; and nothing in this Constitution shall be so construed as to Prejudice any Claims of the United States, or of any particular State.

Section 4. The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government, and shall protect each of them against Invasion; and on Application of the Legislature, or of the Executive (when Legislature cannot be convened) against domestic Violence.

ARTICLE V

The Congress, whenever two thirds of both Houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose Amendments to this Constitution, or, on the Application of the Legislatures of two thirds of the several States, shall call a Convention for proposing Amendments, which, in either Case, shall be valid to all Intents and Purposes, as Part of this Constitution, when ratified by the Legislatures of three fourths of the several States, or by Conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other Mode of Ratification may be proposed by the Congress; Provided that no Amendment which may be made prior to the Year One thousand eight hundred and eight shall in any Manner affect the first and fourth Clauses in the Ninth Section of the first Article; and that no State, without its Consent, shall be deprived of its equal Suffrage in the Senate.

ARTICLE VI

All Debts contracted and Engagements entered into, before the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be as valid against the United States under this Constitution, as under the Confederation.

This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.

The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.

ARTICLE VII

The Ratification of the Conventions of nine States, shall be sufficient for the Establishment of this Constitution between the States so ratifying the Same.

Done in Convention by the Unanimous Consent of the States present the Seventeenth Day of September in the Year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and Eighty seven and of the Independence of the United States of America the Twelfth In witness whereof We have hereunto subscribed our Names,

G° Washington—Presid^t and deputy from Virginia

AMENDMENTS

(The first ten amendments were ratified December 15, 1791, and form what is known as the "Bill of Rights.")

AMENDMENT 1

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

AMENDMENT 2

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

AMENDMENT 3

No Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the Owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.

AMENDMENT 4

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

AMENDMENT 5

No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

AMENDMENT 6

In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence.

AMENDMENT 7

In Suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise re-examined in any Court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law.

AMENDMENT 8

Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.

AMENDMENT 9

The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

AMENDMENT 10

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

AMENDMENT 11

(Ratified February 7, 1795)

The Judicial power of the United States shall not be construed to extend to any suit in law or equity, commenced or prosecuted against one of the United States by Citizens of another State, or by Citizens or Subjects of any Foreign State.

AMENDMENT 12

(Ratified July 27, 1804)

The Electors shall meet in their respective states and vote by ballot for President and Vice-President, one of whom, at least, shall not be an inhabitant of the same state with themselves; they shall name in their ballots the person voted for as President, and in distinct ballots the person voted for as Vice-President, and they shall make distinct lists of all persons voted for as President, and of all persons voted for as Vice-President, and of the number of votes for each, which lists they shall sign and certify, and transmit sealed to the seat of the government of the United States, directed to the President of the Senate;—The President of the Senate shall, in the presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the certificates and the votes shall then be counted;—The person having the greatest number of votes for President, shall be the President, if such number be a majority of the whole number of Electors appointed; and if no person have such majority, then from the persons having the highest numbers not exceeding three on the list of those voted for as President, the House of Representatives shall choose immediately, by ballot, the President. But in choosing the President, the votes shall be taken by states, the representation from each state having one vote; a quorum for this purpose shall consist of a member or members from two-thirds of the states, and a majority of all the states shall be necessary to a choice. And if the House of Representatives shall not choose a President whenever the right of choice shall devolve upon them, before the fourth day of March next following, then the Vice-President shall act as President, as in the case of the death or other constitutional disability of the President.—The person having the greatest number of votes as Vice-President, shall be the Vice-President, if such number be a majority of the whole number of Electors appointed, and if no person have a majority, then from the two highest numbers on the list, the Senate shall choose the Vice-President; a quorum for the purpose shall consist of two-thirds of the whole number of Senators, and a majority of the whole number shall be necessary to a choice. But no person constitutionally ineligible to the office of President shall be eligible to that of Vice-President of the United States.

AMENDMENT 13

(Ratified December 6, 1865)

Section 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.

Section 2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

AMENDMENT 14

(Ratified July 9, 1868)

Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

Section 2. Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the Executive and Judicial officers of a State, or the members of the Legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such State, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State.

Section 3. No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.

Section 4. The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. But neither the United States nor any State shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave; but all such debts, obligations and claims shall be held illegal and void.

Section 5. The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.

AMENDMENT 15

(Ratified February 3, 1870)

Section 1. The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.

Section 2. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

AMENDMENT 16

(Ratified February 3, 1913)

The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration.

AMENDMENT 17

(Ratified April 8, 1913)

The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each State, elected by the people thereof for six years; and each Senator shall have one vote. The electors in each State shall have the qualifications requisite for electors of the most numerous branch of the State legislatures.

When vacancies happen in the representation of any State in the Senate, the executive authority of such State shall issue writs of election to fill such vacancies: Provided, That the legislature of any State may empower the executive thereof to make temporary appointments until the people fill the vacancies by election as the legislature may direct.

This amendment shall not be so construed as to affect the election or term of any Senator chosen before it becomes valid as part of the Constitution.

AMENDMENT 18

(Ratified January 16, 1919. Repealed December 5, 1933, by Amendment 21.)

Section 1. After one year from the ratification of this article the manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors within, the importation thereof into, or the exportation thereof from the United States and all territory subject to the jurisdiction thereof for beverage purposes is hereby prohibited.

Section 2. The Congress and the several States shall have concurrent power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

Section 3. This article shall be inoperative unless it shall have been ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by the legislatures of the several States as provided in the Constitution, within seven years from the date of the submission hereof to the States by the Congress.

AMENDMENT 19

(Ratified August 18, 1920)

The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.

Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

AMENDMENT 20

(Ratified January 23, 1933)

Section 1. The terms of the President and Vice President shall end at noon on the 20th day of January, and the terms of Senators and Representatives at noon on the 3d day of January, of the years in which such terms would have ended if this article had not been ratified; and the terms of their successors shall then begin.

Section 2. The Congress shall assemble at least once in every year, and such meeting shall begin at noon on the 3d day of January, unless they shall by law appoint a different day.

Section 3. If, at the time fixed for the beginning of the term of the President, the President elect shall have died, the Vice President elect shall become President. If a President shall not have been chosen before the time fixed for the beginning of his term, or if the President elect shall have failed to qualify, then the Vice President elect shall act as President until a President shall have qualified; and the Congress may by law provide for the case wherein neither a President elect nor a Vice President elect shall have qualified, declaring who shall then act as President, or the manner in which one who is to act shall be selected, and such person shall act accordingly until a President or Vice President shall have qualified.

Section 4. The Congress may by law provide for the case of the death of any of the persons from whom the House of Representatives may choose a President whenever the right of choice shall have devolved upon them, and for the case of the death of any of the persons from whom the Senate may choose a Vice President whenever the right of choice shall have devolved upon them.

Section 5. Sections 1 and 2 shall take effect on the 15th day of October following the ratification of this article.

Section 6. This article shall be inoperative unless it shall have been ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by the legislatures of three-fourths of the several States within seven years from the date of its submission.

AMENDMENT 21

(Ratified December 5, 1933)

Section 1. The eighteenth article of amendment to the Constitution of the United States is hereby repealed.

Section 2. The transportation or importation into any State, Territory, or possession of the United States for delivery or use therein of intoxicating liquors, in violation of the laws thereof, is hereby prohibited.

Section 3. This article shall be inoperative unless it shall have been ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by conventions in the several States, as provided in the Constitution, within seven years from the date of the submission hereof to the States by the Congress.

AMENDMENT 22

(Ratified February 27, 1951)

Section 1. No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice, and no person who has held the office of President, or acted as President, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected President shall be elected to the office of the President more than once. But this Article shall not apply to any person holding the office of President when this Article was proposed by the Congress, and shall not prevent any person who may be holding the office of President, or acting as President, during the term within which this Article becomes operative from holding the office of President or acting as President during the remainder of such term.

Section 2. This article shall be inoperative unless it shall have been ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by the legislatures of three-fourths of the several States within seven years from the date of its submission to the States by the Congress.

AMENDMENT 23

(Ratified March 29, 1961)

Section 1. The District constituting the seat of Government of the United States shall appoint in such manner as the Congress may direct:

A number of electors of President and Vice President equal to the whole number of Senators and Representatives in Congress to which the District would be entitled if it were a State, but in no event more than the least populous State; they shall be in addition to those appointed by the States, but they shall be considered, for the purposes of the election of President and Vice President, to be electors appointed by a State; and they shall meet in the District and perform such duties as provided by the twelfth article of amendment.

Section 2. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

AMENDMENT 24

(Ratified January 23, 1964)

Section 1. The right of citizens of the United States to vote in any primary or other election for President or Vice President, for electors for President or Vice President, or for Senator or Representative in Congress, shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any State by reason of failure to pay any poll tax or other tax.

Section 2. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

AMENDMENT 25

(Ratified February 10, 1967)

Section 1. In case of the removal of the President from office or of his death or resignation, the Vice President shall become President.

Section 2. Whenever there is a vacancy in the office of the Vice President, the President shall nominate a Vice President who shall take office upon confirmation by a majority vote of both Houses of Congress.

Section 3. Whenever the President transmits to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives his written declaration that he is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, and until he transmits to them a written declaration to the contrary, such powers and duties shall be discharged by the Vice President as Acting President.

Section 4. Whenever the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President.

Thereafter, when the President transmits to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives his written declaration that no inability exists, he shall resume the powers and duties of his office unless the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive department or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit within four days to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office. Thereupon Congress shall decide the issue, assembling within forty-eight hours for that purpose if not in session. If the Congress, within twenty-one days after receipt of the latter written declaration, or, if Congress is not in session, within twenty-one days after Congress is required to assemble, determines by two-thirds vote of both Houses that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall continue to discharge the same as Acting President; otherwise, the President shall resume the powers and duties of his office.

AMENDMENT 26

(Ratified July 1, 1971)

Section 1. The right of citizens of the United States, who are eighteen years of age or older, to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of age.

Section 2. The Congress shall have the power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

AMENDMENT 27

(Ratified May 7, 1992)

No law, varying the compensation for the services of the Senators and Representatives, shall take effect, until an election of Representatives shall have intervened.

CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES (1787–1788)

Delegates sent to Philadelphia from the thirteen states to discuss changes to the existing Confederation government formed the Constitution during the summer of 1787. The delegates tended to be well-educated, wealthy conservatives who worried about the economic and diplomatic problems facing the young United States. Shortly after the beginning of the proceedings, the delegates adopted a rule of debate behind closed doors, so that views could be expressed without fear of repercussions at home. James Madison of Virginia used this opportunity to introduce his plan for revising the government of the United States. Madison's Virginia Plan meant to scrap the Articles of Confederation, replacing it with a highly centralized government based on federalism. The delegates, realizing that Madison's plan answered their desire for a government that would protect liberty while ensuring order, began in earnest to create a new government of the United States.

The heart of Madison's proposal balanced and separated the three most important functions of government: a bicameral legislature, a strong executive, and an independent judiciary. The Constitution models itself on past successful republics in creating a lower house, the members of which are elected according to the respective population of the states, with authority over how money is raised and spent; and an upper house, restricted to two representatives from each state, with functions resembling that of a general court. Executive power is modeled on the consuls of the ancient Roman Republic, who had two general powers: to serve as commander in chief and to execute the laws passed by the legislative power. Madison, who realized the importance of freeing judges from the influence of significant others, created a judicial system independent of the legislative and executive branches. The resulting Constitution balances power among the varying functions of the federal government while creating a method for local, state, and federal governments to share power.

RussellLawson,
Bacone College

See also Constitution of the United States .

Preamble

WE THE PEOPLE of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

Article One

Section 1. All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives.

Section 2. The House of Representatives shall be composed of Members chosen every second Year by the People of the several States, and the Electors in each State shall have the qualifications requisite for Electors of the most numerous Branch of the State Legislature. No Person shall be a Representative who shall not have attained to the age of twenty five Years, and been seven Years a Citizen of the United States, and who shall not, when elected, be an Inhabitant of that State in which he shall be chosen.

Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons. The actual Enumeration shall be made within three Years after the first Meeting of the Congress of the United States, and within every subsequent Term of ten Years, in such Manner as they shall by Law direct. The Number of Representatives shall not exceed one for every thirty Thousand, but each State shall have at Least one Representative; and until such enumeration shall be made, the State of New Hampshire shall be entitled to chuse three, Massachusetts eight, Rhode Island and Providence Plantations one, Connecticut five, New York six, New Jersey four, Pennsylvania eight, Delaware one, Maryland six, Virginia ten, North Carolina five, South Carolina five and Georgia three.

When vacancies happen in the Representation from any State, the Executive Authority thereof shall issue Writs of Election to fill such Vacancies.

The House of Representatives shall chuse their Speaker and other officers; and shall have the sole Power of Impeachment.

Section 3. The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each State, chosen by the Legislature thereof, for six Years; and each Senator shall have one Vote.

Immediately after they shall be assembled in Consequence of the first Election, they shall be divided as equally as may be into three Classes. The Seats of the Senators of the first class shall be vacated at the Expiration of the second Year, of the second Class at the Expiration of the fourth Year, and of the third Class at the Expiration of the sixth Year, so that one third may be chosen every second Year; and if Vacancies happen by Resignation, or otherwise, during the Recess of the Legislature of any State, the Executive thereof may make temporary Appointments until the next Meeting of the Legislature, which shall then fill such Vacancies.

No Person shall be a Senator who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty Years, and been nine Years a Citizen of the United States, and who shall not, when elected, be an Inhabitant of that State for which he shall be chosen.

The Vice President of the United States shall be President of the Senate, but shall have no Vote, unless they be equally divided.

The Senate shall chuse their other Officers, and also a President pro tempore, in the Absence of the Vice President, or when he shall exercise the Office of President of the United States.

The Senate shall have the sole Power to try all Impeachments. When sitting for that Purpose, they shall be on Oath or Affirmation. When the President of the United States is tried, the Chief Justice shall preside: and no Person shall be convicted without the Concurrence of two thirds of the Members present.

