United States Constitution
Page one of the original copy of the Constitution
Created	September 17, 1787
Ratified	June 21, 1788
Location	National Archives, Washington, D.C.
Authors	Delegates of the Philadelphia Convention
Signatories	39 of the 55 Philadelphia Convention delegates
Purpose	National constitution to replace the Articles of Confederation

United States of America
This article is part of the series: United States Constitution
Original text of the Constitution
Preamble Articles of the Constitution I · II · III · IV · V · VI · VII
Amendments to the Constitution
Bill of Rights I · II · III · IV · V VI · VII · VIII · IX · X Subsequent Amendments XI · XII · XIII · XIV · XV XVI · XVII · XVIII · XIX · XX XXI · XXII · XXIII · XXIV · XXV XXVI · XXVII Unratified Amendments I(1) · XIII(1) · XIII(2) · XX(1) · XXVII(1) · XXVII(2)
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The Constitution of the United States is the supreme law of the United States of America. It is the framework for the organization of the United States government and for the relationship of the federal government with the states, citizens, and all people within the United States.

The first three Articles of the Constitution establish the three branches of the national government: a legislature, the bicameral Congress; an executive branch led by the President; and a judicial branch headed by the Supreme Court. They also specify the powers and duties of each branch. All unenumerated powers are reserved to the respective states and the people, thereby establishing the federal system of government.

The Constitution was adopted on September 17, 1787, by the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and ratified by conventions in each U.S. state in the name of "The People". It has been amended twenty-seven times; the first ten amendments are known as the Bill of Rights.^[1][2]

The United States Constitution is the second oldest written constitution still in use by any nation in the world^[3] after the 1600 Statutes of San Marino^{[4] [5][6]}. It holds a central place in United States law and political culture.^[7] The handwritten original document penned by Jacob Shallus is on display at the National Archives and Records Administration in Washington, D.C.

Contents 1 History 1.1 The First Governing document 1.2 Calling and convening 1.3 Work of the Constitutional Convention 1.3.1 Slavery 1.3.2 New power allocations 1.4 Ratification and inauguration of the new government 1.5 Historical influences 1.5.1 Native American Influence 1.6 Influences on the Bill of Rights 2 Articles of the Constitution 2.1 Preamble: Statement of purpose 2.2 Article One: Legislative Power 2.3 Article Two: Executive power 2.4 Article Three: Judicial power 2.5 Article Four: States' powers and limits 2.6 Article Five: Amendments 2.7 Article Six: Federal power 2.8 Article Seven: Ratification 3 Judicial review 4 Amendments 4.1 Successful amendments 4.1.1 The Bill of Rights (Amendments 1 to 10) 4.1.2 Subsequent amendments (11 to 27) 4.2 Unratified amendments 5 Criticism of the Constitution 6 Worldwide influence and translations 6.1 Translations 7 Constitution as civic religion 7.1 It makes a nation 7.2 Article V, the escape clause 7.3 The shrine 7.4 Original pages misspellings 8 Constitutional commemorative postage 9 See also 9.1 General 9.2 Related documents 10 Notes 11 References 11.1 Primary sources 11.2 Reference books 11.3 Secondary sources 12 Further reading 13 External links 13.1 National Archives 13.2 Official U.S. government sources 13.3 Non-governmental web sites

History

The First Governing document

The Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union were the first constitution of the United States of America.^[9] The problem with the United States government under the Articles of Confederation was, in the words of George Washington, “no money”.^[10]

Congress could print money, but by 1786, the money was useless. Congress could borrow money, but could not pay it back.^[11] Under the Articles, Congress requisitioned money from the states. But no state paid all of their requisition; Georgia paid nothing. A few states paid the U.S. an amount equal to interest on the national debt owed to their citizens, but no more.^[11] Nothing was paid toward the interest on debt owed to foreign governments. By 1786 the United States was about to default on its contractual obligations when the principal came due.^[12]

Most of the U.S. troops in the 625-man U.S. Army were deployed facing British forts on American soil. The troops had not been paid; some were deserting and the remainder threatened mutiny.^[13] Spain closed New Orleans to American commerce. The U.S. protested, to no effect. The Barbary Pirates began seizing American commercial ships. The U.S. had no funds to pay the pirates' extortion demands.^[14] States such as New York and South Carolina violated the peace treaty with Britain by prosecuting Loyalists for wartime activity. The U.S. had no more credit if another military crisis had required action.^[14]

The states were proving inadequate to the requirements of sovereignty in a confederation. In Massachusetts during Shays' Rebellion, Congress had no money; General Benjamin Lincoln had to raise funds among Boston merchants to pay for a volunteer army.^[15] A rumor had it that a "seditious party" among the New York legislature had opened communication with the [[Governor General of Canada }Viceroy of Canada]]. To the south, the British were said to be funding the Creek raids; Savannah was fortified, the State of Georgia under martial law.^[16]

Congress was paralyzed. It could do nothing significant without nine states, and some legislative business required all thirteen. By April 1786 there had been only three days out of five months with nine states present. When nine states did show up, and there was only one member of a state on the floor, then that state’s vote did not count. If a delegation were evenly divided, the division was duly noted in the Journal, but there was no vote from that state towards a nine-count.^[17] States, in violation of the Articles, laid embargoes, negotiated unilaterally abroad, provided for armies and made war. ^[18] The Articles Congress had “virtually ceased trying to govern.”^[19]

The vision of a “respectable nation” among nations seemed to be fading in the eyes of such men as Virginia’s George Washington and James Madison, New York’s Alexander Hamilton and John Jay, Pennsylvania’s Benjamin Franklin and George Clymer and Massachusetts’ Henry Knox and Rufus King. The dream of a republic, a nation without hereditary rulers, with power derived from the people in frequent elections, was in doubt.^[20]

Calling and convening

In September 1786, commissioners from five states met in the Annapolis Convention to discuss adjustments to the Articles of Confederation that would improve commerce. They invited state representatives to convene in Philadelphia to discuss improvements to the federal government. After debate, the Congress of the Confederation endorsed a plan to revise the Articles of Confederation on February 21, 1787.^[21] The plan called on each state legislature to send delegates to a convention “’for the sole and express purpose of revising the Articles of Confederation’ in ways that, when approved by Congress and the states, would ‘render the federal constitution adequate to the exigencies of government and the preservation of the Union.’”^[22]

the nationalists organize

G. Washington, American Convention President prestige brought delegates Nathaniel Gorham, Ma - Chair 'Committee of the Whole' ran daily business G. Wythe, Va Judge Chair, Rules Committee delegates consult, not states W. Jackson, SC-Cincinnati Convention Secretary security, connections

Twelve state legislatures, Rhode Island being the only exception, accepted this invitation and sent delegates to convene in May 1787.^[21] While the resolution calling the Convention specified that its purpose was to propose amendments to the Articles, through discussion and debate it became clear by mid-June that the Convention would propose a Constitution with a fundamentally new design.^[23]

To amend the Articles into a workable government, seventy-four delegates from twelve states were named by their state legislatures, 55 showed up, 39 signed. ^[24] May 3rd James Madison arrived to Philadelphia eleven days early and met with James Wilson of the Pennsylvania delegation to lay strategy. Madison outlined his plan in letters that (1) State legislatures each send delegates, not the Articles Congress. (2) Convention reaches agreement with signatures from every state. (3) The Articles Congress approves forwarding it to the state legislatures. (4) The state legislatures independently call one-time conventions to ratify, selecting delegates by each state’s various rules of suffrage. The Convention was to be "merely advisory" to the people voting in each state.^[25]

George Washington arrived on time, Sunday, the day before scheduled opening. His participation lent his prestige to the proceedings, attracting some of the best minds in America.^[26] For the entire duration of the Convention, Washington was a guest at the home of Robert Morris, Congress’ financier for the American Revolution and a Pennsylvania delegate. Morris entertained among the delegates lavishly.

The convention was scheduled to open May 14, but only Pennsylvania and Virginia were present. The Convention was postponed until a quorum of seven states gathered on Friday the 25th.^[27] George Washington was elected the Convention president, and elected Chancellor (judge) George Wythe, Chair of the Rules Committee published them the following Monday.^[28] Nathaniel Gorham of Massachusetts was elected Chair of the Committee of the Whole, a parliamentary situation where individuals spoke freely, and votes could be retaken to allow for bargaining. Provisions in the draft articles were repeatedly made, reconnected and remade as the order of business proceeded. The officials and procedures were made before nationalist opposition such as John Lansing of New York and Luther Martin of Maryland arrived.^[29] By the end of May, the stage was set.