Judgment in Cases of Impeachment shall not extend further than to removal from Office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy any Office of honor, Trust or Profit under the United States: but the Party convicted shall nevertheless be liable and subject to Indictment, Trial, Judgment and Punishment, according to Law.

Section 4. The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations, except as to the Places of chusing Senators.

The Congress shall assemble at least once in every Year, and such Meeting shall be on the first Monday in December, unless they shall by Law appoint a different Day.

Section 5. Each House shall be the Judge of the Elections, returns and Qualifications of its own Members, and a Majority of each shall constitute a Quorum to do Business; but a smaller Number may adjourn from day to day, and may be authorized to compel the Attendance of absent Members, in such Manner, and under such Penalties as each House may provide.

Each House may determine the Rules of its Proceedings, punish its Members for disorderly Behavior, and, with the Concurrence of two thirds, expel a Member.

Each House shall keep a Journal of its Proceedings, and from time to time publish the same, excepting such Parts as may in their Judgment require Secrecy; and the Yeas and Nays of the Members of either House on any question shall, at the Desire of one-fifth of those Present, be entered on the Journal.

Neither House, during the Session of Congress, shall, without the Consent of the other, adjourn for more than three days, nor to any other Place than that in which the two Houses shall be sitting.

Section 6. The Senators and Representatives shall receive a Compensation for their Services, to be ascertained by Law, and paid out of the Treasury of the United States. They shall in all Cases, except Treason, Felony and Breach of the Peace, be privileged from Arrest during their Attendance at the Session of their respective Houses, and in going to and returning from the same; and for any Speech or Debate in either House, they shall not be questioned in any other Place.

No Senator or Representative shall, during the Time for which he was elected, be appointed to any civil Office under the Authority of the United States which shall have been created, or the Emoluments whereof shall have been increased during such time; and no Person holding any Office under the United States, shall be a member of either House during his Continuance in Office.

Section 7. All Bills for raising Revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives; but the Senate may propose or concur with Amendments as on other Bills.

Every Bill which shall have passed the House of Representatives and the Senate, shall, before it become a Law, be presented to the President of the United States; if he approve he shall sign it, but if not he shall return it, with his Objections to that House in which it shall have originated, who shall enter the Objections at large on their Journal, and proceed to reconsider it. If after such Reconsideration two thirds of that House shall agree to pass the Bill, it shall be sent, together with the Objections, to the other House, by which it shall likewise be reconsidered, and if approved by two thirds of that House, it shall become a Law. But in all such Cases the Votes of both Houses shall be determined by yeas and Nays, and the Names of the Persons voting for and against the Bill shall be entered on the Journal of each House respectively. If any Bill shall not be returned by the President within ten Days (Sundays excepted) after it shall have been presented to him, the Same shall be a Law, in like Manner as if he had signed it, unless the Congress by their Adjournment prevent its Return, in which Case it shall not be a Law.

Every Order, resolution, or Vote to which the Concurrence of the Senate and House of Representatives may be necessary (except on a question of Adjournment) shall be presented to the President of the United States; and before the Same shall take Effect, shall be approved by him, or being disapproved by him, shall be repassed by two thirds of the Senate and House of Representatives, according to the Rules and Limitations prescribed in the Case of a Bill.

Section 8. The Congress shall have Power

To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;

To borrow Money on the credit of the United States; To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes;

To establish a uniform Rule of Naturalization, and uniform Laws on the subject of Bankruptcies throughout the United States;

To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures;

To provide for the Punishment of counterfeiting the Securities and current Coin of the United States;

To establish Post-Offices and post-Roads;

To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;

To constitute Tribunals inferior to the Supreme Court;

To define and punish Piracies and Felonies committed on the high Seas, and Offenses against the Law of Nations;

To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water;

To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years;

To provide and maintain a Navy;

To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces;

To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress insurrections and repel invasions;

To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;

To exercise exclusive Legislation in all Cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten Miles square) as may, by Cession of particular States, and the Acceptance of Congress, become the Seat of the Government of the United States, and to exercise like Authority over all Places purchased by the Consent of the Legislature of the State in which the Same shall be, for the erection of Forts, Magazines, arsenals, dock-Yards, and other needful Buildings; and

To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof.

Section 9. The Migration or Importation of such Persons as any of the States now existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by the Congress prior to the Year one thousand eight hundred and eight, but a Tax or duty may be imposed on such Importation, not exceeding ten dollars for each Person.

The Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it.

No bill of Attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed.

No Capitation, or other direct Tax shall be laid, unless in Proportion to the Census or Enumeration herein before directed to be taken.

No Tax or Duty shall be laid on Articles exported from any State.

No Preference shall be given by any Regulation of Commerce or Revenue to the Ports of one State over those of another: nor shall Vessels bound to, or from, one State, be obliged to enter, clear, or pay Duties in another.

No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law; and a regular Statement and Account of the Receipts and Expenditures of all public Money shall be published from time to time.

No Title of Nobility shall be granted by the United States: And no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince or Foreign State.

Section 10. No State shall enter into any Treaty, Alliance, or Confederation; grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal; coin Money; emit Bills of Credit; make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts; pass any Bill of Attainder, ex post facto Law, or Law impairing the Obligation of Contracts, or grant any Title of Nobility.

No State shall, without the Consent of the Congress, lay any Imposts or Duties on Imports or Exports, except what may be absolutely necessary for executing it's inspection Laws: and the net Produce of all Duties and Imposts, laid by any State on Imports or Exports, shall be for the use of the Treasury of the United States; and all such Laws shall be subject to the Revision and Controul of the Congress.

No State shall, without the Consent of Congress, lay any Duty of Tonnage, keep Troops, or Ships of War in time of Peace, enter into any Agreement or Compact with another State, or with a foreign Power, or engage in War, unless actually invaded, or in such imminent Danger as will not admit of delay.

Article Two

Section 1. The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America. He shall hold his Office during the Term of four Years, and, together with the Vice President chosen for the same Term, be elected, as follows:

Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress: but no Senator or Representative, or person holding an Office of Trust or Profit under the United States, shall be appointed an elector.

The Electors shall meet in their respective States, and vote by Ballot for two Persons, of whom one at least shall not be an Inhabitant of the same State with themselves. And they shall make a List of all the persons voted for, and of the Number of Votes for each; which List they shall sign and certify, and transmit sealed to the Seat of the Government of the United States, directed to the President of the Senate. The President of the Senate shall, in the Presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the Certificates, and the Votes shall then be counted. The Person having the greatest Number of Votes shall be the President, if such Number be a Majority of the whole Number of Electors appointed; and if there be more than one who have such Majority, and have an equal Number of Votes, then the House of Representatives shall immediately chuse by Ballot one of them for President; and if no person have a Majority, then from the five highest on the List the said House shall in like Manner chuse the President. But in chusing the President, the Votes shall be taken by States, the representation from each State having one Vote; a quorum for this Purpose shall consist of a Member or Members from two thirds of the States, and a Majority of all the States shall be necessary to a Choice. In every Case, after the Choice of the President, the Person having the greatest number of votes of the electors shall be the Vice President. But if there should remain two or more who have equal Votes, the Senate shall chuse from them by Ballot the Vice President.

The Congress may determine the time of chusing the Electors, and the Day on which they shall give their Votes; which Day shall be the same throughout the United States.

No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States.

In Case of the Removal of the President from Office, or of his Death, Resignation, or Inability to discharge the Powers and Duties of the said Office, the Same shall devolve on the Vice President, and the Congress may by Law provide for the Case of Removal, Death, Resignation or Inability, both of the President and Vice President, declaring what Officer shall then act as President, and such Officer shall act accordingly, until the Disability be removed, or a President shall be elected.

The President shall, at stated Times, receive for his Services, a Compensation, which shall neither be increased nor diminished during the Period for which he shall have been elected, and he shall not receive within that Period any other Emolument from the United States, or any of them.

Before he enter on the Execution of his Office, he shall take the following Oath or Affirmation:

"I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."

Section 2. The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual service of the United States; he may require the Opinion, in writing, of the principal Officer in each of the executive Departments, upon any Subject relating to the Duties of their respective Offices, and he shall have Power to grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offenses against the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment.

He shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur; and he shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United States, whose appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by law: but the Congress may by law vest the appointment of such inferior officers, as they think proper, in the President alone, in the Courts of Law, or in the Heads of Departments.

The President shall have Power to fill up all Vacancies that may happen during the Recess of the Senate, by granting Commissions which shall expire at the End of their next session.

Section 3. He shall from time to time give to the Congress Information of the State of the Union, and recommend to their consideration such Measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient; he may, on extraordinary Occasions, convene both Houses, or either of them, and in Case of Disagreement between them, with Respect to the Time of Adjournment, he may adjourn them to such Time as he shall think proper; he shall receive Ambassadors and other public Ministers; he shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed, and shall Commission all the Officers of the United States.

Section 4. The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.

Article Three

Section 1. The judicial Power of the United States, shall be vested in one supreme Court, and in such inferior Courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish. The Judges, both of the supreme and inferior courts, shall hold their Offices during good Behavior, and shall, at stated times, receive for their Services, a Compensation, which shall not be diminished during their Continuance in Office.

Section 2. The judicial Power shall extend to all Cases, in Law and Equity, arising under this Constitution, the Laws of the United States, and Treaties made, or which shall be made, under their Authority; to all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls; to all Cases of admiralty and maritime Jurisdiction; to Controversies to which the United States shall be a Party; to Controversies between two or more States; between a State and Citizens of another State; between Citizens of different States; between Citizens of the same State claiming Lands under Grants of different States, and between a State, or the Citizens thereof, and foreign States, Citizens or Subjects.

In all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, and those in which a State shall be party, the supreme Court shall have original Jurisdiction. In all the other Cases before mentioned, the supreme Court shall have appellate Jurisdiction, both as to Law and Fact, with such Exceptions, and under such Regulations as the Congress shall make.

The trial of all Crimes, except in Cases of Impeachment, shall be by Jury; and such trial shall be held in the State where the said Crimes shall have been committed; but when not committed within any State, the Trial shall be at such Place or Places as the Congress may by Law have directed.

Section 3. Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open court.

The Congress shall have Power to declare the Punishment of Treason, but no Attainder of Treason shall work Corruption of Blood, or Forfeiture except during the Life of the Person attainted.

Article Four

Section 1. Full Faith and Credit shall be given in each State to the public Acts, Records, and judicial Proceedings of every other State. And the Congress may by general Laws prescribe the Manner in which such Acts, Records and Proceedings shall be proved, and the Effect thereof.

Section 2. The Citizens of each State shall be entitled to all Privileges and Immunities of Citizens in the several States.

A person charged in any State with Treason, Felony, or other Crime, who shall flee from Justice, and be found in another State, shall on Demand of the Executive Authority of the State from which he fled, be delivered up, to be removed to the State having Jurisdiction of the Crime.

No Person held to Service or Labour in one State, under the Laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in Consequence of any Law or Regulation therein, be discharged from such Service or Labour, but shall be delivered up on Claim of the Party to whom such Service or Labour may be due.

Section 3. New States may be admitted by the Congress into this Union; but no new States shall be formed or erected within the Jurisdiction of any other State; nor any State be formed by the Junction of two or more States, or Parts of States, without the Consent of the Legislatures of the States concerned as well as of the Congress.

The Congress shall have Power to dispose of and make all needful Rules and Regulations respecting the Territory or other Property belonging to the United States; and nothing in this Constitution shall be so construed as to Prejudice any Claims of the United States, or of any particular State.

Section 4. The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of government, and shall protect each of them against Invasion; and on Application of the Legislature, or of the Executive (when the legislature cannot be convened) against domestic Violence.

Article Five

The Congress, whenever two thirds of both Houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose Amendments to this Constitution, or, on the Application of the Legislatures of two thirds of the several States, shall call a Convention for proposing Amendments, which, in either Case, shall be valid to all intents and purposes, as part of this Constitution, when ratified by the Legislatures of three fourths of the several States, or by Conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other Mode of Ratification may be proposed by the Congress; Provided that no Amendment which may be made prior to the Year One thousand eight hundred and eight shall in any Manner affect the first and fourth Clauses in the Ninth Section of the first Article; and that no State, without its Consent, shall be deprived of its equal Suffrage in the Senate.

Article Six

All Debts contracted and Engagements entered into, before the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be as valid against the United States under this Constitution, as under the Confederation.

This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.

The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.

Article Seven

The Ratification of the Conventions of nine States, shall be sufficient for the establishment of this Constitution between the States so ratifying the Same.

Done in Convention by the Unanimous Consent of the States present the Seventeenth day of September in the Year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and Eighty-seven and of the Independence of the United States of America the Twelfth, In witness whereof We have hereunto subscribed our Names,

George Washington

President and deputy from Virginia

New Hampshire.

John Langdon

Nicholas Gilman

Georgia.

William Few

Abraham Baldwin

Massachusetts.

Nathaniel Gorham

Rufus King

Connecticut.

William Samuel Johnson

Roger Sherman

New Jersey.

William Livingston

David Brearley

William Paterson

Jonathan Dayton

New York.

Alexander Hamilton

Maryland.

James McHenry

Daniel Carrol

Daniel of St. Thomas Jenifer

Pennsylvania.

Benjamin Franklin

Robert Morris

Thomas FitzSimons

James Wilson

Thomas Mifflin

George Clymer

Jared Ingersoll

Gouverneur Morris

Virginia.

John Blair

James Madison Jr.

North Carolina.

William Blount

Hugh Williamson

Richard Dobbs Spaight

Delaware.

George Read

John Dickinson

Jacob Broom

Gunning Bedford Jr.

Richard Bassett

South Carolina.

John Ruttledge

Charles Pinckney

Charles Cotesworth Pinckney

Pierce Butler

Attest:

William Jackson, Secretary

Amendments

ARTICLE ONE Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

ARTICLE TWO A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.

ARTICLE THREE No soldier shall, in time of peace, be quartered in any house, without the consent of the owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.

ARTICLE FOUR The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

ARTICLE FIVE No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the militia, when in actual service in time of war or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

ARTICLE SIX In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the assistance of counsel for his defence.