The Constitutional Convention voted to keep the debates secret so that the delegates could speak freely, negotiate, compromise and change. Both House of Commons and the colonial assemblies were secret. Debates of the Articles Congress were not reported. Yet since the proposal was for fundamental change from a confederation to a new, consolidated yet federal government, the surprise itself made Convention secrecy a major issue in the very public debates leading up to the crowd-filled ratification conventions.^[30] Nevertheless, delegates to the Convention continued in positions of public trust. Of those participating, ten members would also number in the 33 chosen by their state legislatures for the Articles Congress that September.^[31]

Outside the Convention in Philadelphia, there was a national convening of the Society of the Cincinnati. Washington was said to be embarrassed. The 1776 “old republican” delegates like Elbridge Gerry (Ma) found anything military or hereditary anathema. The Presbyterian Synod of Philadelphia and New York convention was meeting to redefine its Confession, dropping the faith requirement for civil authority to prohibit false worship.^[32] Protestant Washington attended a Roman Catholic Mass and dinner.^[33] Revolution veteran Jonas Phillips, of the Mikveh Israel Synagogue, petitioned the Convention to avoid an oath for both Old and New Testaments.^[34] Merchants of Providence, Rhode Island, petitioned for consideration, even though their Assembly had not sent a delegation. Congregational minister Manasseh Cutler, former Army chaplain from Massachusetts arrived into town from New York, flush with his lobbying victory during the Northwest Ordnance negotiations in the Articles Congress with grants of five million acres to parcel out among The Ohio Company and “speculators”, some of whom would be found among the delegates.^[35]

nationalist floor leaders from biggest states most speeches, seconded one another's motions

James Madison, Va Cong strategy, comparative study 'Father of the Constitution' James Wilson, Pa Atty, Prof westerly practice, lands ”unsung hero of Convention”

Every few days, new delegates arrived, happily noted in Madison’s Journal, but the coming and going meant an “ever-present danger that the Convention might dissolve and the entire project be abandoned.” There were never more than eleven states represented, state delegations absented themselves at votes different times of day. There was no rule for the number of delegates from each state. Daily sessions would have thirty members present.^[36] Members came and went on public and personal business. The Articles Congress was meeting at the same times, members would absent themselves to New York City days and weeks at a time. But the work before them was continuous, even if attendance was not. ^[37] The Convention resolved itself into a “Committee of the Whole”, and could remain so for days. It was informal, votes could be taken and retaken easily, positions could change without prejudice, and importantly, no formal quorum call was required.^[38] The nationalists were resolute. As Madison put it, the situation was too serious for despair. ^[39]

They used the same State House as the Declaration signers. The building setback from the street was still dignified, but the “shaky” steeple was gone. The summer was hot, but city hand-pump wells were nearby. Flies were thick and building construction made the street noisy. Breakfast was before sunup. The Hall was still cool at ten, but hot by noon. Delegates sweltered in the closed room for secrecy, sentries kept passers-by from under the windows. After three, Delegates usually adjourned for dinner, or escaped into the green countryside, or along miles of riverside quays for offshore breezes.^[40] When they adjourned each day, they lived in nearby lodgings, as guests, roomers or renters. They ate with one another in town and taverns, “often enough in preparation for tomorrow’s meeting.”^[41]

Work of the Constitutional Convention

Delegates reporting to the Convention presented their credentials to the elected Secretary, Major William Jackson of South Carolina. The state legislatures of the day used these occasions to say why they were sending representatives. New York thus publically enjoined its members to pursue all possible “alterations and provisions” for good government and “preservation of the Union”. New Hampshire called for “timely measures to enlarge the powers of Congress”. Virginia stressed the “necessity of extending the revision of the federal system to all its defects”. ^[42]

national plans v. federal plans re-constitution of a republican legislature

John Randolph, Va Governor bicameral: people elect both consolidated government William Paterson, NJ Atty Genl unicameral: elected by states states rule central government Benjamin Franklin, American unicameral: people only elect populations equal Roger Sherman, Ct Senate: states; House: people the 'Great Compromise'

On the other hand, Delaware categorically forbade any alteration of the Articles one-state, one-vote, one-vote-only provision in the Articles Congress.^[43] The Convention would have a great deal of work to do to reconcile the many expectations. Most delegates wanted to finish their work by fall harvest. In any case, the Pennsylvania Assembly would begin their annual session in the same State House building on September 5 and the East Room there was not for rent.^[44]

Current knowledge of the drafting and construction of the United States Constitution comes primarily from the Journal left by James Madison, who kept a complete record of the proceedings at the Constitutional Convention.^{[45] [46]} Madison’s Journal can be found chronologically incorporated in “The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787”, edited by Max Farrand, Professor of History in Yale University (1911, 1939) online at the Library of Congress.^[47] The source documents are organized by date including the official Convention Journal, Madison, Yates, Rufus King, Paterson and McHenry. The text corrects errors in revisions Madison made in his 70s.^[48]

The Virginia Plan was the unofficial agenda for the Convention, and was drafted chiefly by James Madison, considered to be "The Father of the Constitution" for his major contributions.^[45] It was weighted toward the interests of the larger states, including the following:

• A bicameral legislature of a House proportioned to population and variable state representation in a Senate^[49]
• An executive chosen by the legislature
• A judiciary, with life-terms of service and vague powers
• The national legislature would be able to veto state laws

An alternative proposal, William Paterson's New Jersey Plan, contained proposals geared toward smaller states:

• A unicameral national legislature with each state legislature sending an equal number to represent it
• An executive branch appointed by the legislature
• A judicial branch appointed by the executive.^[50]

Roger Sherman of Connecticut brokered The Great Compromise whereby the House would represent the people and a Senate would represent the states.^[51]

Slavery

The contentious issue of slavery was too controversial to be resolved during the Convention. The issue of slavery, although always an undercurrent during deliberations and side-discussions, was at center stage in the Convention three times, June 7 regarding who would vote for Congress, June 11 in debate over how to proportion relative seating in the ‘house’, and August 22 relating to commerce and the future wealth of the nation.

Convention slavery issue: power to regulate, not abolition

G. Mason, Va abolitionist for national regulation C. Pinkney, SC justified slavery for state regulation Ellsworth, Ct rich parts = rich whole for state regulation Dickenson, De abolitionist, gov in De, Pa national in 20 yrs, maybe

Eighteenth Century America had the widest franchise of any nation of the world. But it was a society of its time. Property gave a man “a stake in society, made him responsible, worthy of a voice, and with enough taxable property, eligible for office holding. Many could vote because most property was held as family farms. Though a substantial part of wealthy white America rested on slavery as property, the Convention met, not to reform society, but to create government for society as it existed. In determining who should vote, the property requirements among the states could not be reconciled. Pennsylvania, Delaware and New Hampshire were already for abolishing property requirements. To allow all states their own rules of suffrage, the Constitution was written with no property requirements. Slavery was taken out of that equation after the debate June 7. ^[52]

Once the Convention turned to how to proportion the House representation, tempers among several delegates exploded over slavery again. If the number of seats depended on wealth, Pierce Butler (SC) wanted to include slaves. Elbridge Gerry (Ma) answered that the South could not have it both ways, if slaves were property and to be counted for Congress, then the North could count horses and cows. The attacks turned pointedly personal. B. Franklin (Pa) interrupted with a speech about dividing up Pennsylvania so state populations were more nearly equal. He took some time. No vote was taken, tempers cooled, and the three-fifths non-free population count proposed by J. Wilson (Pa) passed using the Articles Congress “federal ratio”.^[53]

On August 6, the Committee of Detail reported its revisions to the Randolph Plan. A preamble was drafted. Delegates turned their thoughts to political economy that might best secure the public welfare and general happiness in the long run, for posterity. Again the question of slavery came up, and again it was met with attacks of moral outrage, relative poverty of the whites, and they were answered by appeals to local wealth by local means, and southern delegates inability to carry ratification in their states if slavery were threatened. By August 22, the delegates wove a web of mutual compromises relating to commerce and trade, north and south, port-states and landlocked, slave-holding, and free, relating to navigation laws, import taxes, population counts, national regulation of western territories and trade on the Mississippi. The transfer of power to regulate slave trade from states to central government could happen in 20 years, but only if there were national majorities for it both among the states in the 'senate' and among the people in the 'house', when it came time, then.^[54] Later generations could try out their own answers. The delegates were trying to make a government that might last that long.^[55]

Section 9 of Article I allowed the continued "importation" of such persons, Section 2 of Article IV prohibited the provision of assistance to escaping persons and required their return if successful and Section 2 of Article I defined other persons as "three-fifths" of a person for calculations of each state's official population for representation and federal taxation.^[57] Article V prohibited any amendments or legislation changing the provision regarding slave importation until 1808, thereby giving the States then existing 20 years to resolve this issue.