ARTICLE SEVEN In suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise re-examined in any court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law.

ARTICLE EIGHT Excessive bail shall not lie required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.

ARTICLE NINE The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

ARTICLE TEN The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

ARTICLE ELEVEN January 8, 1798

The judicial power of the United States shall not be construed to extend to any suit in law or equity, commenced or prosecuted against one of the United States by Citizens of another State, or by citizens or subjects of any foreign State.

ARTICLE TWELVE September 25, 1804

The Electors shall meet in their respective States, and vote by ballot for President and Vice President, one of whom at least, shall not be an inhabitant of the same State with themselves; they shall name in their ballots the person voted for as President, and in distinct ballots the person voted for as Vice President, and they shall make distinct lists of all persons voted for as President, and of all persons voted for as Vice President, and of the number of votes for each, which lists they shall sign and certify, and transmit sealed to the seat of the Government of the United States, directed to the President of the Senate; the President of the Senate shall, in the presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the certificates and the votes shall then be counted; the person having the greatest number of votes for President, shall be the President, if such number be a majority of the whole number of Electors appointed; and if no person have such majority, then from the persons having the highest numbers not exceeding three on the list of those voted for as President, the House of Representatives shall choose immediately, by ballot, the President. But in choosing the President, the votes shall be taken by States, the representation from each State having one vote; a quorum for this purpose shall consist of a member or members from two-thirds of the States, and a majority of all the States shall be necessary to a choice. And if the House of Representatives shall not choose a President whenever the right of choice shall devolve upon them, before the fourth day of March next following, then the Vice President shall act as President, as in the case of the death or other constitutional disability of the President. The person having the greatest number of votes as Vice President, shall be the Vice President, if such number be a majority of the whole number of Electors appointed, and if no person have a majority, then from the two highest numbers on the list, the Senate shall choose the Vice President; a quorum for the purpose shall consist of two-thirds of the whole number of Senators, and a majority of the whole number shall be necessary to a choice. But no person constitutionally ineligible to the office of President shall be eligible to that of Vice-President of the United States.

ARTICLE THIRTEEN December 18, 1865

Section 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.

Section 2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

ARTICLE FOURTEEN July 28, 1868

Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

Section 2. Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of Electors for President and Vice President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the executive and judicial officers of a State, or the members of the Legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such State, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State.

Section 3. No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or Elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State Legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof, but Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.

Section 4. The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. But neither the United States nor any State shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave; but all such debts, obligations and claims shall be held illegal and void.

Section 5. The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.

ARTICLE FIFTEEN March 30, 1870

Section 1. The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.

Section 2. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

ARTICLE SIXTEEN February 25, 1913

The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States and without regard to any census or enumeration.

ARTICLE SEVENTEEN May 31, 1913

The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each State, elected by the people thereof, for six years; and each Senator shall have one vote. The electors in each State shall have the qualifications requisite for electors of the most numerous branch of the State legislature.

When vacancies happen in the representation of any State in the Senate, the executive authority of such State shall issue writs of election to fill such vacancies: Provided, That the legislature of any State may empower the Executive thereof to make temporary appointments until the people fill the vacancies by election as the legislature may direct.

This amendment shall not be so construed as to affect the election or term of any senator chosen before it becomes valid as part of the Constitution.

ARTICLE EIGHTEEN January 29, 1919

Section 1. After one year from the ratification of this article, the manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors within, the importation thereof into, or the exportation thereof from the United States and all territory subject to the jurisdiction thereof for beverage purposes is hereby prohibited.

Section 2. The Congress and the several States shall have concurrent power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

Section 3. This article shall be inoperative unless it shall have been ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by the Legislatures of the several States, as provided in the Constitution, within seven years from the date of the submission hereof to the States by Congress.

ARTICLE NINETEEN August 26, 1920

The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.

The Congress shall have power by appropriate legislation to enforce the provisions of this article.

ARTICLE TWENTY February 6, 1933

Section 1. The terms of the President and Vice-President shall end at noon on the twentieth day of January, and the terms of Senators and Representatives at noon on the third day of January, of the years in which such terms would have ended if this article had not been ratified; and the terms of their successors shall then begin.

Section 2. The Congress shall assemble at least once in every year, and such meeting shall begin at noon on the third day of January, unless they shall by law appoint a different day.

Section 3. If, at the time fixed for the beginning of the term of the President, the President-elect shall have died, the Vice-President-elect shall become President. If a President shall not have been chosen before the time fixed for the beginning of his term, or if the President-elect shall have failed to qualify, then the Vice-President-elect shall act as President until a President shall have qualified; and the Congress may by law provide for the case wherein neither a President-elect nor a Vice-President-elect shall have qualified, declaring who shall then act as President, or the manner in which one who is to act shall be selected, and such person shall act accordingly until a President or Vice-President shall have qualified.

Section 4. The Congress may by law provide for the case of the death of any of the persons from whom the House of Representatives may choose a President whenever the right of choice shall have devolved upon them, and for the case of the death of any of the persons from whom the Senate may choose a Vice-President whenever the right of choice shall have devolved upon them.

Section 5. Sections 1 and 2 shall take effect on the 15th day of October following the ratification of this article.

Section 6. This article shall be inoperative unless it shall have been ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by the Legislatures of three-fourths of the several States within seven years from the date of its submission.

ARTICLE TWENTY-ONE December 5, 1933

Section 1. The eighteenth article of amendment to the Constitution of the United States is hereby repealed.

Section 2. The transportation or importation into any State, Territory, or Possession of the United States for delivery or use therein of intoxicating liquors, in violation of the laws thereof, is hereby prohibited.

Section 3. The article shall be inoperative unless it shall have been ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by conventions in the several States, as provided in the Constitution, within seven years from the date of the submission hereof to the States by the Congress.

ARTICLE TWENTY-TWO February 26, 1951

Section 1. No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice, and no person who has held the office of President, or acted as President for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected President shall be elected to the office of the President more than once. But this Article shall not apply to any person holding the office of President when this Article was proposed by the Congress, and shall not prevent any person who May be holding the office of President, or acting as President, during the term within which this Article becomes operative from holding the office of President or acting as President during the remainder of such term.

Section 2. This article shall be inoperative unless it shall have been ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by the Legislatures of three-fourths of the several States within seven years from the date of its submission to the States by the Congress.

ARTICLE TWENTY-THREE June 16, 1960

Section 1. The District constituting the seat of government of the United States shall appoint in such manner as the Congress may direct:

A number of electors of President and Vice-President equal to the whole number of Senators and Representatives in Congress to which the District would be entitled if it were a State, but in no event more than the least populous State; they shall be in addition to those appointed by the States, but they shall be considered, for the purposes of the election of President and Vice-President, to be electors appointed by a State; and they shall meet in the District and perform such duties as provided by the twelfth article of amendment.

Section 2. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

ARTICLE TWENTY-FOUR February 4, 1964

Section 1. The right of citizens of the United States to vote in any primary or other election for President or Vice-President, for electors for President or Vice-President, or for Senator or Representative in Congress, shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any State by reason of failure to pay any poll tax or other tax.

Section 2. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

ARTICLE TWENTY-FIVE February 10, 1967

Section 1. In case of the removal of the President from office or of his death or resignation, the Vice-President shall become President.

Section 2. Whenever there is a vacancy in the office of the Vice-President, the President shall nominate a Vice-President who shall take office upon confirmation by a majority vote of both Houses of Congress.

Section 3. Whenever the President transmits to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives his written declaration that he is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, and until he transmits to them a written declaration to the contrary, such powers and duties shall be discharged by the Vice-President as Acting President.

Section 4. Whenever the Vice-President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice-President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President.

Thereafter, when the President transmits to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives his written declaration that no inability exists, he shall resume the powers and duties of his office unless the Vice-President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive department or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit within four day to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office. Thereupon Congress shall decide the issue, assembling within forty-eight hours for that purpose if not in session. If the Congress, within twenty-one days after receipt of the latter written declaration, or, if Congress is not in session, within twenty-one days after Congress is required to assemble, determines by two-thirds vote of both Houses that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice-President shall continue to discharge the same as Acting President; otherwise, the President shall resume the powers and duties of his office.

ARTICLE TWENTY-SIX July 1, 1971

Section 1. The right of citizens of the United States, who are eighteen years of age or older, to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of age.

Section 2. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

ARTICLE TWENTY-SEVEN May 7, 1992

No law, varying the compensation for the services of the Senators and Representatives, shall take effect, until an election of representatives shall have intervened.

CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES

A written document executed by representatives of the people of the United States as the absolute rule of action and decision for all branches and officers of the government, and with which all subsequent laws and ordinances must be in accordance unless it has been changed by a constitutional amendment by the authority that created it.

For over 200 years, the Constitution of the United States has served as the foundation for U.S. government. Created in 1787, the U.S. Constitution establishes and defines the basic outlines of a national government that joins the states in an effective political union. The U.S. Constitution has been and remains one of the most enduring political agreements in the history of the world. Throughout its existence, it has served as an inspiring example of the potential of constitutional government, causing many other countries and peoples to emulate its provisions.

According to Article VI of the Constitution, the U.S. Constitution is "the supreme Law of the Land." All other laws and judicial decisions are subject to its mandates. The Constitution therefore has higher authority than all other laws in the nation, including statutes and laws passed by Congress and state legislatures. Unlike those other laws, the Constitution may be changed, or amended, only in special ways that reflect its character as a demonstration of the people's will.

The original document of the U.S. Constitution is held at the National Archives, in Washington, D.C.

Constitutional Convention of 1787

The Constitutional Convention of 1787 is a high point in the history of the United States. This remarkable assemblage of men, meeting in Philadelphia between May 23 and September 17, 1787, created the document that has given the United States one of the most stable and admired constitutional democracies in the history of the world.

55 delegates from 12 states attended various parts of the convention. Drawn from the educated and wealthy elite of the country, they included such luminaries as george washington, the commander of American forces in the war of independence, who presided over the convention, and benjamin franklin, at 81, the oldest delegate and the country's most famous statesman. A majority of the delegates were lawyers, and many, such as james madison, were wealthy landowners. Many notable leaders of the time, however, including thomas jefferson, who was in France, and patrick henry, did not attend.

The meetings of the convention were closed to the public and to the press. Thus, behind closed doors, the delegates hammered out the eventual form of U.S. government. The agreements reached during the convention exemplified the values of constitutional government. In an atmosphere that combined competitive, lively debate with tolerance and respect for differences of opinion, the delegates reached vital compromises on matters that threatened to divide the still loosely connected union of states. Many different factions opposed one another—small states versus large states, farmers versus businesspeople, North versus South, and slave states versus nonslave states.

The Constitutional Convention occurred in three separate phases. The first, from May 23 to July 26, created the basic features of the national government, including its division into legislative, executive, and judicial branches. During this phase, delegates also arrived at one important compromise between the interests of large and small states. That compromise created a bicameral, or two-chamber, legislature, composed of the House of Representatives and the Senate. During the second phase of the convention, from July 27 to August 6, the five-man Committee of Detail created a rough draft of the Constitution. In the third phase, which lasted from August 6 to September 6, the delegates debated remaining sticking points, particularly relating to the executive branch and the means of electing a president. Eventually, they settled on the electoral college suggested by Benjamin Franklin.

On September 17, 39 of the 42 delegates present signed the Constitution. Gouverneur Morris, coauthor of the New York State Constitution and a key delegate, summed up the significance of the Constitution that the convention had created when, after affixing his signature to it, he uttered these words: "The moment this plan goes forth, all other considerations will be laid aside and the great question will be: Shall there be a national government or not? And this must take place or a general anarchy will be the alternative."

further readings

Rossiter, Clinton. 1966. 1787: The Grand Convention. Reprint, New York: Norton, 1987.

Scott, James Brown. 2001. James Madison's Notes of Debates in the Federal Convention of 1787 and their Relation to a More Perfect Society of Nations. Union, N.J.: Lawbook Exchange.

History of the Constitution

When the United States declared itself a country separate from Great Britain in 1776, it did not have a written constitution. Instead, the 13 former colonies each had their own sovereignty and separate bodies of law. How the newly formed United States would act as one nation remained uncertain and undefined. The continental congress, the first national legislative body of the new nation, attempted to address this state of affairs by drafting the nation's first constitution, the articles of confederation, which were ratified in 1781, the same year that hostilities in the Revolutionary War against Britain came to an end at Yorktown, Virginia.

The Articles of Confederation proved an ineffective national constitution. That document did not provide for a strong federal, or central, government and allowed each state its own "sovereignty, freedom and independence" (art. II). It also did not provide the federal government power to tax or regulate commerce.

Federalists versus Anti-Federalists

After the Constitution was signed and approved by delegates of the Constitutional Convention of 1787, it had to be ratified by the states. As determined by Article VII of the Constitution, ratification required the approval of nine special state conventions. States that did not ratify the Constitution would not be considered a part of the Union and would be separate countries.

Passage of the Constitution by the states was by no means certain in 1787. Indeed, many people at that time opposed the creation of a federal, or national, government that would have power over the states. These people were called Anti-Federalists. They included primarily farmers and tradesmen and were less likely to be a part of the wealthy elite than were members of their opposition, who called themselves Federalists. The Anti-Federalists believed that each state should have a sovereign, independent government. Their leaders included some of the most influential figures in the nation, including patrick henry and george mason, leading national figures during the Revolutionary War period. Many Anti-Federalists were local politicians who feared losing power should the Constitution be ratified. As one member of their opposition, edmund randolph, said, these politicians "will not cherish the great oak which is to reduce them to paltry shrubs."

The Federalists favored the creation of a strong federal government that would more closely unite the states as one large, continental nation. They tended to come from the wealthier class of merchants and plantation owners. Federalists had been instrumental in the creation of the Constitution, arguing that it was a necessary improvement on the articles of confederation, the country's first attempt at unifying the states in a national political arrangement. Leaders among the Federalists included two men who helped develop the Constitution, james madison and alexander hamilton, and two national heroes whose support would greatly improve the Federalists' prospects for winning, george washington and benjamin franklin.

Between September 17, 1787, the day the Constitution was signed by the Constitutional Convention, and May 29, 1790, the day Rhode Island became the thirteenth and last state to ratify the Constitution, the Federalists and Anti-Federalists engaged in a fierce national debate on the merits of the Constitution. This debate occurred in meeting halls, on streets, and on the printed page. Both sides in the argument had a considerable following. Many of the questions raised remain with us today: What is the best form of government? What rights must the government protect? Which government powers should be granted to the states, and which to the federal government?

The Anti-Federalists The Anti-Federalists found many problems in the Constitution. They argued that the document would give the country an entirely new and untested form of government. They saw no sense in throwing out the existing government. Instead, they believed that the Federalists had over-stated the current problems of the country. They also maintained that the Framers of the Constitution had met as an elitist group under a veil of secrecy and had violated the provisions of the Articles of Confederation in the means selected for ratification of the Constitution.

In making their arguments, the Anti-Federalists often relied on the rhetoric of the Revolutionary War era, which stressed the virtues of local rule and associated centralized power with a tyrannical monarch. Thus, the Anti-Federalists frequently claimed that the Constitution represented a step away from the democratic goals of the American Revolution and toward the twin evils of monarchy and aristocracy. The Anti-Federalists feared that the Constitution gave the president too much power and that the proposed Congress would be too aristocratic in nature, with too few representatives for too many people. They also criticized the Constitution for its lack of a bill of rights of the kind that had been passed in England in 1689 to establish and guarantee certain rights of Parliament and of the English people against the king. Moreover, the Anti-Federalists argued that the Constitution would spell an end to all forms of self-rule in the states.

Many Anti-Federalists believed in a type of government that has been described as agrarian republicanism. Such a government is centered on a society of landowning farmers who participate in local politics. thomas jefferson agreed with this view. He felt that the virtues of democratic freedom were best nurtured in an agrarian, or agricultural, society, and that with increasing urbanization, commercialization, and centralization of power would come a decline in political society and eventual tyranny. Unlike the Anti-Federalists, however, Jefferson supported the Constitution, although rather reluctantly. He was not strongly identified with the Federalist position and would eventually oppose the Federalists as a member of the democratic-republican party.

The Anti-Federalists also shared the feeling that so large a country as the United States could not possibly be controlled by one national government. One Pennsylvania Anti-Federalist, who signed his articles "Centinel," declared,

It is the opinion of the greatest writers, that a very extensive country cannot be governed on democratical principles, on any other plan than a confederation of a number of small republics, possessing all the powers of internal government, but united in the management of their foreign and general concerns.

… [A]nything short of despotism could not bind so great a country under one government.

Although the Anti-Federalists were united in their opposition to the Constitution, they did not agree on what form of government made the best alternative to it. Some still believed that the Articles of Confederation could be amended in such a way that they would provide a workable confederation. Some wanted the Union to break up and re-form into three or four different confederacies. Others were even ready to accept the Constitution if it were amended in such a way that the rights of citizens and states would be more fully protected.

The Federalists The Federalists focused their arguments on the inadequacies of national government under the Articles of Confederation and on the benefits of national government as formed by the Constitution. They were also much more favorably disposed toward commerce than were the Anti-Federalists, and they argued that a strong central government would foster the commercial growth of the new country. Moreover, the Federalist vision of society was more pluralistic than the Anti-Federalist vision. That is, the Federalists did not see society as made up principally of farmers, as did the Anti-Federalists, but instead viewed it as comprising many different and competing interests and groups, none of which would be completely dominant in a federalist system of government. For this reason, many later scholars have argued that the Federalists were more aware of the economic and social changes then transforming American society.

The most famous example of Federalist doctrine is The Federalist Papers, a collection of 85 essays by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and john jay. Published in New York newspapers and in two bound volumes distributed during the ratification debate, these essays were signed with the pseudonym Publius, taken from Publius Valerius Poplicola, a man who reputedly saved the ancient Roman republic. The Federalist Papers is an important American contribution to political philosophy and remains a classic today. It is also a great and authoritative commentary on the Constitution.

The Federalist Papers communicates the central ideas of the Federalists: the benefits of a Union between the states; the problems with the confederation as it stood at the time; the importance of an energetic, effective federal government; and a defense of the republicanism of the proposed Constitution. The Federalist Papers makes a persuasive case for the necessity of federal government in preserving order and securing the liberty of a large republic. In doing so, it asserts that a weak union of the states will make the country more vulnerable to internal and external dissension, including civil war and invasion from foreign powers.

One of the most famous of its essays is The Federalist, number 10, by James Madison. In it, Madison addressed the issue of whether or not the republican government created by the Constitution can protect the liberties of its citizens. The problem that Madison saw as most destructive of popular government is what he called faction. A faction, according to Madison, is "a number of citizens, whether amounting to a majority or minority of the whole, who are united and actuated by some common impulse of passion, or of interest, adverse to the rights of other citizens, or to the permanent and aggregate interests of the community." Factions, Madison added, become especially dangerous when they form a majority of the population.

Madison divided popular government into two types, democratic and republican, and preferred the latter. In a democracy, all citizens participate directly in the decisions of government. In a republic, representatives elected by the people make the decisions of government.

In his intricate argument in The Federalist, number 10, Madison contended that a republican government of the kind envisioned by the U.S. Constitution can best solve the problem of faction not by "removing its causes"—which only tyranny can do—but by "controlling its effects." Madison proposed that elected representatives, as opposed to the people as a whole, will be more disposed to consider the national interest ahead of a particular factional interest. He also argued that the nature of an "extensive," or large, republic such as the United States will naturally frustrate the ability of a single faction to advance its own interests ahead of the interests of other citizens. With the huge variety of parties and interests in an extended republic, it becomes "less probable that a majority of the whole will have a common motive to invade the rights of other citizens." Thus, Madison, in contrast to the Anti-Federalists, saw the large size of the United States as a help rather than a hindrance to the cause of liberty.

This is only one of the many points that The Federalist Papers makes in favor of the Constitution. However, as brilliant and carefully reasoned as The Federalist Papers may be, it probably did not greatly sway opinion toward ratification of the Constitution. The politics of ratification were instead influenced most by direct, face-to-face contact and negotiation. Nevertheless, The Federalist Papers aided the Constitution's cause by giving the Constitution's adherents ideas with which to counter their opposition.

The outcome Ultimately, the ratification provisions of Article VII of the Constitution, created by the Federalists themselves, were one of the best allies the Federalists had in their attempt to ratify the Constitution. After the Constitution had been created at the Constitutional Convention, Federalist leaders quickly returned to their states to elect Federalist delegates to the state conventions. The Anti-Federalists were not able to muster enough votes in response, though in several states, they nearly defeated the Federalists. By 1790, all thirteen states had ratified the document, giving the Federalists and their Constitution a great victory.

The Anti-Federalist outcry was not without its effects, however. By 1791, in response to Anti-Federalist sentiments, state legislatures voted to add the first ten amendments to the Constitution. Those ten amendments are also called the Bill of Rights, and they have become an important part of the Constitution and its heritage of liberty.

further readings

Frohnen, Bruce, ed. 1999. The Anti-Federalists: Selected Writings and Speeches. Washington, D.C.: Regnery Pub.

Wills, Garry. 2001. Explaining America: The Federalist. New York: Penguin Books.

cross-references

Federalist Papers.

The problems of a weak federal government with insufficient funds for operation became apparent as a number of problems developed in the 1780s: harmful economic warfare between states, inadequate commercial treaties with foreign countries, and the inability to raise an army to oppose British troops in the Northwest Territory. Particularly disturbing for many critics of the Confederation was the lack of a federal response to Shays's Rebellion in 1786–87, an armed uprising by debtor farmers in western Massachusetts directed against courts of law. george washington reacted to this lack of response with words that expressed his strong desire for a better union of the states:

I am mortified beyond expression when I view the clouds that have spread over the brightest morn that ever dawned upon any country. You talk of employing influence to appease the present tumults in Massachusetts. Influence is no government. Let us have a government by which our lives, liberties and properties will be secured; or let us know the worst at once.

Seeking to address the inadequacies of the Articles of Confederation, the Continental Congress called for the Constitutional Convention to create a better basis for union between the states. The convention began in Philadelphia on May 25, 1787, with the original intention of amending the Articles of Confederation. However, the delegates—including benjamin franklin, alexander hamilton, james madison, and George Washington—soon planned an entirely new constitution.

Fifty-five delegates representing 12 states (all but Rhode Island) discussed different plans for a federal government. They agreed to create a government consisting of three separate branches—executive, legislative, and judicial—with checks and balances to keep any one branch from becoming too powerful. However, they dis-agreed strongly over particulars.

For example, two plans for representation in a national legislature competed for the loyalty of delegates. The so-called Virginia Plan, presented by edmund randolph and designed by James Madison, called for a bicameral, or two-house, legislature. Representation in the lower house would be proportional to population, and representation in the upper house would be elected by the lower house. Delegates from small states felt that such a plan would give too much power to large states. They favored the New Jersey Plan, which called for a unicameral legislature with equal representation to each state. Delegates settled the issue by voting for a compromise plan—called the Great Compromise, or the Connecticut Compromise—which established a Senate that gave each state two representatives and a House of Representatives that granted each state a number of representatives proportional to its population.

On September 17, 1787, 39 delegates signed the completed Constitution. In subsequent months, the document went before each of the states for ratification. The ratification process was accompanied by a spirited debate on the merits of the Constitution. The Federalists, on one side of the debate, supported ratification. Federalist leaders Alexander Hamilton, john jay, and James Madison argued eloquently on behalf of the Constitution in a series of newspaper essays that were published as The Federalist papers. Those opposed to the Constitution were called Anti-Federalists.

The ratification process, as contained in Article VII of the Constitution, required that nine of the 13 states approve the Constitution in special conventions. Within ten months after the Constitution was completed, ten states had ratified it. Rhode Island was the last of the 13 states to ratify the Constitution, on May 29, 1790, officially making the Constitution the highest law of the land.

Contents of the Constitution

The Constitution is divided into seven articles, or divisions, each addressing a different topic. Each article is divided into sections. The Constitution begins with a preamble that states the purpose of the document and the source of its power:

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America. The Preamble is not strictly considered a part of the Constitution and is not legally binding on issues relating to either government power or private right (Jacobson v. Massachusetts, 197 U.S. 11, 25 S. Ct. 358, 49 L. Ed. 643 [1905]).

Article I Article I of the Constitution deals with the legislative branch of government. It establishes the bicameral Congress, consisting of a Senate and a House of Representatives, and it delineates the means by which Congressional members shall be elected, the length of their terms, and the requirements for membership, including age. It also sets forth guidelines for legislative procedure, including a requirement that bills of revenue, or taxation, must originate in the House; requirements for the process by which bills pass from Congress to the president; and the procedures in case of presidential veto, or refusal to sign a bill into law.

Article I, Section 2, prescribes for the means of apportionment, or the method by which representatives are allocated to the states. Because political power would inevitably flow to the states with the most congressional representatives, this topic was controversial at the time of the framing of the Constitution. Whereas each state receives two votes in the Senate, the number of representatives each state receives in the House is determined by an enumeration, or census, to be conducted every ten years.

According to this same section, a state's population is to "be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons." Thus, an indentured servant was counted as a whole person, and an African American slave was counted as only three-fifths of a person. This last provision arose out of differences between slave and nonslave states. Counting slaves as equal persons would have given southern states a greater number of representatives and more power in Congress. Northern states vigorously opposed such a scheme, and the resulting compromise was called the Three-fifths Compromise.

Article I, Section 8, gives Congress some of its delegated powers, many of them crucial powers that had been denied to the Congress of the Confederation. These include the powers to "lay and collect Taxes," "borrow Money," "coin Money," "establish Post Offices," "declare War," "raise and support Armies," "provide and maintain a Navy," and "make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution" all the other powers. This last clause is called the necessary and proper clause and has been used to justify later expansion of congressional activity not specifically mentioned in the Constitution. The clause has also been called the elastic clause or implied powers clause.

Article I, Section 8, also gives Congress the power to "regulate Commerce with foreign nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes." This is called the commerce clause. And Article I, Section 8, gives Congress power over a district to "become the Seat of the Government of the United States," later established as the District of Columbia, or Washington, D.C.

Article I, Section 9, limits congressional powers, forbidding the passage of laws prohibiting the "Migration or Importation" of persons before the year 1808. This provision was designed as a concession to slaveholding states, ensuring that the practice of slavery would not be challenged for at least 20 years. Section 9 also prohibits Congress from passing any ex post facto, or retroactive, laws, and from granting any "Title of Nobility."

Article I, Section 10, limits the powers of the states, prohibiting, for example, the states to enter into foreign treaties and coin money.

Article II Article II concerns the executive branch, or the presidency. Section 1 establishes the electoral college as the means of electing the president, identifies the requirements for holding presidential office, and outlines the procedure in case a president is removed from office or dies. It also contains the oath that the president must take before entering the office, which explicitly requires that the president support the Constitution: "I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."

Article II, Section 2, names the president as commander in chief of the armed forces. It also gives the president the power to grant pardons or reprieves; make treaties with foreign powers, subject to approval by the Senate; and appoint ambassadors and Supreme Court justices.

Article II, Section 4, allows for removal and impeachment of the president and "all civil Officers of the United States" in cases of conviction for "Treason, bribery, or other High Crimes and Misdemeanors."

Article III Article III establishes the supreme court of the united states as the highest judicial power. Section 2 defines the jurisdiction of the federal judiciary. Section 3 defines and limits prosecution for treason. The power of judicial review, whereby the Supreme Court may declare laws and regulations of government to be unconstitutional, is not explicitly declared in the Constitution and was not established by the Supreme Court until the case of marbury v. madison, 5 U.S. (1 Cranch) 137, 2 L. Ed. 60 (1803).