Just as the abolitionist George Mason refused to sign the Constitution, in the ratification conventions of Massachusetts and Virginia, the anti-slavery delegates began as anti-ratification votes. But those opposed to slavery were persuaded that the evils of a broken Union would bring worse consequences than allowing the fate of slavery to be determined gradually over time. ^[58] Virginia’s Federalist George Nicholas dismissed fears on both sides. Objections to the Constitution were inconsistent, “At the same moment it is opposed for being promotive and destructive of slavery!” ^[59] But the contradiction was never resolved peaceably, and the failure to do so contributed to the Civil War.^[60]

New power allocations

The Constitutional Convention created a new, unprecedented form of government by reallocating powers of government. Every previous national authority had been either a centralized government, or a “confederation of sovereign constituent states.” The American power sharing was unique at the time. The sources and changes of power were up to the states. The foundations of government and extent of power came from both national and state sources. But the new government would have a national operation. ^[61]

To meet their goals of cementing the Union and securing citizen rights, Framers allocated power among executive, senate, house and judiciary of the central government. But each and every state government in their variety continued exercising powers in their own sphere.^[62] The Convention did not start with national powers from scratch, it began with the powers already vested in the Articles Congress with control of the military, international relations and commerce.^[63] The Constitution added ten more. Five were minor relative to power sharing, including business and manufacturing protections.^[64] One important new power authorized Congress to protect states from the “domestic violence” of riot and civil disorder, but it was conditioned by a state request. ^[65]

Taxation substantially increased the power of Congress relative to the states. It was limited by restrictions, forbidding taxes on exports, per capita taxes, requiring import duties to be uniform and that taxes be applied to paying U.S. debt. But the states were stripped of their ability to levy taxes on imports, which was at the time, “by far the most bountiful source of tax revenues”. And Congress had no further restrictions relating to political economy. It could institute protective tariffs, for instance. Congress overshadowed state power regulating interstate commerce; the United States would be the “largest area of free trade in the world.” ^[66] The Constitution increased Congressional power to organize, arm and discipline the state militias, to use them to enforce the laws of Congress, suppress rebellions within the states and repel invasions. But the Second Amendment would ensure that Congressional power could not be used to disarm state militias.^[67] The most undefined grant of power was the power to “make laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution” the Constitution’s enumerated powers.^[68]

Besides expanding Congressional power, the Constitution limited states and central government. Six limits on the national government addressed property rights such as slavery and taxes.^[69] Six protected liberty such as prohibiting ex post facto laws and no religious tests for national offices in any state, even if they had them for state offices.^[70] Five were principles of a republic, as in legislative appropriation.^[71] These restrictions lacked systematic organization, but all constitutional prohibitions were practices that the British Parliament had “legitimately taken in the absence of a specific denial of the authority.” ^[72] The regulation of state power presented a “qualitatively different” undertaking. In the state constitutions, the people did not enumerate powers. They gave their representatives every right and authority not explicitly reserved to themselves. The Constitution extended the limits that the states had previously imposed upon themselves under the Articles of Confederation, forbidding taxes on imports and disallowing treaties among themselves, for example.^{[73] [74]}

In light of recent repeated state abuses, the Constitution prohibited state ex post facto laws and bills of attainder to protect United States citizen property rights. Congressional power of the purse was protected by forbidding taxes or restraint on interstate commerce and foreign trade. States could make no law “impairing the obligation of contracts.”^[75] To check future state abuses the framers searched for a way to review and veto state laws harming the national welfare or citizen rights. They rejected proposals for Congressional veto of state laws and gave the Supreme Court appellate case jurisdiction over state law because the Constitution is the supreme law of the land.^[76] The United States had such a geographical extent that it could only be safely governed using a combination of republics. As of ratification, sovereignty was no longer to be theoretically indivisible. With a wide variety of specific powers among different branches of national governments and thirteen republican state governments, now "each of the portions of powers delegated to the one or to the other … is … sovereign with regard to its proper objects".^[77] There were some powers that remained beyond the reach of both national powers and state powers,^[78] so the logical seat of American “sovereignty” belonged directly with the people-voters of each state.^[79]

Adam Smith’s Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759) characterized two kinds of leaders in times of “civil discontent and civil disorder”. One is infected with a "spirit of system", a plan that will relieve current unrest. The plan is held out as an elixir to prevent social ills from ever happening again. He does not need to consider existing interests or widespread prejudices. He has the mojo to arrange each individual and each group as pieces on a chess board. The second kind of leader acts with moderation, respecting established powers, considering individuals, accommodating the habits and society found in the state. Both kinds were found in the Convention, but the moderates won the votes. The Constitution reflects the pluralism which is the genius of the American people.^[80]

Ratification and inauguration of the new government

Ratification of the Constitution
	Date	State	Votes
Yes	No
1	December 7, 1787	Delaware	30	0
2	December 11, 1787	Pennsylvania	46	23
3	December 18, 1787	New Jersey	38	0
4	January 2, 1788	Georgia	26	0
5	January 9, 1788	Connecticut	128	40
6	February 6, 1788	Massachusetts	187	168
7	April 26, 1788	Maryland	63	11
8	May 23, 1788	South Carolina	149	73
9	June 21, 1788	New Hampshire	57	47
10	June 25, 1788	Virginia	89	79
11	July 26, 1788	New York	30	27
12	November 21, 1789	North Carolina	194	77
13	May 29, 1790	Rhode Island	34	32

On September 17, 1787, the Constitution was completed, followed by a speech given by Benjamin Franklin. Franklin urged unanimity, although the Convention had decided that only nine states were needed to ratify. The Convention submitted the Constitution to the Congress of the Confederation.^[49]

Massachusetts’s Rufus King assessed the Convention as a creature of the states, independent of the Articles Congress, submitting its proposal to Congress only to satisfy forms. Though amendments were debated, they were all defeated. On September 28, 1787, the Articles Congress resolved “unanimously” to transmit the Constitution to state legislatures for submitting to a ratification convention according to the Constitutional procedure.^[81] Several states enlarged the numbers qualified just for electing ratification delegates. In doing so, they went beyond the Constitution's provision for the most voters for the state legislature to make a new social contract among, more nearly than ever before, "We, the people".^[82]

Following Massachusetts's lead, the Federalist minorities in both Virginia and New York were able to obtain ratification in convention by linking ratification to recommended amendments.^[83] A minority of the Constitution’s critics continued to oppose the Constitution. Maryland’s Luther Martin argued that the federal convention had exceeded its authority; he still called for amending the Articles.^[84] Article 13 of the Articles of Confederation stated that the union created under the Articles was "perpetual" and that any alteration must be "agreed to in a Congress of the United States, and be afterwards confirmed by the legislatures of every State".^[85]

However, the unanimous requirement under the Articles made all attempts at reform impossible. Martin’s allies such as New York’s John Lansing, Jr., dropped moves to obstruct the Convention's process. They began to take exception to the Constitution “as it was”, seeking amendments. Several conventions saw supporters for "amendments before" shift to a position of "amendments after" for the sake of staying in the Union. New York Anti’s “circular letter” was sent to each state legislature proposing a second constitutional convention for "amendments before". It failed in the state legislatures. Ultimately only North Carolina and Rhode Island would wait for amendments from Congress before ratifying.^[83]

Article VII of the proposed constitution stipulated that only nine of the thirteen states would have to ratify for the new government to go into effect for the participating states.^[1] After a year had passed in state-by-state ratification battles, on September 13, 1788, the Articles Congress certified that the new Constitution had been ratified. The new government would be inaugurated with eleven of the thirteen. The Articles Congress directed the new government to begin in New York City on the first Wednesday in March, ^[86] and on March 4, 1789, the government duly began operations.

George Washington had earlier been reluctant to go the Convention for fear the states “with their darling sovereignties” could not be overcome.^[87] But he was elected the Constitution's President unanimously, including the vote of Virginia’s presidential elector, the Anti-federalist Patrick Henry.^[88] The new Congress was a triumph for the Federalists. The Senate of eleven states would be 20 Federalists to two Virginia (Henry) Anti-federalists. The House would seat 48 Federalists to 11 Antis from only four states: Massachusetts, New York, Virginia and South Carolina.^[89]

Antis' fears of personal oppression by Congress were allayed by Amendments passed under the floor leadership of James Madison in the first session of the first Congress. These first ten Amendments became known as the Bill of Rights. ^[90] Objections to a potentially remote federal judiciary were reconciled with 13 federal courts (11 states, Maine and Kentucky), and three Federal riding circuits out of the Supreme Court: Eastern, Middle and South.^[91] Suspicion of a powerful federal executive was answered by Washington’s cabinet appointments of once-Anti-Federalists Edmund Jennings Randolph as Attorney General and Thomas Jefferson as Secretary of State.^[92][93]

What Constitutional historian Pauline Maier calls a national “dialogue between power and liberty” had begun anew. ^[94]

Historical influences

Several ideas in the Constitution were new, and a large number were drawn from the literature of republicanism in the United States, the experiences of the 13 states, and the British experience with mixed government. The most important influence from the European continent was from Montesquieu, who emphasized the need to have balanced forces pushing against each other to prevent tyranny. (This in itself reflects the influence of Polybius's 2nd century BC treatise on the checks and balances of the constitution of the Roman Republic.) British political philosopher John Locke was a major influence, and the due process clause of the Constitution was partly based on common law stretching back to Magna Carta (1215).^[49]

Native American Influence

The Iroquois nations' political confederacy and democratic government have been credited as influences on the Articles of Confederation and the United States Constitution.^[95][96]

Iroquois Seneca Red Jacket. British ally, council leader, negotiated with Congress Samuel Kirkland Presybyterian missionary, linguist. With Iroquois Onieda, U.S. allies Joseph Brant, Mohawk. British ally, played U.S. and French for Western Iroquois.