Article IV Article IV defines the relations between the states. It requires each state to give "full Faith and Credit" to the laws of the other states; establishes that citizens are entitled to the same "Privileges and Immunities," or liberties and rights, as citizens in every other state; provides for extradition between states of persons charged with crimes; provides for and limits the admission of new states; gives Congress full power over U.S. territories that are not yet states; and guarantees each state "a Republican Form of Government" and protection against invasion or "domestic Violence."

Article V Article V sets forth a two-step procedure for amending the Constitution: proposal of amendments, followed by ratification. Amendments may be proposed in two ways: by a two-thirds vote of both houses of Congress or by a special convention called by two-thirds of the state legislatures. Amendments are ratified by one of two methods, determined by Congress: approval of three-fourths of the state legislatures or approval of three-fourths of special state conventions.

Article VI Article VI declares the Constitution and the laws and treaties made by the U.S. government under its authority to be "the supreme Law of the Land." This provision is called the supremacy clause. Article VI also requires that all judges in every state be subject to the provisions of the Constitution, that all state and federal officeholders swear an oath supporting the Constitution, and that "no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office" of the United States.

Amendments The Constitution has been amended 26 times. The first ten amendments were ratified in 1791 and are called the bill of rights.

Principles of the Constitution

The Constitution defined a number of the fundamental and enduring principles of U.S. government, particularly the concepts of separation of powers, checks and balances, and federalism.

Separation of powers refers to the division of power between the legislative, executive, and judicial branches of government. Checks and balances refers to a system whereby each branch of government retains some of the powers of the other branches, which it may use to control other branches. Thus, the president may veto bills passed by Congress, the Senate may vote down presidential appointments, and the Supreme Court may strike down laws approved by Congress or regulations put forth by the executive. Such actions keep the separate branches of government in balance and prevent any one of them from becoming too powerful.

The inclusion of the concepts of separation of powers and checks and balances in the Constitution owes much to James Madison, who has been called the Father of the Constitution. The U.S. system of government has often been referred to as the Madisonian Model. According to Madison, a system in which the different elements of government competed against one another, each preventing the other from becoming too powerful, was the best system to prevent the rise of a tyrannical government that would abuse the rights of the people. As he wrote in The Federalist, No. 51:

In framing a government, … the great difficulty lies in this: You must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place, oblige it to control itself. A dependence on the people is, no doubt, the primary control on the government; but experience has taught the necessity of auxiliary precautions. The Constitution, with its separation of powers and checks and balances, provided just such "auxiliary precautions" to be used in controlling government.

The Constitution is also guided by the concept of federalism in the way that it constructs the U.S. government. Federalism is a system in which smaller political entities—such as states, counties, cities, and localities—are united in a larger political organization. Federalism intends to protect the liberties of people in these smaller political units by providing them with a great degree of freedom in governing themselves. The federal, or larger, government is then a limited government that cedes many decision-making responsibilities—including, for example, the creation of most criminal and civil laws, municipal codes, regulations for administering school districts, and the like—to states and localities, while leaving itself other responsibilities. In short, federalism is a partnership in which a central government shares authority and power with regional or local governments.

The U.S. Constitution gives the federal government—made up of the executive, legislative, and judicial branches—power to make decisions regarding such issues as war, national defense, and trade with foreign countries. The federal government also retains the right to overrule laws or decisions of lower units of government when they are in violation of the Constitution. Thus, for example, the federal government took on responsibilities in the over-sight of local school districts after the Supreme Court, in brown v. board of education, 347 U.S. 483, 74 S. Ct. 686, 98 L. Ed. 873 (1954), ruled that segregating children in different public schools by race violated the equal protection clause of the fourteenth amendment to the Constitution, which says, "No State shall … deny to any person … the equal protection of the laws."

further readings

Black, Eric. 1988. Our Constitution: The Myth That Binds Us. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press.

Browne, Ray B., and Glenn J. Browne. 1986. Laws of Our Fathers: Popular Culture and the U.S. Constitution. Bowling Green, OH: Bowling Green Univ. Press.

Corwin, Edward S. 1978. The Constitution and What It Means Today. 14th ed. Rev. Harold W. Chase and Craig R. Ducat. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton Univ. Press.

Hamilton, Alexander, James Madison, and John Jay. 1787– 88. The Federalist Papers. Ed. Clinton Rossiter. Reprint, New York: New American Library of World Literature, 1961.

Harrigan, John J. 1984. Politics and the American Future. Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley.

Levy, Michael B. 1982. Political Thought in America: An Anthology. Homewood, Ill.: Dorsey Press.

Marshall, Burke, ed. 1987. A Workable Government?: The Constitution after 200 Years. New York: Norton.

Maxwell, James A., ed. 1982. You and Your Rights. Pleasantville, N.Y.: Reader's Digest.

McGuire, Robert A. 2003. To Form a More Perfect Union: A New Economic Interpretation of the United States Constitution. Oxford, New York: Oxford Univ. Press.

Rawle, William. 2003. A View of the Constitution of the United States of America. 2d ed. Clark, N.J.: Lawbook Exchange.

Story, Joseph. 2001. Constitution of the United States: With a Preliminary Review of the Constitutional History of the Colonies and States, Before the Adoption of the Constitution Union, N.J.: Lawbook Exchange.

cross-references

Congress of the United States; "Constitution of the United States" (Appendix, Primary Document); Constitutional Amendment; Constitutional Law; Federalist Papers; Full Faith and Credit Clause; Presidential Powers.

CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES

CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES. The Constitution, which has served since 1789 as the basic frame of government of the republic of the United States, was the work of a constitutional convention that sat at Philadelphia from late May 1787 until mid-September of that year. The convention had been called into being as the culminating event of a lengthy campaign for constitutional reform staged by a number of nationalistic political leaders, above all James Madison and Alexander Hamilton, both of whom had long been convinced that the Articles of Confederation were hopelessly deficient as a frame of government. By 1786, the growing somnolence of the Confederation Congress, the manifest incompetence of the Confederation government in foreign affairs, and the obvious state of national bankruptcy, together with the sense of panic and dismay occasioned by Shays's Rebellion in Massachusetts, had at long last spurred the states into concerted action.

The Virginia legislature issued an invitation to its sister states to meet in convention in Philadelphia in May 1787. As one after another of the other states responded, the Confederation Congress reluctantly joined in the call.

Twelve states in all sent delegates to the convention at Philadelphia. Rhode Island alone, then in the grip of a paper-money faction fearful of federal monetary reform, boycotted the meeting. In all, the twelve participating states appointed seventy-four delegates, of whom fifty-five actually put in an appearance. Of these, some fifteen or twenty men were responsible for virtually all of the convention's work; the contribution of the others was inconsequential.

Dominating the convention's proceedings from the beginning was a group of delegates intent upon the creation of a genuinely national government possessed of powers adequate to promote the security, financial stability, commercial prosperity, and general well-being of all of the states. Prominent among them were George Washington, whom the delegates chose as their presiding officer; James Madison, whose leadership in the convention would one day earn him the well-deserved title of "Father of the Constitution"; James Wilson, congressman and legal scholar from Pennsylvania; Gouverneur Morris, a brilliant and conservative aristocrat of New York background, also present as a Pennsylvania delegate; Rufus King, a highly respected veteran congressman from Massachusetts; and Charles Cotesworth Pinckney and John Rutledge of South Carolina, representatives of that state's rice-planter aristocracy. In the nationalist camp also were the aged, garrulous, but vastly prestigious Benjamin Franklin of Pennsylvania; the pretentious but somewhat lightweight Edmund Randolph of Virginia; and Alexander Hamilton, whose extremist beliefs in centralized aristocratic government together with his inability to control the states' rights majority in the New York delegation cast a shadow on his convention role.

The nationalists also could command on most occasions the support of a group of moderate delegates who accepted the necessity for strong central government but were willing to compromise substantially with the convention's states' rights bloc when that proved necessary. Prominent among these men were Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts, Oliver Ellsworth and Roger Sherman of Connecticut, and Abraham Baldwin of Georgia.

A small, but significant, bloc of states' rights delegates was firmly opposed to the creation of a sovereign national government. Its leaders included William Paterson of New Jersey, the author of the New Jersey Plan; John Dickinson from Delaware; Gunning Bedford of Maryland; and John Lansing and Robert Yates of New York. These men recognized the necessity for constitutional reform but believed strongly that a confederation type of government ought to be retained and that by granting the Congress certain additional powers—above all the power to tax and to regulate commerce—the Articles of Confederation could be converted into an adequate frame of government.

Voting in the convention was by state, each state having one vote. On most occasions, the nationalist bloc controlled the votes of Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and the two Carolinas; on several critical decisions they proved able to muster the votes of Connecticut and Georgia as well. The states' rights party, by contrast, could count upon the votes of New York, New Jersey, Maryland, and Delaware, and occasionally Connecticut and Georgia. (New Hampshire was not yet represented in the convention.) Thus, the nationalist bloc in general controlled the convention. However, the states' rights delegates held one trump card—their implicit threat to break up the convention if they did not obtain certain concessions deemed by them to be fundamental to their cause.

The nationalist faction demonstrated its power at the very outset of the proceedings. Following organization for business, Edmund Randolph rose and in the name of his state presented what has since become known as the Virginia Plan—a proposal for a thoroughly nationalistic frame of government. Without debate the convention accepted the fifteen resolutions of the Virginia Plan as the basis for its further deliberations. The outstanding characteristic of this plan was its provision for a government that would exercise its authority directly upon individuals, in contrast to the Confederation government's dependence upon the states as agents to effect its will. The plan thus called for a genuinely national government rather than one based upon state sovereignty. The Virginia Plan's nationalism was also apparent in the broad sweep of legislative power it granted to Congress: to legislate in all cases in which the states were severally "incompetent." An ill-conceived provision would have empowered Congress to use force against any state derelict in its obligations to the Union, a procedure the nationalists soon recognized as unwise and unnecessary in a genuinely national government that would no longer use the states as agents to effect its will.

For the rest, the Virginia Plan provided for a two-house legislature, the lower house to be elected by the people of the several states and the upper to be elected by the lower out of nominations submitted by the state legislatures. A separately constituted executive officer was to be elected by Congress for an unspecified term and to be ineligible for reelection. There was also provision for a national judiciary, a portion of which, sitting with the executive, was to constitute a "council of revision," with an absolute veto over all legislation.

All this added up to a proposal to junk the Articles of Confederation outright, and to erect a powerful new national government, federal only in that it would still leave to the states a separate if unspecified area of sovereignty. Although several states' rights–oriented delegates objected that this would commit the convention to the establishment of an all-powerful central government, the Randolph-Morris resolution carried almost unanimously, Connecticut alone voting opposition.

The most serious conflict between the nationalist and states' rights factions came over the composition of the legislature. Here the nationalists, after intermittent debate lasting some seven weeks, were eventually forced to compromise, although without vital damage to the principle of nationalism. Madison, Wilson, Morris, and their fellow nationalists began the debate with the demand that both houses of Congress be apportioned according to representation and that the lower house, at least, be elected directly by the people of the several states. Only on the mode of election of the upper house did they show a disposition to compromise: here the convention early accepted unanimously a recommendation by Dickinson that senators be elected by state legislatures. But the states' rights faction, with some support from the moderates, early made it clear that they would accept nothing less than state equality in at least one house. In mid-June, to emphasize their point, they introduced the so-called New Jersey Plan, which called for a one-chamber legislature based upon state equality—that is, a continuation of the Confederation Congress. The New Jersey Plan met prompt defeat, but the impasse remained.

The ultimate solution was found in the so-called Great Compromise, reported early in July by a special Committee of Eleven, one delegate from each state. This provided that the lower house of Congress be apportioned according to population, that each state have one vote in the upper house, but that all bills for raising revenue originate in the lower house. A further resolution, offered by Elbridge Gerry, provided that senators were to vote as individuals and not as state delegations. After two weeks of further debate, the nationalists yielded and accepted the compromise.

The debate on the executive proved to be protracted and difficult, but it too yielded what amounted ultimately to a victory for a strong national government. The nationalists were determined to have a powerful, independently constituted executive, and to this end they soon decided that the provision in the Virginia Plan for election of the president by Congress was altogether unsatisfactory. But for a long time no adequate alternative appeared. Direct popular election, early proposed by Wilson, was rejected as too democratic; choice of the president by state legislatures conceded too much to states' rights.

At length, after protracted debate marked by vacillation and uncertainty rather than bitter dispute, the delegates accepted another idea originally advanced by Wilson: choice of the president by electors chosen by the several states. In early September, a second Committee of Eleven brought in a plan to allot to each state a number of electors equal to its whole number of senators and representatives. Each state was to be allowed to choose its representatives as it wished—thus reserving a role for the states but opening the door for eventual choice of electors by popular vote. The electors, assembled in their separate states, were to vote by ballot for two candidates for president. The candidate receiving the highest total vote among all the states, if this were a majority of the electors, was to be declared elected president, while that candidate receiving the second highest number of votes, if that were also a majority of the electors, was to be declared elected vice president. If no candidate received a majority, the Senate was to elect the president from the five leading candidates. The convention altered the committee proposal only to provide for election of the president by the House of Representatives, voting by states, instead of by the Senate, should no candidate receive an electoral majority. The Senate, in the amended plan, was to elect the vice president.

In practice, the convention's solution to the problem of electing the president was to prove a victory for the proponents of a strong president, for nationalism, and—in the long run—for democracy. The rise of political parties resulted in a situation in which the electoral college, rather than the Congress, commonly chose the president—only one election, that of 1824, being settled in the House of Representatives for want of an electoral college majority for any candidate. The requirement for an electoral college majority also was to prove a powerful factor in encouraging intersectional political parties and the reconciliation of sectional differences, again an important element in the development of American nationalism. Finally, the fact that the finished Constitution allowed the states to choose their electors in any manner they wished opened the way, after 1789, for the selection of electors by direct popular election—a mode of election every state in the Union except South Carolina was to adopt by 1832. Adaptability of the Constitution to the growth of political democracy was to be a major factor in the new charter's remarkable durability.