Prominent figures such as Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin were more involved with leaders of the Iroquois Confederacy, based in New York. John Rutledge of South Carolina in particular is said to have read lengthy tracts of Iroquoian law to the other framers, beginning with the words, "We, the people, to form a union, to establish peace, equity, and order..."^[97]

Historians debate how much the colonists borrowed from existing Native American governmental models. But several founding fathers had contact with Native American leaders and had learned about their styles of government. The Iroquois Confederation could not be overlooked. They were “the most powerful Indian group on the continent.” Their government did not always work perfectly, unanimously, but they were once secure within their territory, and had been “nearly invincible” to outsiders over the lifetime of the Convention delegates.^[98]

Even in the 1750s, Franklin had seen that no single English colony could effectively deal with Amerindian tribes or the French. “If the Iroquois could form a powerful union … some kind of union ought not to be beyond the capacity of a dozen English colonies.”^[99] The delegates meeting at Albany seeing the dangers before them, acted together, going over the heads of the colonial legislatures and going directly to the Parliament. In this they exceeded their authority, “like those who met at Philadelphia in 1787 would.”^[100]

During the Articles period, individual states had been making separate agreements with foreign nations apart from Congress. The Confederacy of the Iroquois was both a model and a cautionary tale. The Iroquois Confederacy’s Grand Council had no coercive control over the constituent members. This decentralization of authority and power had frequently plagued the Six Nations since the coming of the Europeans. The Iroquois would suffer from “too much democracy.”^[101] The new United States faced a diplomatic and military world inhabited by the same Europeans.

The Constitution would be an experiment of improvement in self-governance based on Iroquois and Greek, Roman and Enlightenment influences. In October 1988, the U.S. Congress passed Concurrent Resolution 331 to recognize the influence of the Iroquois Constitution upon the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights.^[102]

Influences on the Bill of Rights

The United States Bill of Rights consists of the ten amendments added to the Constitution in 1791, as supporters of the Constitution had promised critics during the debates of 1788.^[103] The English Bill of Rights (1689) was an inspiration for the American Bill of Rights. Both require jury trials, contain a right to keep and bear arms, prohibit excessive bail and forbid "cruel and unusual punishments." Many liberties protected by state constitutions and the Virginia Declaration of Rights were incorporated into the Bill of Rights.

Articles of the Constitution

The Constitution consists of a preamble, seven original articles, twenty-seven amendments, and a paragraph certifying its enactment by the constitutional convention.

Preamble: Statement of purpose

“	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.	”
—United States Constitution, Preamble

Article One: Legislative Power

United States

This article is part of the series: Politics and government of the United States

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Article One describes the Congress, the legislative branch of the federal government. The United States Congress is a bicameral body consisting of two co-equal houses: the House of Representatives and the Senate.

The article establishes the manner of election and the qualifications of members of each body. Representatives must be at least 25 years old, be a citizen of the United States for seven years, and live in the state they represent. Senators must be at least 30 years old, be a citizen for nine years, and live in the state they represent.

Article I, Section 1, reads, "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." This provision gives Congress more than simply the responsibility to establish the rules governing its proceedings and for the punishment of its members; it places the power of the government primarily in Congress.

Article I Section 8 enumerates the legislative powers. The powers listed and all other powers are made the exclusive responsibility of the legislative branch:

The Congress shall have power... 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.

Article I Section 9 provides a list of eight specific limits on congressional power and Article I Section 10 limits the rights of the states.

The United States Supreme Court has interpreted the Commerce Clause and the Necessary and Proper Clause in Article One to allow Congress to enact legislation that is neither expressly listed in the enumerated power nor expressly denied in the limitations on Congress. In McCulloch v. Maryland (1819), the United States Supreme Court fell back on the strict construction of the necessary and proper clause to read that Congress had "[t]he foregoing powers and all other powers..."

Article Two: Executive power

Section analysis

Section 1 creates the presidency. The section states that the executive power is vested in a President. The presidential term is four years and the Vice President serves the identical term. This section originally set the method of electing the President and Vice President, but this method has been superseded by the Twelfth Amendment.

• Qualifications. The President must be a natural born citizen of the United States, at least 35 years old and a resident of the United States for at least 14 years. An obsolete part of this clause provides that instead of being a natural born citizen, a person may be a citizen at the time of the adoption of the Constitution. The reason for this clause was to extend eligibility to Citizens of the United States at the time of the adoption of the Constitution, regardless of their place of birth, who were born under the allegiance of a foreign sovereign before the founding of the United States. Without this clause, no one would have been eligible to be president until thirty-five years after the founding of the United States.

• Succession. Section 1 specifies that the Vice President succeeds to the presidency if the President is removed, unable to discharge the powers and duties of office, dies while in office, or resigns. The original text ("the same shall devolve") left it unclear whether this succession was intended to be on an acting basis (merely taking on the powers of the office) or permanent (assuming the Presidency itself). After the death of William Henry Harrison, John Tyler set the precedent that the succession was permanent; this practice was followed when later presidents died in office. Today the 25th Amendment states that the Vice President becomes President upon the death or disability of the President.

• Pay. The President receives "Compensation" for being the president, and this compensation may not be increased or decreased during the president's term in office. The president may not receive other compensation from either the United States or any of the individual states.

• Oath of office. The final clause creates the presidential oath to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution.

Section 2 grants substantive powers to the president:

• The president is the Commander in Chief of the United States Armed Forces, and of the state militias when these are called into federal service.
• The president may require opinions of the principal officers of the federal government.
• The president may grant reprieves and pardons, except in cases of impeachment (i.e., the president cannot pardon himself or herself to escape impeachment by Congress).

Section 2 grants and limits the president's appointment powers:

• The president may make treaties, with the advice and consent of the Senate, provided two-thirds of the senators who are present agree.
• With the advice and consent of the Senate, the President may appoint ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls, judges of the Supreme Court, and all other officers of the United States whose appointments are not otherwise described in the Constitution.
• Congress may give the power to appoint lower officers to the President alone, to the courts, or to the heads of departments.
• The president may make any of these appointments during a congressional recess. Such a "recess appointment" expires at the end of the next session of Congress.

Section 3 opens by describing the president's relations with Congress:

• The president reports on the state of the union.
• The president may convene either house, or both houses, of Congress.
• When the two houses of Congress cannot agree on the time of adjournment, the president may adjourn them to some future date.

Section 3 adds:

• The president receives ambassadors.
• The president sees that the laws are faithfully executed.
• The president commissions all the offices of the federal government.

Section 4 provides for removal of the president and other federal officers. The president is removed on impeachment for, and conviction of, treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.

Article Three: Judicial power

Article Three describes the court system (the judicial branch), including the Supreme Court. The article requires that there be one court called the Supreme Court; Congress, at its discretion, can create lower courts, whose judgments and orders are reviewable by the Supreme Court. Article Three also creates the right to trial by jury in all criminal cases, defines the crime of treason, and charges Congress with providing for a punishment for it. This Article also sets the kinds of cases that may be heard by the federal judiciary, which cases the Supreme Court may hear first (called original jurisdiction), and that all other cases heard by the Supreme Court are by appeal under such regulations as the Congress shall make.

Article Four: States' powers and limits

Article Four outlines the relation between the states and the relation between the federal government. In addition, it provides for such matters as admitting new states as well as border changes between the states. For instance, it requires states to give "full faith and credit" to the public acts, records, and court proceedings of the other states. Congress is permitted to regulate the manner in which proof of such acts, records, or proceedings may be admitted. The "privileges and immunities" clause prohibits state governments from discriminating against citizens of other states in favor of resident citizens (e.g., having tougher penalties for residents of Ohio convicted of crimes within Michigan). It also establishes extradition between the states, as well as laying down a legal basis for freedom of movement and travel amongst the states. Today, this provision is sometimes taken for granted, especially by citizens who live near state borders; but in the days of the Articles of Confederation, crossing state lines was often a much more arduous and costly process. Article Four also provides for the creation and admission of new states. The Territorial Clause gives Congress the power to make rules for disposing of federal property and governing non-state territories of the United States. Finally, the fourth section of Article Four requires the United States to guarantee to each state a republican form of government, and to protect the states from invasion and violence.

Article Five: Amendments

An amendment may be ratified in three ways:

• The new amendment may be approved by two-thirds of both houses of Congress, then sent to the states for approval.
• Two-thirds of the state legislatures may apply to Congress for a constitutional convention to consider amendments, which are then sent to the states for approval.
• Congress may require ratification by special convention. The convention method has been used only once, to approve the 21st Amendment (repealing prohibition, 1933).

Regardless of the method of proposing an amendment, final ratification requires approval by three-fourths of the states.

Today Article Five places only one limit on the amending power: no amendment may deprive a state of equal representation in the Senate without that state's consent. The original Article V included other limits on the amending power regarding slavery and taxation; however, these limits expired in 1808.

Article Six: Federal power

Article Six establishes the Constitution, and the laws and treaties of the United States made according to it, to be the supreme law of the land, and that "the judges in every state shall be bound thereby, any thing in the laws or constitutions of any state notwithstanding." It also validates national debt created under the Articles of Confederation and requires that all federal and state legislators, officers, and judges take oaths or affirmations to support the Constitution. This means that the states' constitutions and laws should not conflict with the laws of the federal constitution and that in case of a conflict, state judges are legally bound to honor the federal laws and constitution over those of any state.

Article Six also states "no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States."

Article Seven: Ratification

Article Seven sets forth the requirements for ratification of the Constitution. The Constitution would not take effect until at least nine states had ratified the Constitution in state conventions specially convened for that purpose, and it would only apply to those states that ratified it.^[23] (See above Drafting and ratification requirements.)