Equally nationalistic in its long-range implications was the convention's resort to the judiciary to solve the difficult problem of guaranteeing federal sovereignty and national supremacy against incursion by the states. The convention early rejected coercion of derelict states as inconsistent with the prospective government's sovereign character. State coercion, the nationalists had come to realize, implied state sovereignty. A little later the delegates abandoned congressional disallowance of state legislation as also involving a wrong principle; exercise of a veto over unconstitutional legislation, they had concluded, was properly a judicial, rather than a legislative, function.

Quite surprisingly, the states' rights–oriented New Jersey Plan supplied the final solution. This plan carried a clause declaring the Constitution, treaties, and laws of the national government to be the "supreme law of the respective states" and binding the state courts to enforce them as such, anything in their own constitutions and laws to the contrary not withstanding. Following rejection of the congressional veto, the convention adopted the supremacy clause from the New Jersey Plan, at the same time altering its language to make the federal Constitution, treaties, and acts of Congress "the supreme law of the land."

Incorporation of the supremacy clause in the new Constitution was a tremendous victory in disguise for the nationalist cause. On the surface the clause made an agency of the states—the state courts—the final judge of the limits of both federal and state sovereignty, which explains why the states' rights faction acceded so readily to its adoption. But the convention, meanwhile, had also provided for the establishment of a national judiciary, with a Supreme Court and such lower courts as Congress should determine upon, and had vested in the federal courts jurisdiction over all cases arising under the Constitution, treaties, and laws of the United States. By implication, as the nationalists were shortly to realize, this gave the federal judiciary appellate power to review state court decisions involving federal constitutional questions. This in turn meant that the Supreme Court of the United States would possess the ultimate power to settle questions involving the respective spheres of state and federal sovereignty. The Judiciary Act of 1789, virtually an extension of the Constitution itself, was to write into federal law this system of appeals from state to federal courts on constitutional questions. And the Supreme Court in Martin v. Hunter's Lessee (1816) and Cohens v. Virginia (1821) was to confirm the constitutionality of the Supreme Court's role as the final arbiter of the constitutional system.

Meanwhile, in a concession to the states' rights party, the convention had quietly dropped the sweeping delegation to Congress of power to legislate in all cases in which the states were severally "incompetent" and had resorted instead to a specific enumeration of the powers of Congress, as the Articles of Confederation provided. The new Constitution's enumeration, however, was far more impressive than that in the articles. In addition to the familiar authority to legislate upon matters of war, foreign affairs, the post office, currency, Indian affairs, and the like, Congress was also to possess the all-important powers of taxation and regulation of foreign and interstate commerce, as well as authority to enact naturalization, bankruptcy, and patent and copyright laws. Further, the convention in its final draft incorporated an important clause giving Congress the power to enact "necessary and proper" legislation in fulfillment of its delegated powers, and it accepted a vaguely drafted "general welfare clause" that, with the "necessary and proper" provisions, was to serve in the twentieth century as the basis for a tremendous expansion of federal power.

In mid-September 1787 the convention put its various resolutions and decisions into a finished draft and submitted the Constitution to the states for approval. The convention had provided for ratification of the Constitution by conventions in the several states, stipulating that ratification by any nine states would be sufficient to put the Constitution into effect. This mode of ratification gravely violated the provision in the Articles of Confederation for ratification of constitutional amendments by unanimous action of the several state legislatures; but it also gave the Constitution a reasonable chance for adoption, which it otherwise would not have had.

In fact, the Federalists, as the proponents of ratification of the Constitution soon became known, in the next ten months carried every state but two, failing only in Rhode Island and North Carolina. There were several reasons behind their impressive victory. Most important, the Federalists had a positive and imaginative remedy to offer for the country's grave constitutional ills. Their opponents, the Antifederalists, although they opposed the Constitution as a dangerous instrument of potential tyranny, could offer no constructive proposal of their own.

Very influential was the fact that most of the young republic's illustrious public figures—Washington, Franklin, Hamilton, Madison, Jay, Rutledge, King, Pinckney, and Wilson among them—favored ratification. It was a galaxy that quite outshone Antifederalists Patrick Henry, Richard Henry Lee, George Mason, and the vacillating Sam Adams. Such was his immense prestige that Washington's voice alone may well have been decisive in the ratification debate.

The distribution of delegates in the state ratifying conventions also helped the Federalist cause. Delegates to these bodies were in every instance elected from the existing districts of the various state legislatures, most of which had for many years been gerrymandered in favor of the tidewater regions. But it was precisely in these districts that the people generally were most keenly aware of the deficiencies of the Confederation government and that support for ratification was strongest.

The Federalists also won impressive early victories in several less populous states, where public sentiment was heavily influenced by the Constitution's provision for state equality in the Senate. Delaware and New Jersey, which ratified in December; Georgia and Connecticut, which ratified in January; and Maryland, which ratified in April, fell into this category. This initial ratification surge proved to be very favorable psychologically to the Federalist cause.

The Federalists' political strategy also was far superior to that of their opponents. In Pennsylvania, where public sentiment strongly favored ratification, the Federalists first defeated an attempt in the legislature to block the quorum necessary for a convention call. Under Wilson's masterful leadership, the Federalists in December then drove the Constitution through to ratification in the state convention. In South Carolina, the Federalists effectively thwarted an Antifederalist attempt to defeat a convention call. They controlled the subsequent convention without difficulty.

Federalist strategy was most impressive in Massachusetts, Virginia, and New York. In each instance, initial prospects for ratification had been dubious. In Massachusetts, where Antifederalist feeling was exacerbated by bitter memories of Shays's Rebellion, the Federalists first won over John Hancock and Sam Adams with hints of high national office. They then converted a number of marginal Antifederalists by freely accepting a variety of proposals for a federal bill of rights. Ratification followed in February by the narrow vote of 187 to 168. The Virginia convention, which assembled in June, witnessed a spectacular debate between Patrick Henry and Madison, in which the quiet and scholarly Madison used carefully reasoned analysis of the Constitution to refute Henry's impassioned assault. Again, ready Federalist acceptance of proposals for a bill of rights helped carry the day. The Federalists triumphed on the ratification vote (89 to 79). In New York, over two-thirds of the delegates to the June convention were declared Antifederalists, and the state's powerful landed aristocracy also opposed ratification, mainly because of the Constitution's potential impact on New York's revenue system. But the Constitution's supporters earlier had softened public opinion somewhat with a series of newspaper articles by Hamilton, Madison, and Jay, published eventually under the title of The Federalist, which still stands as one of the most brilliant analyses of the Constitution ever written. News that both New Hampshire and Virginia, the ninth and tenth states to ratify, had lately acted favorably and that the Constitution would in any event go into operation badly damaged Antifederalist morale. Again, conciliatory Federalist acceptance of proposed amendments, together with their support for a meaningless resolution calling for a second federal convention, proved decisive. On the final vote the Constitution was ratified (30 to 27).

The Rhode Island legislature, still controlled by hostile paper-money advocates, had refused even to call a convention. In the essentially frontier state of North Carolina, where public sentiment heavily opposed ratification, the state convention, meeting in July, was dominated by Anti-federalists. This body finally adjourned without any formal vote on ratification. At length, in November 1789, a second North Carolina convention, convening several months after the new government had gone into operation, ratified the Constitution without incident. In Rhode Island, a Federalist faction captured control of the state legislature in the spring of 1790. The new assembly promptly called a convention, which ratified the Constitution in May (34 to 32).

Both the drafting and ratification of the Constitution were triumphs for the framers' Enlightenment philosophy: faith in the essentially rational character of man and society, and belief in man's ability to define and solve social and political problems adequately. Indeed the Constitution itself is perhaps best understood as an Enlightenment document, embodying as it does in its preamble the objectives of justice, order, liberty, and the general welfare, and with its explicit and implicit commitments to the ideals of limited government, civil liberties, separation of church and state, the confinement of military power, and an open society.

The Constitution has sometimes been interpreted either as an antidemocratic document—as contrasted with the Declaration of Independence with its profession of faith in universal human equality—or as no more than an instrument of selfish class interests. Both views are superficial and essentially erroneous. The Constitution was adopted by a process far more democratic than was the Declaration of Independence, which was promulgated without any popular validation or consent whatever. At the time of its adoption, the Constitution also was by far the most popular and democratically oriented frame of national government in the world. It provided for a republican government when all others, with a few minor exceptions, were monarchical. Furthermore, in its provisions for a popularly based legislative house and for a president and Senate indirectly subject to democratic processes, in its sharp limitation upon the power of government to punish for treason, and in its general concern for limited government and civil liberties, it went a great deal further in the direction of modern democracy than any other national government then in existence. Moreover, the Constitution's open-ended character, which later made it possible to adapt its provisions to the steady growth of political democracy, was no accident. It expressed instead the self-conscious belief of the framers in the idea of flexibility and growth in government, rather than stifling rigidity.

Nor was the Constitution, viewed in the large, a product of selfish and exclusive class interests. In 1913 the historian Charles A. Beard published An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution of the United States, in which he asserted that the Constitution was the work of an economic elite whose wealth was concentrated in paper: land speculators, bondholders, moneyed merchants and lawyers, and the like. The Constitution, Beard asserted, reflected the interests of this class. In support of his argument, he pointed to the Constitution's provisions banning states from issuing paper money or impairing the obligations of contracts, guaranteeing the national government control over money and credit, and guaranteeing the national debt. But careful research in the 1950s and 1960s has shown that the framers as a group were not especially involved in bondholding and speculative operations and that they were drawn as much from planter, agrarian, and nonspeculative mercantile and legal interests as from any moneyed elite. The Constitution did indeed reflect the special concern of men of property, learning, position, and community standing for stable, well-ordered government. This was hardly narrow selfishness; rather it constituted enlightened patriotism.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Beard, Charles A. An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution of the United States. New York: Macmillan, 1961.

Bowen, Catherine Drinker. Miracle at Philadelphia: The Story of the Constitutional Convention. Boston: Little, Brown, 1966.

Kenyon, Cecelia. The Anti-Federalists. Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1985.

Main, Jackson Turner. The Anti-Federalists: Critics of the Constitution, 1781–1788. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1961.

McDonald, Forrest. We the People: The Economic Origins of the Constitution. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1958.

Rakove, Jack N. Original Meanings: Politics and Ideas in the Making of the Constitution. New York: Knopf, 1996.

Rossiter, Clinton L. 1787: The Grand Convention. New York: Norton, 1987.

Wood, Gordon S. The Creation of the American Republic, 1776– 1787. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1969.

Alfred H.Kelly/a. g.

See alsoAnnapolis Convention ; Bill of Rights in U.S. Constitution ; Civil Rights and Liberties ; Colonial Assemblies ; Commerce Clause ; Connecticut Compromise ; Enumerated Powers ; "Federalist Papers" ; First Amendment ; General Welfare Clause ; Inherent Powers ; Petition, Right of ; Rights of Englishmen ; Search and Seizure, Unreasonable ; Separation of Powers ; War and the Constitution ; andvol. 9:Congress Debates the Fourteenth Amendment ; Constitution of the United States ; The Call for Amendments .

Constitution. The Constitution of 1787 is the basic governing document of the United States.

Intellectual Antecedents.

The origins of the Constitution extend back centuries into Judeo‐Christian culture, drawing upon the Bible (the Hebrew scriptures far more than the Christian); the political culture of the classical world, particularly the five‐hundred‐year history of the Roman republic; natural law and natural rights doctrines formulated by ancient, medieval, and early modern writers; the rhetoric and philosophy of the Renaissance, Reformation, and Enlightenment; social contract theory; and English constitutional history, including common law, Whig libertarian tradition, and the formal enunciations in the Magna Carta (1215), Petition of Right (1628), Habeas Corpus Act (1679), and Bill of Rights (1689). Writers cited during the debate over the ratification of the Constitution included first and foremost the Baron de Montesquieu, followed by Sir William Blackstone, John Locke, Sir Edward Coke, Jean Louis DeLolme, James Harrington, Thomas Hobbes, David Hume, Richard Price, and Algernon Sidney. Frequently mentioned ancient writers included Aesop, Horace, Polybius, Socrates, Tacitus, and Virgil. The three most widely cited literary writers were Alexander Pope, William Shakespeare, and Jonathan Swift.

Historical Background.

Despite the impressive breadth of these antecedents, the founders drew most heavily on their own experiences in America as colonists, rebels, and constitution‐writers. Beginning with their colonial charters, the New World settlers had embodied their English common‐law rights in over two hundred written documents. Only on rare occasions in England, and after repeated abuses by the monarch, had rights been asserted in writing. In America, however, as a matter of course, colonists wrote charters and sometimes adopted statements of rights based on English common law. In some colonies these guarantees were offered willingly by the crown or benevolent founders or proprietors as in Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and the Carolinas. In others, rights had to be wrested from arbitrary or incompetent governors who tried to preserve the prerogatives of the crown or proprietors.

During the Colonial Era, governments developed in each colony with a governor, judiciary, and (usually) bicameral legislature. Governors controlled appointments to the judiciary and to their council, which often served as the upper house of the legislature. Largely left to develop on their own before 1764, colonial governments had come to an accommodation in which assemblies, the lower houses of the legislatures, developed a degree of self‐government through their control over all tax measures and appropriations, including the salaries of governors and the rest of the civil list. Assemblies effectively used this fiscal authority as a check on their governors.

After the end of the Seven Years' War in 1763, Parliament pursued a new activist imperial policy toward its American colonies. One tax after another provoked vehement responses from colonial dissenters. When Parliament repealed the Stamp Act in response to colonial protests, the Declaratory Act (1766) unequivocally asserted Parliament's undisputed authority to pass any legislation for the colonies: self‐government was a grant, not a right. The colonists never accepted this absolutist position, and after a decade of friction, Americans declared their independence and embarked on an unprecedented period of constitution writing at both the state and national levels.

Between 1776 and 1780, Americans drafted and adopted state constitutions that, with few exceptions, created similar governments. Structurally the new state governments resembled their colonial predecessors with governors, bicameral legislatures (except for Pennsylvania, Georgia, and the self‐proclaimed republic of Vermont), and judiciaries. Despite the commitment to the concept of separation of powers, real political power shifted almost exclusively to the assemblies. Assemblymen were elected annually. Governors, often elected by the legislatures for one‐year terms, were denied the veto, and senates (the new upper houses) were not allowed to amend money bills. Most appointments, including the judiciary, were made annually by the assemblies. Judicial review of legislative acts hardly existed.

At the national level, the Continental Congress, after more than a year of deliberation, submitted a draft constitution, the Articles of Confederation, to the state legislatures for the requisite unanimous ratification. The Articles created a unicameral Congress in which each state had one vote, and delegates to Congress could serve only three years in any six‐year period. Congress could act only on the states, not directly on the people. The Articles did not provide for a separate executive or judiciary, and according to Article II, the states retained their “sovereignty, freedom and independence” and Congress possessed only those powers “expressly delegated” to it. Lacking the power to regulate foreign or interstate commerce or levy taxes, Congress raised revenue by asking the states for money. Most important matters needed the approval of nine states in Congress. Amendments to the Articles required the approval of Congress and the unanimous ratification of the state legislatures.

Repeated efforts to strengthen Congress by amending the Articles or by persuading the states to grant specific additional powers failed. Congress could not pay its wartime debt and the states failed to pay their congressionally apportioned requisitions. When a postwar economic depression began in late 1784, most of the state legislatures enacted debtor‐relief measures that sometimes violated the property rights of creditors. Sporadic violence by debtors, such as Shays's Rebellion in Massachusetts, erupted in several states. Unable to address adequately these economic, political, social, and diplomatic crises, Congress on 21 February 1787 called a Constitutional Convention to meet in Philadelphia in May “for the sole and express purpose of revising the Articles of Confederation” so they would be “adequate to the exigencies of government and the preservation of the Union.”

In fact, when the Constitutional Convention of 1787 convened, the delegates voted immediately to abandon the Articles of Confederation and to draft a new constitution that would create a national government. The Virginia Plan, based mainly on the ideas of James Madison, served as the Convention agenda. After four months, thirty‐nine delegates signed the document on 17 September 1787. Every part of the new Constitution was found either in a state constitution, the Articles of Confederation, or the Northwest Ordinance (passed two months earlier by Congress). Despite this apparent lack of originality, the new Constitution was unique in the way it married the concepts of separation of powers, checks and balances, and federalism.

Provisions of the Constitution.

The Constitution consisted of seven articles introduced by a preamble setting forth the aims of the American people. The first seven words of the preamble heralded a profound change: “We the People of the United States.” The people—not the states—entered into this new compact to “form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity.”

The first article—half of the entire document—dealt with the legislative branch of the new government. All legislative power was given to a bicameral Congress composed of a Senate and House of Representatives. Each state was to have two senators elected for a six‐year term by the state legislatures. The vice president of the United States served as the Senate's president and could vote only to break ties.

Members of the House of Representatives, elected for two‐year terms, were to be apportioned among the states on the basis of population, counting each slave as three‐fifths of a person. Individuals qualified to vote for the lower house of their state's legislature were eligible to vote for that state's federal representatives. Every ten years a federal census would be taken, after which Congress would reapportion representatives among the states. All revenue bills had to originate in the House but the Senate could offer amendments.

The regulations for electing Congress were left to each state legislature, but Congress could alter such rules. Congress had to assemble at least once a year. Each house elected its own officers, adopted its own rules, kept its own journals, and judged the elections and qualifications of its members. Recall and mandatory term limits were eliminated. Members' salaries were to be set by law and paid by the federal treasury. No member could hold another federal office.

Congress was specifically empowered to lay and collect taxes, borrow money, regulate foreign and interstate commerce, establish rules for naturalization and uniform bankruptcy laws, coin money, fix the standard of weights and measures, punish counterfeiters, establish a post office, grant copyrights and patents, create inferior judicial courts, define and punish piracy and crimes at sea, declare war, raise and maintain an army and navy, provide rules for the state militias, exercise complete jurisdiction over the federal capital and other federal properties, and “make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers.” The president had veto power over any bill passed by Congress, subject to a congressional override by a two‐thirds vote of each house.

The Constitution specifically prohibited Congress from passing bills of attainder, ex post facto laws, and export duties; granting titles of nobility; suspending the writ of habeas corpus except in emergencies; and prohibiting the foreign slave trade before 1808. The states, too, were prohibited from passing bills of attainder, ex post facto laws, and laws impairing the obligation of contracts; coining money; issuing paper money; declaring anything but gold and silver legal tender; entering into treaties or alliances; or laying import or export duties without the consent of Congress.

Article II vested the executive power of the federal government in a president and vice president, both elected for four‐year terms by specially chosen electors. The electors themselves were to be elected in a manner decided by each state legislature. The president, who had to be a natural‐born citizen of the United States, was to be commander‐in‐chief of the military and the state militias when brought into federal service. He or she could grant pardons and reprieves, and, with the advice and consent of the Senate, make appointments and enter into treaties, subject to the approval of two‐thirds of the senators present. The president, vice president, and all civil officers of the United States are removable from office on impeachment by the House of Representatives and conviction by the Senate for “Treason, Bribery, or other High Crimes and Misdemeanors.” When the president is impeached, the Chief Justice of the United States presides over the trial in the Senate.

The third branch of government—the judiciary—is the least defined in the Constitution. Article III provides for one Supreme Court and such inferior courts as Congress shall create. Federal judges hold their appointments during good behavior and their salaries cannot be diminished during their tenure. The jurisdiction of the federal judiciary extends to all cases of law and equity arising under the Constitution, federal laws, and treaties; and to cases involving the United States, cases between citizens of different states, and other cases where a national venue was considered important. The original jurisdiction of the U.S. Supreme Court was spelled out; in all other cases the Court could exercise appellate jurisdiction in law and fact, with such exceptions as Congress might by law direct.

Jury trial was guaranteed in all criminal cases (except impeachments) and these trials had to be held in the state where the crime was committed. Treason was defined narrowly as waging war against the United States or adhering to, or giving aid and comfort to, the enemies of the United States. Conviction for treason needed the testimony in open court of two witnesses to the same overt act. Punishment for treason could not extend to family or friends of the guilty party.

Article IV provided that each state give “full faith and credit” to the public acts, records, and judicial proceedings of every other state. Citizens of each state were to be entitled to all of the “privileges and immunities of Citizens in the several States.” States were required to extradite persons wanted for crimes in other states, and slaves who escaped to another state could not be freed. Congress was authorized to make rules and regulations for federal territories and to admit new states into the Union. The United States guaranteed every state a republican form of government, protection from foreign invasion, and (upon application of the state legislature or executive) assistance against domestic violence.

Unlike the Articles of Confederation, the Constitution provided for a realistic (though difficult) method of amendment. According to Article V, amendments to the Constitution could be proposed by two‐thirds of both houses of Congress or by a constitutional convention that Congress must call at the request of two‐thirds of the state legislatures. Proposed amendments could be adopted by the agreement of three‐fourths of either the state legislatures or state ratifying conventions, whichever method Congress directs.

Article VI validated all debts and engagements entered into by the United States before the adoption of the Constitution and declared the Constitution, all laws made in pursuance of it, and all treaties to be the supreme law of the land, notwithstanding anything in the constitution or laws of any state. Article VI also required all federal and state officials to take an oath to support the Constitution, but prohibited any religious test for federal officeholding.

Ratification.

Unlike the Articles of Confederation, unanimous ratification by the state legislatures was not required to adopt the Constitution. Article VII provided that the ratification of nine state conventions would be sufficient to establish the Constitution among the ratifying states.

The Constitutional Convention sent the engrossed manuscript Constitution to Congress, which transmitted the new form of government to the states for their ratification in specially elected conventions. An intense public debate over the Constitution raged for almost a year. In June 1788 New Hampshire became the ninth state to ratify, followed quickly by Virginia and New York. A key issue in this debate focused on the kind of government to be created by the Constitution: Did Article I, section 8, grant Congress power to do anything necessary to promote the general welfare and national defense, or did it grant to Congress only limited, enumerated powers? In other words, would the new government be a consolidated national government that would eliminate the sovereignty of the states or would it be a limited government of specified powers that would leave the states sovereign and free to act in all other matters? Coupled with this issue was the debate over the omission of a federal bill of rights, which supporters of the Constitution argued was unnecessary because the Constitution's internal checks on government would prevent any violation of rights.

In several states, ratification was achieved only with a promise that amendments to the Constitution, especially a bill of rights, would be proposed in the first Congress. Largely through the efforts of James Madison, the first Congress in September 1789 proposed a Bill of Rights, which was adopted with little public debate in December 1791.

A Living Document.

The debate over the breadth of federal power was renewed soon after the establishment of the new federal government. In essence, the question was how to interpret the “necessary and proper” clause. Should the Constitution be broadly or strictly interpreted? The followers of Alexander Hamilton advocated a broad interpretation, which President George Washington endorsed. The election of Thomas Jefferson as president in the “Revolution of 1800” heralded a shift to a stricter interpretation that circumscribed the actions of the federal government. The Civil War and the three constitutional amendments adopted in its aftermath, particularly the Fourteenth Amendment, allowed the federal government in the twentieth century to expand the protections embodied in the Bill of Rights to include actions by state and municipal governments. Over the years, ebbs and flows occurred in how the branches of the federal government viewed their constitutional powers and responsibilities. Not until the New Deal Era and World War II did the expansion of federal power through a broad reading of the Constitution's national defense, commerce, and general‐welfare clauses overwhelmingly change the nature of the relationship between the states and the federal government. As the twentieth century ended, the debate over federalism continued.
See also Albany Congress; Early Republic, Era of the; Federal Government; Republicanism; Revolution and Constitution, Era of; Slavery: Development and Expansion of Slavery; States' Rights; Suffrage; Taxation.

Bibliography

Robert Allen Rutland , The Ordeal of the Constitution: The Antifederalists and the Ratification Struggle of 1787–1788, 1966.
Gordon S. Wood , The Creation of the American Republic, 1776–1787, 1969.
Merrill Jensen, John P. Kaminski, and Gaspare J. Saladino, eds., The Documentary History of the Ratification of the Constitution, 15 vols. to date, 1976–.
Willi Paul Adams , The First American Constitutions: Republican Ideology and the Making of the State Constitutions in the Revolutionary Era, 1980, expanded ed., 2000.
Forrest McDonald , Novus Ordo Seclorum: The Intellectual Origins of the Constitution, 1985.
Richard B. Morris , The Forging of the Union, 1781–1789, 1987.
Patrick T. Conley and John P. Kaminski, eds., The Constitution and the States: The Role of the Original Thirteen in the Framing and Adoption of the Federal Constitution, 1988.
Bernard Schwartz , The Great Rights of Mankind: A History of the American Bill of Rights, expanded ed., 1992.
Gordon S. Wood , The Radicalism of the American Revolution, 1992.

John P. Kaminski

Constitution of the United States document embodying the fundamental principles upon which the American republic is conducted. Drawn up at the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia in 1787, the Constitution was signed on Sept. 17, 1787, and ratified by the required number of states (nine) by June 21, 1788. It superseded the original charter of the United States in force since 1781 (see Confederation, Articles of ) and established the system of federal government that began to function in 1789. The Constitution is concise, and its very brevity and its general statement of principles have, by accident more than by design, made possible the extension of meaning that has fostered growth. There are seven articles and a preamble; 27 amendments have been adopted (see the table entitled Text of the Constitution of the United States ).

The wording of the Constitution is general, necessitating interpretation, and any short summary is only rough and approximate. From its very beginnings, the Constitution has been subject to stormy controversies, not only in interpretation of some of its phrases, but also between the "loose constructionists" and "strict constructionists." The middle of the 19th cent. saw a tremendous struggle concerning the nature of the Union and the extent of states' rights. The Civil War decided the case in favor of the advocates of strong union, and since that time the general tendency has been toward the centralization and strengthening of federal power.

The Preamble

The Preamble does not confer power, but its first words, "We the People of the United States," describe the source of the powers conferred by the rest of the Constitution and have been used by the advocates of a strong union arguing against the proponents of states' rights . The Preamble also states the purpose of the document. One of the statements of purpose, "to … promote the general welfare," has been of great importance in the 20th cent. in upholding social legislation, for which no warrant could be found in the enumerated powers of Congress.

The Articles

The first three articles set up the threefold separation of powers, said to have been modeled on Montesquieu's study, which on this point was incorrect, of the British government. In actuality this separation has been weakened by the granting of greater powers to the President and his administrative agencies, which now have legislative and judicial as well as executive functions.

1: Congress

Article 1 provides for the establishment of the bicameral Congress composed of the Senate and the House of Representatives. The various powers of the Congress and the respective houses, together with their methods of election, are enumerated in the article. The Seventeenth Amendment, passed in 1916, instituted the direct popular election of Senators and removed the power of their election from the state legislatures as had originally been provided in Article 1.

Section 4 of Article 1 gives the states power over the conduct of federal elections but permits the Congress to alter such regulations at any time. In 1842 the Congress imposed the district system on the United States. In 1962 the Supreme Court dealt with proper apportionment of election districts and in its decision in Baker v. Carr allowed voters to go into a federal court to force equitable representation in a state legislature. This decision was, however, based on the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Later, the court ruled (1964) that state legislative apportionment must reflect the one-person one-vote principle.

As a legislative body Congress has certain inherent powers. Among these are the power to investigate pursuant to legislative needs. Congressional investigations have led to a great many court decisions concerning the right of a witness before a Congressional committee to refuse to testify even when granted immunity from prosecution.

Section 8 of Article 1 lists the enumerated powers of the Congress. The clause of this section, the "commerce clause," which grants the Congress the right to "regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several States," has, in the 20th cent., been used as a strong argument for the expansion of government power. Since the historic case of Gibbons v. Ogden (1824), the commerce clause has been the battleground over which much of the struggle for and against increased federal regulation of private enterprise has been fought. Until the late 1930s Congress exercised its powers under the clause solely with reference to transportation. But after a series of dramatic reversals by the Supreme Court, Congress began to enter areas that had previously been controlled only by the states. The commerce clause is now the source of important peacetime powers of the national government and an important basis for the judicial review of state actions.