Judicial review

The way the Constitution is understood is influenced by court decisions, especially those of the Supreme Court. These decisions are referred to as precedents. In the 1803 case Marbury v. Madison, the Supreme Court established the doctrine of judicial review. Judicial review is the power of the Court to examine federal legislation, executive agency rules and state laws, to decide their constitutionality, and to strike them down if found unconstitutional. Judicial review includes the power of the Court to explain the meaning of the Constitution as it applies to particular cases. Over the years, Court decisions on issues ranging from governmental regulation of radio and television to the rights of the accused in criminal cases have changed the way many constitutional clauses are interpreted, without amendment to the actual text of the Constitution.

Legislation passed to implement the Constitution, or to adapt those implementations to changing conditions, broadens and, in subtle ways, changes the meanings given to the words of the Constitution. Up to a point, the rules and regulations of the many federal executive agencies have a similar effect. If an action of Congress or the agencies is challenged, however, it is the court system that ultimately decides whether these actions are permissible under the Constitution.

The Supreme Court has indicated that once the Constitution has been extended to an area (by Congress or the Courts), its coverage is irrevocable. To hold that the political branches may switch the Constitution on or off at will would lead to a regime in which they, not this Court, say “what the law is.”.^[104]

Amendments

Amending the Constitution is a two-part process: amendments must be proposed then ratified. Amendments can be proposed one of two ways. Amendments may be proposed by a two-thirds vote in each house of Congress, or alternatively, if two-thirds of the state legislatures demand one, Congress must call for a constitutional convention which would have the power to propose amendments.

To date, all amendments, whether ratified or not, have been proposed by a two-thirds vote in each house of Congress. Over 10,000 constitutional amendments have been introduced in Congress since 1789; during the last several decades, between 100 and 200 have been offered in a typical congressional year. Most of these ideas never leave Congressional committee, and far fewer get proposed by the Congress for ratification. As no convention has been called, it is unclear how one would work in practice.

The framers of the Constitution were aware that changes would be necessary if the Constitution was to endure as the nation grew. However, they were also conscious that such change should not be easy, lest it permit ill-conceived and hastily passed amendments. On the other hand, they also wanted to ensure that a rigid requirement of unanimity would not block action desired by the vast majority of the population. Their solution was a two-step process for proposing and ratifying new amendments.^[105]

Regardless of how the amendment is proposed, it must also be ratified by three-fourths of states. Congress determines whether the state legislatures or special state conventions ratify the amendment. The 21st Amendment is the only one that employed state conventions for ratification.

There are currently only a few proposals for amendments which have entered mainstream political debate. These include the Federal Marriage Amendment, the Balanced Budget Amendment, and the Flag Desecration Amendment. All three proposals are supported primarily by conservatives, but failed during periods of Republican control of Congress to achieve the supermajorities necessary for submission to the states. As such, none of these are likely to be proposed under the current Congress, which includes a Senate controlled by the more liberal Democratic Party.

Unlike amendments to most constitutions, amendments to the United States Constitution are appended to the body of the text without altering or removing what already exists. (However, in cases where newer text clearly contradicts older text, the newer text is given precedence. For instance, the Twenty-first Amendment repealed the Eighteenth Amendment.) Technically, nothing prevents a future amendment from actually changing the older text, rather than simply appending text to the end.

Successful amendments

The Constitution has twenty-seven amendments. The first ten, collectively known as the Bill of Rights, were ratified simultaneously by 1791. The following seventeen were ratified separately over the next two centuries.

The Bill of Rights (Amendments 1 to 10)

Wikisource has original text related to this article: United States Bill of Rights

It is commonly understood that originally the Bill of Rights was not intended to apply to the states; however, there is no such limit in the text itself, except where an amendment refers specifically to the federal government. One example is the First Amendment, which says only that "Congress shall make no law...", and under which some states in the early years of the nation officially established a religion. A rule of inapplicability to the states remained until 1868, when the Fourteenth Amendment was passed, which stated, in part, that:

“

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.

”

The Supreme Court has interpreted this clause to extend most, but not all, parts of the Bill of Rights to the states, a process known as incorporation of the Bill of Rights. The balance of state and federal power under the incorporation doctrine is still an open question and continues to be fought separately for each right in the federal courts.

The amendments that became the Bill of Rights were the last ten of the twelve amendments proposed in 1789. The second of the twelve proposed amendments, regarding the compensation of members of Congress, remained unratified until 1992, when the legislatures of enough states finally approved it; as a result, after pending for two centuries, it became the Twenty-seventh Amendment.

The first of the twelve, which is still technically pending before the state legislatures for ratification, pertains to the apportionment of the United States House of Representatives after each decennial census. The most recent state whose lawmakers are known to have ratified this proposal is Kentucky in 1792, during that commonwealth's first month of statehood.

• First Amendment: addresses the rights of freedom of religion (prohibiting Congress from establishing a religion and protecting the right to free exercise of religion), freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of assembly, and freedom of petition.
• Second Amendment: guarantees the right of individuals to possess weapons. The most recent Supreme Court decision interpreting the Second Amendment is McDonald v. Chicago.
• Third Amendment: prohibits the government from using private homes as quarters for soldiers during peacetime without the consent of the owners. The only existing case law directly regarding this amendment is a lower court decision in the case of Engblom v. Carey.^[106] However, it is also cited in the landmark case, Griswold v. Connecticut, in support of the Supreme Court's holding that the constitution protects the right to personal privacy.
• Fourth Amendment: guards against searches, arrests, and seizures of property without a specific warrant or a "probable cause" to believe a crime has been committed. Some rights to privacy have been inferred from this amendment and others by the Supreme Court.
• Fifth Amendment: forbids trial for a major crime except after indictment by a grand jury; prohibits double jeopardy (repeated trials), except in certain very limited circumstances; forbids punishment without due process of law; and provides that an accused person may not be compelled to testify against himself (this is also known as "Taking the Fifth" or "Pleading the Fifth"). This is regarded as the "rights of the accused" amendment, otherwise known as the Miranda rights after the Supreme Court case. It also prohibits government from taking private property for public use without "just compensation", the basis of eminent domain in the United States.
• Sixth Amendment: guarantees a speedy public trial for criminal offenses. It requires trial by a jury, guarantees the right to legal counsel for the accused, and guarantees that the accused may require witnesses to attend the trial and testify in the presence of the accused. It also guarantees the accused a right to know the charges against him. The Sixth Amendment has several court cases associated with it, including Powell v. Alabama, United States v. Wong Kim Ark, Gideon v. Wainwright, and Crawford v. Washington. In 1966, the Supreme Court ruled that the fifth amendment prohibition on forced self-incrimination and the sixth amendment clause on right to counsel were to be made known to all persons placed under arrest, and these clauses have become known as the Miranda rights.
• Seventh Amendment: assures trial by jury in civil cases.
• Eighth Amendment: forbids excessive bail or fines, and cruel and unusual punishment.
• Ninth Amendment: declares that the listing of individual rights in the Constitution and Bill of Rights is not meant to be comprehensive; and that the other rights not specifically mentioned are retained by the people.
• Tenth Amendment: reserves to the states respectively, or to the people, any powers the Constitution did not delegate to the United States, nor prohibit the states from exercising.

Subsequent amendments (11 to 27)

Wikisource has original text related to this article: Additional amendments to the United States Constitution

Amendments to the Constitution after the Bill of Rights cover many subjects. The majority of the seventeen later amendments stem from continued efforts to expand individual civil or political liberties, while a few are concerned with modifying the basic governmental structure drafted in Philadelphia in 1787. Although the United States Constitution has been amended 27 times, only 26 of the amendments are currently in effect because the twenty-first amendment supersedes the eighteenth.

• Eleventh Amendment (1795): Clarifies judicial power over foreign nationals, and limits ability of citizens to sue states in federal courts and under federal law. (Full text)
• Twelfth Amendment (1804): Changes the method of presidential elections so that members of the Electoral College cast separate ballots for president and vice president. (Full text)
• Thirteenth Amendment (1865): Abolishes slavery and authorizes Congress to enforce abolition. (Full text)
• Fourteenth Amendment (1868): Defines a set of guarantees for United States citizenship; prohibits states from abridging citizens' privileges or immunities and rights to due process and the equal protection of the law; repeals the Three-fifths compromise; prohibits repudiation of the federal debt caused by the Civil War. (Full text)
• Fifteenth Amendment (1870): Prohibits the federal government and the states from using a citizen's race, color, or previous status as a slave as a qualification for voting. (Full text)
• Sixteenth Amendment (1913): Authorizes unapportioned federal taxes on income. (Full text)
• Seventeenth Amendment (1913): Converts state election of senators to popular election. (Full text)
• Eighteenth Amendment (1919): Prohibited the manufacturing, importing, and exporting of alcoholic beverages (see Prohibition in the United States). Repealed by the Twenty-First Amendment. (Full text)
• Nineteenth Amendment (1920): Prohibits the federal government and the states from forbidding any citizen to vote due to their sex. (Full text)
• Twentieth Amendment (1933): Changes details of congressional and presidential terms and of presidential succession. (Full text)
• Twenty-first Amendment (1933): Repeals Eighteenth Amendment. Permits states to prohibit the importation of alcoholic beverages. (Full text)
• Twenty-second Amendment (1951): Limits president to two terms. (Full text)
• Twenty-third Amendment (1961): Grants presidential electors to the District of Columbia. (Full text)
• Twenty-fourth Amendment (1964): Prohibits the federal government and the states from requiring the payment of a tax as a qualification for voting for federal officials. (Full text)
• Twenty-fifth Amendment (1967): Changes details of presidential succession, provides for temporary removal of president, and provides for replacement of the vice president. (Full text)
• Twenty-sixth Amendment (1971): Prohibits the federal government and the states from forbidding any citizen of age 18 or greater to vote on account of their age. (Full text)
• Twenty-seventh Amendment (1992): Limits congressional pay raises. (Full text)

Unratified amendments

Of the thirty-three amendments that have been proposed by Congress, six have failed ratification by the required three-quarters of the state legislatures, and four of those six are still pending before state lawmakers (see Coleman v. Miller). Starting with the proposal of the 18th Amendment in 1917, each proposed amendment has included a deadline for passage in the text of the amendment, except the 19th Amendment (women's voting), the 23rd Amendment (DC electoral votes), the 24th Amendment (poll taxes), the 25th Amendment (Presidential succession), the 26th Amendment (voting age), the Child Labor Amendment (proposed in 1924 and still unratified), and the Equal Rights Amendment (proposed in 1972 and still unratified). The following are the unratified proposals:

• The Congressional Apportionment Amendment, proposed by the 1st Congress on September 25, 1789, defined a formula for how many members there would be in the United States House of Representatives after each decennial census. Ratified by eleven states, the last being Kentucky in June 1792 during Kentucky's initial month of statehood, this amendment contains no expiration date for ratification. In principle it may yet be ratified, though as written, it became irrelevant when the population of the United States reached ten million.
• The "Titles of Nobility Amendment" (TONA), proposed by the 11th Congress on May 1, 1810, would have ended the citizenship of any American accepting "any Title of Nobility or Honour" from any foreign power. Some maintain that the amendment was ratified by the legislatures of enough states, and that a conspiracy has suppressed it, but this has been thoroughly debunked.^[107] Known to have been ratified by lawmakers in twelve states, the last in 1812, this amendment contains no expiration date for ratification and could still be ratified.
• The Corwin Amendment, proposed by the 36th Congress on March 2, 1861, would have forbidden any attempt to subsequently amend the Constitution to empower the federal government to "abolish or interfere" with the "domestic institutions" of the states (a delicate way of referring to slavery). It was ratified by only Ohio and Maryland lawmakers before the outbreak of the Civil War. Illinois lawmakers—sitting as a state constitutional convention at the time—likewise approved it, but that action is of questionable validity. The proposed amendment contains no expiration date for ratification and may yet be ratified. However, adoption of the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments after the Civil War likely means that the amendment would be ineffective if adopted.
• A child labor amendment proposed by the 68th Congress on June 2, 1924. It provides, "The Congress shall have power to limit, regulate, and prohibit the labor of persons under eighteen years of age." This amendment is highly unlikely to be ratified, since subsequent federal child labor laws have uniformly been upheld as a valid exercise of Congress's powers under the Commerce Clause.

There are two amendments that were approved by Congress but were not ratified by enough states prior to the ratification deadline set by Congress:

• The Equal Rights Amendment (ERA), which reads in pertinent part "Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex." Proposed by the 92nd Congress on March 22, 1972, it was ratified by the legislatures of 35 states, and expired on either March 22, 1979 or on June 30, 1982, following a controversial three-year extension of the ratification deadline passed by the 95th Congress in 1978. Of the 35 states ratifying it, four later rescinded their ratifications before the extended ratification period which began on March 23, 1979 and a fifth, while not going so far as to rescind its earlier ratification, adopted a resolution stipulating that its approval would not extend beyond March 22, 1979. There continues to be disagreement over whether such reversals are valid; no court has ruled on the question, including the Supreme Court. A precedent against the validity of rescission was first established during the ratification process of the 14th Amendment when Ohio and New Jersey rescinded their earlier approvals, but yet were counted as ratifying states when the 14th Amendment was ultimately proclaimed part of the Constitution in 1868.
• The District of Columbia Voting Rights Amendment was proposed by the 95th Congress on August 22, 1978. Had this amendment been ratified, it would have granted to Washington, D.C. two Senators and at least one member of the House of Representatives as though the District of Columbia were a state. Ratified by the legislatures of only 16 states (out of the required 38), the proposed amendment expired on August 22, 1985.

Criticism of the Constitution

Several academics have criticized the Constitution. University of Virginia professor Larry Sabato wants an amendment to organize primaries to prevent a "frontloaded calendar" long before the election. Such an amendment would prevent a "race by states to the front of the primary pack", which subverts the national interest, in Sabato's view.^[108] Sabato details more objections in his book A More Perfect Constitution.^[108] In an interview in Policy Today, Sabato is critical of the "incoherent organization of primaries and caucuses,"^[109] and faults the Constitution for enabling presidents to continue unpopular wars,^[109] for requiring presidents to be "natural born citizens",^[109] for lifetime tenure for Supreme Court judges which "produces senior judges representing the views of past generations better than views of the current day."^[109] He also writes that "If the 26 least populated states voted as a bloc, they would control the U.S. Senate with a total of just under 17% of the country’s population."^[109] Richard Labunski appeals to the same Article V to apply popular pressure outside of established partisan and corporate channels. Like minded citizens could connecting by internet, organize congressional district meetings, gather in a state convention, and send delegates to a “pre-convention” in D.C. It would forward subject areas for Constitutional amendment to the States. The participating states would then trigger a Second Constitutional Convention. In his book "The Second Constitutional Convention", Labunski outlines ten subject areas that should be considered for constitutional amendments.^[110]

University of Texas law professor Sanford Levinson wonders whether it makes sense to give "Wyoming the same number of votes as California, which has roughly seventy times the population".^[111] Levinson thinks this imbalance causes a "steady redistribution of resources from large states to small states."^[111] Levinson is critical of the Electoral College because the Electoral College allows the possibility of electing presidents who do not win the majority of votes.^[111] Three times in American history, presidents have been elected by the Electoral College despite failing to win the popular vote: 1876 (Rutherford B. Hayes), 1888 (Benjamin Harrison) and 2000 (George W. Bush).^{[112][113][114][115]} The current Constitution does not give the people a quick way to remove incompetent or ill presidents, in his view.^[115] Others have criticized the politically driven redistricting process popularly known as gerrymandering.^[116]

Yale professor Robert A. Dahl sees a problem with an American tendency towards worship of the Constitution itself. He sees aspects of American governance which are "unusual and potentially undemocratic: the federal system, the bicameral legislature, judicial review, presidentialism, and the electoral college system."^[117] Levinson and Labunski and others have called for a Second Constitutional Convention,^[118] although professors like Dahl believe there is no real hope this would ever happen.^[117]

Worldwide influence and translations

The world historian William Hardy McNeill taking a long view, sees the U.S. as “one of a family of peoples and nations” making a history relative to European civilization. The United States Constitution is an expression of diverging from their colonial rule. Its effect is reflected in the ideals of a democratic republican constitution as limiting the rulers of a state apart and above sitting law-givers. The concepts of governance are not only found among similarities in phrasing and entire passages. They are in the rule of law and recognition of individual rights. The American experience has motivated foreign constitutionalists to reconsider possibilities. ^[123]

Generally the influence of the Constitution is documented in trans-national history of ideas, foreign translations, and exchanges between Americans and their counterparts from the beginning with smuggled translations into Spanish America until today with conferences among national legislators. Innovations include constitutional conventions, written constitutions, ratification and amendment procedures. There are common provisions for presidential executives, federalism and judicial review. George Athan Billias, studying the Constitution and related documents, describes six waves of influence: first, 1776-1800 northwestern Europe and connections. Second, from 1811-1848 it was referenced by Latin American, Caribbean, and European nationalists. After the Spanish American War, nationalist movements borrowed from it in Asia and Latin America. After World War I, its influence spread with anti-colonial movements in Africa Mid-east and Asia. After World War II, 1945-1974, independence movements consulted it. Most recently, 1974-1989 once nondemocratic regimes, including European ones, transitioned towards constitutional democracies.^[124]

This influence is beyond theory or ideology; rather, it addresses people living together under a common governance in a modern nation-state. The variety of state constitutions, the Articles of Confederation, Convention debates, Federalist Papers, ratification debates and the Bill of Rights all show a way to a constitutional federalism which reconciles national power, social diversity and personal liberty across different places, populations and cultures. Democratizing countries have often chosen British or French models. American constitutionalism has waxed and waned in influence. Confucian and Islamic cultures do not readily adopt some of its premises. Nevertheless, “the influence of American constitutionalism abroad was profound in the past and remains a remarkable contribution to humankind’s search for freedom under a system of laws.” ^[124]

Translations

The Constitution has been translated into many languages, many of which can be found online. Sources include governmental agencies and universities, private foundations and associations.