Besides its enumerated and inherent powers, the Congress has implied powers under Article 1 "to make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution" the enumerated or expressed powers. Sections 9 and 10 of Article 1 contain guarantees of the writ of habeas corpus , prohibit bills of attainder and ex post facto laws, and also improve certain limitations on state power.

2: The Executive Branch

Article 2 creates the executive branch of government headed by the President, elected, along with the Vice President, for a term of four years (see president ; electoral college ). The Twenty-second Amendment (1951) provides that no person may be elected President more than twice. The Twenty-third Amendment (1961) permits District of Columbia residents to vote in presidential elections. Since the adoption of the Constitution there have been two conflicting views of Article 2. The first is that the powers of the President are limited to those enumerated in the article. The opposite view is that the President is given executive power not limited by the provisions of the rest of the article. Every President has had to make the choice of interpretations for himself.

3: The Judiciary

Article 3 provides for a judiciary and defines treason . Besides its enumerated powers, the judiciary has the inherent authority to interpret laws and the Constitution with an authority that must be deferred to. Article 3 also guarantees trial by jury in criminal cases and lays the basis for federal jurisdiction. The Eleventh Amendment (1798), which prohibits suits against any state by citizens of another state or foreigners (see sovereignty ), was passed in reaction to the Supreme Court's accepting jurisdiction of a suit against a state by a citizen of another state.

4: The States

Article 4 deals with the relations of the states (see conflict of laws ), providing that "Full faith and credit shall be given in each State to the public acts, records, and judicial proceedings of every other State." Section 2 prohibits any state from discriminating against citizens of other states, or in favor of its own. It also provides for the extradition of criminals. The article guarantees a republican form of government to every state and provides for the admission of new states as well as the government of territories.

5: Amending the Constitution

Article 5 provides for amending the Constitution. The supremacy of the federal Constitution and of federal law over those of the states is the heart of the federal system and is established by Article 6. Article 6 also provides for an oath of office for members of the three branches of the federal government and the states and specifically forbids any religious qualification for office. Article 7 declares that the Constitution should go into force when ratified by nine states.

The Amendments

The Constitution has undergone gradual alteration with the growth of the country. Some of the 26 amendments were brought on by Supreme Court decisions. However, the first 10 amendments, which constitute the Bill of Rights, were added within two years of the signing of the federal Constitution in order to ensure sufficient guarantees of individual liberties. The Bill of Rights applied only to the federal government. But since the passage of the Fourteenth Amendment (1868), many of the guarantees contained in the Bill of Rights have been extended to the states through the "due process" clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

The Bill of Rights

The First Amendment guarantees the freedom of worship, of speech, of the press, of assembly, and of petition to the government for redress of grievances. This amendment has been the center of controversy in recent years in the areas of free speech and religion. The Supreme Court has held that freedom of speech does not include the right to refuse to testify before a Congressional investigating committee and that most organized prayer in the public schools violates the First Amendment.

The right to keep and bear arms—adopted with reference to state militias but interpreted (2008) by the Supreme Court as essentially an individual right—is guaranteed by the Second Amendment, while freedom from quartering soldiers in a house without the owner's consent is guaranteed by the Third Amendment. The Fourth Amendment protects people against unreasonable search and seizure, a safeguard only more recently extended to the states.

The Fifth Amendment provides that no person shall be held for "a capital or otherwise infamous crime" without indictment, be twice put in "jeopardy of life or limb" for the same offense, be compelled to testify against himself, or "be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law." The privilege against self-incrimination has been the center of a great deal of controversy as a result of the growth of Congressional investigations. The phrase "due process of law," which appears in the Fifth Amendment, is also included in the Fourteenth Amendment. As a result there has been much debate as to whether both amendments guarantee the same rights. Those in favor of what is termed fixed due process claim that all the safeguards applied against the federal government should be also applied against the states through the Fourteenth Amendment. The supporters of the concept of flexible due process are only willing to impose those guarantees on the states that "are implicit in the concept of ordered liberty."

The Sixth Amendment guarantees the right of speedy and public trial by an impartial jury in all criminal proceedings, while the Seventh Amendment guarantees the right of trial by jury in almost all common-law suits. Excessive bail, fines and "cruel and unusual" punishment are prohibited by the Eighth Amendment. The Ninth Amendment states that "The enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people."

By the Tenth Amendment "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." Powers reserved to the states are often termed "residual powers." This amendment, like the commerce clause, has been a battleground in the struggle over states' rights and federal supremacy.

The Other Amendments

Of the succeeding sixteen amendments, the Eleventh, Seventeenth, Twenty-second and Twenty-third Amendments have already been discussed under Articles 1, 2, and 3. The Twelfth (1804) revised the method of electing President and Vice President. The Thirteenth (1865), Fourteenth (1868), and Fifteenth (1870) are the Civil War and Reconstruction amendments; they abolish slavery, while guaranteeing civil rights and suffrage to U.S. citizens, including former slaves. The Sixteenth Amendment (1913) authorizes the income tax . Prohibition was established by the Eighteenth Amendment (1919) and repealed by the Twenty-first (1933). The Nineteenth (1920) grants woman suffrage . The Twentieth (1933) abolishes the so-called lame-duck Congress and alters the date of the presidential inauguration. The poll tax and any other tax made a requirement for voting in primaries and elections for federal office was outlawed by the Twenty-fourth Amendment (1964). The Twenty-fifth (1967) establishes the procedure for filling the office of Vice President between elections and for governing in the event of presidential disability. The Twenty-sixth Amendment (1971) lowers the voting age in all elections to 18. The Twenty-seventh Amendment (1992), first proposed in 1789, establishes procedures for Congressional pay increases.

Bibliography

See C. A. Beard, An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution (1913, repr. 1965); E. S. Corwin, The Constitution and What It Means Today (12th rev. ed. 1958); C. D. Bowen, Miracle at Philadelphia (1966); R. Tugwell, The Emerging Constitution (1974); F. M. Coleman, Politics, Policy, and the Constitution (1983); R. B. Morris, Witnesses at the Creation (1985); C. and J. L. Collier, Decision in Philadelphia (1986); M. Kammen, ed., The Origins of the American Constitution (1986); L. W. Levy, The Establishment Clause: Religion and the First Amendment (1988) and Origins of the Fifth Amendment (1968, repr. 1999); G. S. Wood, The Making of the Constitution (1987); F. McDonald, Novus Ordo Seclorum: Intellectual Origins of the Constitution (1990); L. H. Tribe and M. G. Dorf, On Reading the Constitution (1992); J. T. Noonan, The Lustre of Our Country (1998); K. L. Karst and L. W. Levy, ed., Encyclopedia of the American Constitution (2d ed. 2000); A. R. Amar, America's Constitution (2005); D. O. Stewart, The Summer of 1787: The Men Who Invented the Constitution (2007); S. Waldman, Founding Faith: Providence, Politics, and the Birth of Religious Freedom in America (2008); J. N. Rakove, ed., The Annotated U.S. Constitution and Declaration of Independence (2009); S. Lipsky, The Citizen's Constitution: An Annotated Guide (2009); D. J. Bederman, The Classical Foundations of the American Constitution (2009); P. Maier, Ratification: The People Debate the Constitution, 1787–1788 (2010).

CONSTITUTION

The fundamental law, written or unwritten, that establishes the character of a government by defining the basic principles to which a society must conform; by describing the organization of the government and regulation, distribution, and limitations on the functions of different government departments; and by prescribing the extent and manner of the exercise of its sovereign powers.

A legislative charter by which a government or group derives its authority to act.

The concept of a constitution dates to the city-states of ancient Greece. The philosopher aristotle (384–322 b.c.), in his work Politics, analyzed over 150 Greek constitutions. He described a constitution as creating the frame upon which the government and laws of a society are built:

A constitution may be defined as an organization of offices in a state, by which the method of their distribution is fixed, the sovereign authority is determined, and the nature of the end to be pursued by the association and all its members is prescribed. Laws, as distinct from the frame of the constitution, are the rules by which the magistrates should exercise their powers, and should watch and check transgressors.

In modern Europe, written constitutions came into greater use during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Constitutions such as that of the United States, created in 1787, were influenced by the ancient Greek models. During the twentieth century, an increasing number of countries around the world concluded that constitutions are a necessary part of democratic or republican government. Many thus adopted their own constitutions.

Different forms and levels of government may have constitutions. All 50 states have constitutions, as do many countries including Japan, India, Canada, and Germany. It is also common for nongovernmental organizations and civic groups to have constitutions.

In its ideal form, a constitution emanates from the consent and will of the people whom it governs. Besides establishing the institutions of government and the manner in which they function toward each other and toward the people, a constitution may also set forth the rights of the individual and a government's responsibility to honor those rights.

Constitutions, whether written or unwritten, typically function as an evolving body of legal custom and opinion. Their evolution generally involves changes in judicial interpretation or in themselves, the latter usually through a process called amendment. Amendment of a constitution is usually designed to be a difficult process in order to give the constitution greater stability. On the other hand, if a constitution is extremely difficult to amend, it might be too inflexible to survive over time.

The ongoing evolutionary nature of constitutions explains why England may be described as having a constitution even though it does not have a single written document that is designated as such. England's constitution instead inheres in a body of legal custom and tradition that regulates the relationship among the monarchy, the legislature (Parliament), the judicial system, and common law. Although England's constitution is, in a sense, unwritten because it does not originate in a single document, many written laws have been instrumental in its creation, and England in fact has one of the oldest traditions of constitutionalism.

In a truly constitutional form of government, public officials are subject to constitutional rules and provisions and may not violate them without punishment. Such constitutional governments are also called limited governments because the constitution restricts the scope of their power over the people. However, many governments that have constitutions do not practice true constitutionalism. The former Soviet Union, for example, created the 1936 Constitution of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, also known as the "Stalin Constitution," but that document did not establish a truly constitutional form of government. joseph stalin, the ruler of the Soviet Union from 1924 to 1953, could not be formally penalized or called to account for his actions, no matter how heinous, before any other government official, any court, or the people themselves. The Soviet Constitution also claimed to guarantee freedom of speech, press, and assembly, but in practice the Soviet government continually repressed those who sought to express those freedoms. Constitutions such as that of the former Soviet Union are called nominal constitutions, whereas those that function more truly as prescriptive documents, such as the constitution of the united states, are called normative constitutions.

In the United States, individual state constitutions must conform to the basic principles of the U.S. Constitution—they may not violate rights or standards that it establishes. However, states are free to grant rights that are not defined in the U.S. Constitution, as long as doing so does not interfere with other rights that are drawn from it. For this reason, groups or individuals who seek to file constitutional claims in court are increasingly examining state constitutions for settlement of their grievances. In the issue of school desegregation, for example, groups such as the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (naacp) began in the 1990s to shift focus to the state level, with the hope of finding greater protection of rights under state constitutions.

In many states, however, courts have construed their respective state constitutions to provide rights that are equivalent to those provided under the U.S. Constitution. For example, in Jackson v. Benson, 578 N.W.2d 602 (Wisc. 1998), the Wisconsin Supreme Court, citing settled precedent, noted that the Wisconsin Constitution's provisions relating to equal protection provide the same rights as those provisions in the federal counterpart, even though the Wisconsin provisions are phrased quite differently. The NAACP claimed that a school program in Milwaukee, which allowed parents of certain qualifying students of public schools in the city to send their children to any private, nonsectarian school of their choice at no cost, was enacted with discriminatory intent. The court treated the state and federal constitutional claims of the NAACP as alike.

further readings

Barker, Ernest, trans. and ed. 1946. The Politics of Aristotle. New York: Oxford Univ. Press.

Hamilton, Alexander, James Madison, and James Jay. Terence Ball, ed. 2003. The Federalist. Cambridge, U.K., New York: Cambridge Univ. Press.

cross-references

Constitution of the United States; "Constitution of the United States" (Appendix, Primary Document).

Constitution of the United States, framed by the Federal Constitutional Convention (1787) to create the system of federal government, which began to function in 1789, superseding the Articles of Confederation. Madison has been called “the father of the Constitution,” since he was secretary and spokesman for the signers. The Federalist played an important role in securing the adoption of the Constitution, and remains the most important commentary. Opposed views of constitutional interpretation have always existed. Article I, section 8, after expressly enumerating the powers of Congress, supplements them by the grant “to make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers and all other powers vested by this Constitution in the government of the United States or in any department or officer thereof.” The loose construction of the document, allowing a liberal use of these implied powers, and consequently favoring a strong central government, was advocated by Hamilton and the Federalist party. Those anti‐Federalists like Jefferson, who wished the state governments to retain power, believed in a strict or limited interpretation of the implied powers. Marshall's judicial interpretations, from the point of view of loose construction, did much to establish the principle of elaborating and expanding federal regulation, and since his time the Supreme Court has enjoyed a great growth of power by declaring certain legislation unconstitutional. The struggle between strict and loose constructionists was most pronounced during the mid‐19th‐century conflict over states' rights.

The original seven articles of the Constitution are concerned respectively with the legislative, executive, and judicial branches of the government; the regulation of state and territorial governments; the method of amendment; the validity of previous debts and engagements; and the supreme authority of the Constitution, as well as the method of ratification. The first ten amendments are generally known as the Bill of Rights.

Constitution of the United States Fundamental laws and basis of government of the USA. Adopted by the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia in September 1787, it was ratified by the 13 states in 1788–90. It replaced the Articles of Confederation (1781), which had proved inadequate, giving too much power to each state at the expense of central government. It was designed to create a system of ‘checks and balances’, to prevent one branch of government gaining dominance over others. Opponents who feared the federal government would be too powerful and the rights of the individual unprotected succeeded in having ten amendments, collectively known as the Bill of Rights, added to the Constitution. The US Constitution was designed not as a code of laws, but as a statement of principles to which laws should adhere, thus allowing considerable flexibility in judicial interpretation.

http://www.house.gov/Constitution/Constitution.html

Constitution, the the basic written set of principles and precedents of federal government in the US, which came into operation in 1789 and has since been modified by twenty-six amendments.
Constitution State an informal name for Connecticut, where the draft US Constitution was ratified in 1788.