The Federal Judicial Center has links to other materials about the United States government and judicial system. The site has materials in 16 languages besides English, such as Dari, Indonesian, Malay, Serb, and Turkish. ^[126] The Center's statutory mission includes compiling histories and research resources and conferences. Its goal is to improve administration of justice in the U.S. and foreign countries. The Center works with judges and court officials of other nations, and other judicial education organizations.^[127]

The Columbia Law Review sponsors the International Constitutional Law Project. It has over 100 constitutions and provides English translations of and other textual material related to constitutional documents. The Project cross-references those documents for quick comparison of constitutional provisions internationally, internally within each document, and with background information. ^[128] The Historical Society of Philadelphia lists translations of the United States Constitution into various foreign languages. One example is Armenian.^[129]

University of Chicago Library features constitutional resources on the influence of the U.S. Constitution abroad. It holds texts of non-U.S. Constitutions, case reports, books, journals, articles and current commentary. ^[130] At the University of Richmond’s Constitution Finder, there are international constitutions, historical constitutions, and state constitutions. For China, there is the 1982, 1947, and Hong Kong Constitutions, and other documents. For the United States, there is the Constitution of 1787 with amendments and five unpassed amendments, the Articles of Confederation, the Confederate Constitution and 84 state constitutions past and present.^[131]

Professor James Chen has annotated the Spanish translation prepared by the U.S. State Department. His notes focus on the problems and nuances of this translation.^[132] Nguyen Canh Binh has translated the Constitution into Vietnamese.^[133] The Bill of Rights has been translated into Hawaiian.^[134] Elizabeth Claire has rewritten the Constitution into simplified English.^[135] Some of the many translations of The Constitution into other languages are listed below.

Arabic[136][137] Catalan[138] Chinese[139][140] Dutch[141]

Finnish French[142] Georgian German[143][144]

Hebrew[145] Hungarian[146] Italian[147] Japanese[148]

Korean[149] Portuguese[150] Russian[151] Slovak[152]

Spanish[153][126][154][155] Swedish Thai Ukrainian[156]

Constitution as civic religion

Political scientists, sociologists, and legal scholars study the Constitution and how it is used in American society. Historians are concerned with putting themselves back into a time and place, in context. It would be anachronistic for them to look at the documents of the “Charters of Freedom” and see America’s “civic religion” because of “how much Americans have transformed very secular and temporal documents into sacred scriptures”. The National Archives preserves and displays the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. These texts are enshrined in massive, bronze-framed, bulletproof, moisture-controlled glass containers vacuum-sealed in a cathedral-like Rotunda by day, in multi-ton bomb-proof vaults by night.^[157]

The ‘Charters of Freedom’ are flanked by Barry Faulkner’s two grand murals, one featuring Jefferson amidst the Continental Congress, the other centering on Madison at the Constitutional Convention. Alongside the Charters of Freedom is a dual display of the “Formation of the Union”, which is documents related to the evolution of the U.S. government from 1774 to 1791. These include Articles of Association (1774), Articles of Confederation (1778), Treaty of Paris (1783) and Washington’s Inaugural Address (1789). .^[158]

The whole business of erecting a shrine for the worship of the Declaration of Independence strikes some academic critics looking from point of view of the 1776 or 1789 America as “idolatrous, and also curiously at odds with the values of the Revolution.” It was suspicious of religious iconographic practices. At the beginning, in 1776, it was not meant to be that at all.^[159] On the 1782 Great Seal of the United States, the date of the Declaration of Independence and the words under it signify the beginning of the “new American Era” on earth. Though the inscription, Novus ordo seclorum, does not translate from the Latin as “secular”, it also does not refer to a new order of heaven. It is a reference to generations of society in the western hemisphere.^[160]

But even from the vantage point of a new nation only ten to twenty years after the drafting of the Constitution, the Framers themselves differed in their assessments of its significance. Washington in his Farewell Address pled that "the Constitution be sacredly maintained."' He echoed Madison in The Federalist No. 49 that citizen "veneration" of the Constitution might generate the stability needed to maintain even the "wisest and freest governments” amidst conflicting loyalties. There is also a rich tradition of dissent from Constitution worship. By 1816 Jefferson could write that "[s]ome men look at constitutions with sanctimonious reverence and deem them like the ark of the covenant, too sacred to be touched." But he saw imperfections and imagined that potentially, there could be others, believing as he did that "institutions must advance also”. ^[161]

It makes a nation

American identity has an ideological connection to these “Charters of Freedom”. Samuel P. Huntington discusses common connections for most peoples in nation-states, a national identity as product of common ethnicity, ancestors and experience, common language, culture and religion. The United States has a fate different from “most peoples.” American identity is “willed affirmation” of what Huntington refers to as the ‘American creed.’ The creed is made up of individual rights, majority rule, and a constitutional order of limited government power. American independence from Britain was not based on cultural difference, but on the adoption of principles found in the Declaration. Whittle Johnson in the Yale Review sees a sort of “covenanting community” of freedom under law, “transcending the ‘natural’ bonds of race, religion and class, itself takes on transcendent importance”. ^[162]

These political ideals, which emphasize political orthodoxy, make it possible for an ethnic diversity unequaled in Britain, France, Germany or Japan. And, lacking the ancestor who may have landed on Plymouth Rock or a distant cousin “purportedly” related to those of the Spirit of 1776, Anne Norton has explained that it is the only way immigrants can establish a commonality with those who had an ethnic history like those Founding Fathers. But that same commonality has become the criterion for belonging which is almost unique in its openness to strangers. The touchstone of becoming a naturalized citizen is demonstration of their attachment to the Charters of Freedom, followed by a public oath supporting the Constitution. Hans Kohn described the United States Constitution “unlike any other: it represents the lifeblood of the American nation, its supreme symbol and manifestation. It is so intimately welded with the national existence itself that the two have become inseparable.” Indeed, abolishing the Constitution in Huntington’s view would abolish the United States, it would “destroy the basis of community, eliminating the nation, [effecting] … a return to nature.”^[164]

As if to emphasize the lack of any alternative “faith” to the American nation that those traditional societies with divinely appointed rulers enjoying heavenly mandates for social cohesion, Thomas Grey in the Stanford Law Review pointed out in “The Constitution as scripture”, that Article VI, in the third clause, requires all political figures, both federal and state, “be bound by oath or affirmation to support this Constitution, but no religious test shall ever be required…” This was a major break not only with English past practice, but most states as well. ^[165]

Article V, the escape clause

Frederick Douglass in 1860: iIt is "plainly" anti-slavery Barbara Jordan in 1972: "My faith ... is total"

Whatever the oversights and evils the modern reader can see in the original Constitution, the Declaration that “all men are created equal” --in their rights-- informed the Constitution in such a way that Frederick Douglass in 1860 could label the Constitution, if properly understood, as an antislavery document. He held that “the constitutionality of slavery can be made out only by disregarding the plain and common-sense reading to the Constitution itself. [T]he Constitution will afford slavery no protection when it shall cease to be administered by slaveholders,” a reference to the Supreme Court.^[166] There was American precedent for judicial activism in Constitutional interpretation, including the Massachusetts Supreme Court, which had ended slavery there in 1783.^[167]

Some scholars refer to the coming of a “second” Constitution with the Thirteenth Amendment, we are all free, the Fourteenth, we are all citizens, the Fifteenth, men vote, and the Nineteenth, women vote. So much so, that in 1972, the U.S. Representative from Texas, Barbara Jordan, could affirm, "My faith in the Constitution is whole, it is complete, it is total ...”^[168]

After discussion of the Article V provision for change in the Constitution as a political stimulus to serious national consensus building, Sanford Levinson performed a thought experiment in a William and Mary Law Review article, one which was suggested at the bicentennial celebration of the Constitution in Philadelphia. If one were to sign the Constitution today^[170], whatever our reservations might be, knowing what we do now, and transported back in time to its original shortcomings, great and small, “signing the Constitution commits one not to closure but only to a process of becoming, and to taking responsibility for the political vision toward which I, joined I hope, with others, strive. ^[171]

The shrine

At first, whatever the veneration of the Constitution as a set of first principles might have been, little interest was shown in the parchment object itself. Madison had custody of it as Secretary of State (1801-9) but having left Washington DC, he had lost track of it in the years leading to his death. A publisher had access to it in 1846 for a book on the Constitution. Historian J. Franklin Jameson found the parchment in 1883 folded in a small tin box on the floor of a closet at the State, War and Navy Building. In 1894 State sealed the Declaration and Constitution between two glass plates and kept them in a safe.^[172]

The two parchment documents were turned over to the Library of Congress by executive order, and in 1924 President Coolidge dedicated the the bronze-and-marble shrine for public display of the Constitution at the main building. The parchments were laid over moisture absorbing cellulose paper, vacuum-sealed between double panes of insulated plate glass, and protected from light by a gelatin film. Although building construction of the Archives Building was completed in 1935, in Dec 1941 they were moved from the Library of Congress until September 1944, stored at the U.S. Bullion Depository, Fort Knox, Kentucky. In 1951 following a study by the National Bureau of Standards to protect from atmosphere, insects, mold and light, the parchments were re-encased with special light filters, inert helium gas and proper humidity. They were transferred to the National Archives in 1952.^[173]

The design of the National Archives Building was authorized by Congress as a part of a massive New Deal public building program in the center of Washington DC to beautify the central market area immediately west of the Capitol. (Eastern Market east of the Capitol is still extant.) When John Russell Pope was added to the Board of Architectural Consultants, his vision brought its location to the foot of Capitol Hill and transformed it into a monumental building.

Since 1952, the 'Charters of Freedom' have been displayed in the Rotunda of the National Archives Building. Visual inspections have been enhanced by electronic imaging. Changes in the cases led to removal from their cases July 2001, preservation treatment by conservators, and installment in new encasements for public display September, 2003. ^[174][175]

The Archives were set up by Franklin Roosevelt in 1934. It keeps 1-3% of government documents to be kept forever. These are over 9 billion text records, 20 million photographs, 7 million maps, charts, and architectural drawings and over 365,000 reels of film. The monumental Archives Building was inadequate by the 1960s, so new facilities were built in College Park, MD. Work on electronic archives progresses.^[176]

Original pages misspellings

Page 1 Page 2 Page 3 Page 4

During its first century, the parchment ‘Copy of the Constitution’ was not directly viewed for public purposes. Although there is a case of textual examination by Secretary of State John Quincy Adams and others in 1823 for reference in a political dispute over punctuation due to the many copies and editions available. The Archives also holds an original parchment of the Bill of Rights, “differing only in such details as handwriting, capitalization, and lineation” with those sent out to the states, few of which survive.^[177]

There is an apparent spelling error in the original parchment Constitution, in the so-called Export Clause of Article 1, Section 10 on page 2, where the possessive pronoun its appears to be spelled with an apostrophe, turning it into it's.^[178] However, the letters t and s are connected, and the mark interpreted as an apostrophe is somewhat inconspicuous; different U.S. government sources have transcribed this phrase with and without the apostrophe.^[179][180]

The spelling Pensylvania is used in the list of signatories at the bottom of page 4 of the original document. Elsewhere, in Article 1, Section 2, the spelling that is usual today, Pennsylvania, is used. However, in the late 18th century, the use of a single n to spell "Pennsylvania" was common usage — the Liberty Bell's inscription, for example, uses a single n.^[178]

Constitutional commemorative postage

Constitution 150th anniv. United States, 1937 19th Amendment 50th Anniv. United States, 1970 U.S. & Polish Constitution 2nd Polish Republic, 1938 Constitution 150th anniversary 2nd Spanish Republic, 1937

In 1937, the U.S. Post Office under the Presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt released a commemorative postage stamp celebrating the 150th anniversary of the signing of the U.S. Constitution. The engraving on this issue is after an 1856 painting by Junius Brutus Stearns of Washington and shows delegates signing the Constitution at the 1787 Convention. George Washington is on dais with an open document in hand, James Madison sitting at table with pages taking his famous notes on the convention.

Amendments to the United States Constitution are treated as integral to the document. One commemoration of the 19th Amendment permitting women the right to vote was celebrated in a U.S. commemorative in 1950 and again in 1970 (pictured). The woman is voting in a curtained mechanical voting booth. She choses levers to punch or mark her votes on a paper roll. The Model T has a man driver with a banner "Votes for women" on the car, women riders and marchers as though in a parade.

The Second Polish Republic issued a commemorative stamp of the U.S. and Polish Constitutions in 1938 under the government of Prime Minister, Major General Składkowski It features George Washington in military regalia, holding an 48-star American Flag and a drawn sword. Thomas Paine holds a book on a rod, and Kosciuszko poses with a cross and saber. The next scene is of a line of infantry flying a polish flag. The right panel shows the Statue of Liberty imposed in front of the New York 1930s skyline.

In 1937, the Second Spanish Republic commemorated the 150th anniversary of the signing of the U.S. Constitution under the government of Prime Minister Juan Negrín of the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE). The Statue of Liberty is the central focus, flanked by Spanish flags and United States Flags. The Spanish Republic Flag of red, yellow and purple, as civil ensign, lacks the coat of arms.

See also

General

• Bill of Rights Institute
• Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States by Joseph Story (three volumes)
• Congressional power of enforcement
• Constitution Day (United States)
• Federalist Papers
• History of democracy
• List of constitutions of the United States
• List of national constitutions (world countries)
• List of proposed amendments to the United States Constitution
• List of sources of law in the United States
• National Constitution Center
• Pocket Constitution

Related documents

• Magna Carta (1215)
• Mayflower Compact (1620)
• Fundamental Orders of Connecticut (1639)
• Massachusetts Body of Liberties (1641)
• English Bill of Rights (1689)
• United States Declaration of Independence (1776)
• Articles of Confederation (1777)
• Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom (1779)
• United States Bill of Rights (1791)

Notes

References

Primary sources

• Bailyn, Bernard, ed. The Debate on the Constitution: Federalist and Antifederalist Speeches, Articles, and Letters During the Struggle for Ratification. Part One: September 1787 to February 1788 (The Library of America, 1993) ISBN 0-940450-42-9
• Bailyn, Bernard, ed. The Debate on the Constitution: Federalist and Antifederalist Speeches, Articles, and Letters During the Struggle for Ratification. Part Two: January to August 1788 (The Library of America, 1993) ISBN 0-940450-64-X
• Elliot, Jonathan, The Debates in the Several State Conventions of the Adoption of the Federal Constitution 5 vols Vol. 1, Constitution, Declaration of Independence, Articles of Confederation, Journal of Federal Convention, Vol. 2, State Conventions Massachusetts, Connecticut., New Hampshire, New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Vol. 3, Virginia, Vol. 4, North. and South. Carolina, Resolutions, Tariffs, Banks, Debt, Vol. 5 Debates in Congress, Madison’s Notes, Misc. Letters
• Ford, Paul Leicester, ed. Pamphlets on the Constitution of the United States, published during its Discussion by the People, 1787-1788, edited with notes and a bibliography by Paul Leicester Ford (Brooklyn, N.Y., 1888). Pamphlets written between 1787-88 by Elbridge Gerry, Noah Webster, John Jay, Melancthon Smith, Pelatiah Werster, Tench Coxe, James Wilson, John Dickinson, Alexander Contee Hanson, Edmund Randolph, Richard Henry Lee, George Mason, and David Ramsay. The essay attributed to Gerry was in fact written by Mercy Otis Warren.
• Garvey, John H. ed. Modern Constitutional Theory: A Reader 5th ed 2004; 820pp.
• Kaminski, John P. ed Documentary History of the Ratification of the Constitution, 1976- (Published volumes 1-10, 13-23, forthcoming volumes 11-12, 24-29. Most recent volume: The Documentary History of the Ratification of the Constitution, Vol. 23, Ratification by the States: New York, No. 5 ISBN 978-0-87020-439-5), Madison, The State Historical Society of Wisconsin, (http://www.wisconsinhistory.org/ratification) Edited by John P. Kaminski, Gaspare J. Saladino,Richard Leffler, Charles H. Schoenleber and Margaret A. Hogan.
• Kurland, Philip B. and Lerner, Ralph, eds. The Founders' Constitution. The work consists of “extracts from the leading works of political theory, history, law, and constitutional argument on which the Framers and their contemporaries drew and which they themselves produced.” (Liberty Fund ISBN 0-86597-279-6) The Online Edition is a joint venture of the University of Chicago Press and the Liberty Fund.
• Maier, Pauline. Ratification: the people debate the Constitution, 1787-1788 (2010) ISBN 978-684-86854-7, ebook ISBN 978-1-4516-0636-2
• Mason, Alpheus Thomas and Donald Grier Stephenson, ed. American Constitutional Law: Introductory Essays and Selected Cases (14th Edition) (2004)
• Tribe, Laurence H. American Constitutional Law (1999)
• Yale Law School: "The Avalon Project: Notes on the Debates in the Federal Convention". The Avalon Project at Yale Law School. http://avalon.law.yale.edu/subject_menus/debcont.asp. Retrieved 2011-05-08. 

Reference books

• Hall, Kermit, ed. The Oxford Companion to the Supreme Court of the United States. Oxford U. Press, 1992. 1032 pp.
• Levy, Leonard W. et al., ed. Encyclopedia of the American Constitution. 5 vol; 1992; 3000 pp.

Secondary sources

• Casey, Gregory. "The Supreme Court and Myth: An Empirical Investigation," Law & Society Review, Vol. 8, No. 3 (Spring, 1974), pp. 385–420
• Fritz, Christian G. American Sovereigns: The People and America's Constitutional Tradition Before the Civil War (Cambridge University Press, 2008) [ISBN 978-0-521-88188-3
• Maier, Pauline. "Ratification: The People Debate the Constitution, 1787-1788" (2010) ISBN 978-0-684-86854-7, ISBN 978-1-4516-0636-2 ebook “MIT w/NYT,WP” “Harvard Mg”

Further reading

• Klos, Stanley L. (2004). President Who? Forgotten Founders. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania: Evisum, Inc.. p. 261. ISBN 0-9752627-5-0. 

External links

Find more about United States Constitution on Wikipedia's sister projects:
	Images and media from Commons
	Quotations from Wikiquote
	Source texts from Wikisource
	Textbooks from Wikibooks

National Archives

• National Constitution Center
• The National Archives Experience—Constitution of the United States
• The National Archives Experience—High Resolution Downloads of the Charters of Freedom
• National Constitution Center's "Interactive Constitution"

Official U.S. government sources

• Constitution and related resources: Library of Congress
• Analysis and Interpretation of the Constitution of the United States: Annotated constitution, with descriptions of important cases (official publication of U.S. Senate)

Non-governmental web sites

• U.S. Constitution Online
• Mobile friendly version of the Constitution
• Audio reading of the Constitution in MP3 format provided by the University of Chicago Law School
• Annotated Constitution by the Congressional Research Service of the U.S. Library of Congress (hyperlinked version published by Cornell University)

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