At the signing of the Treaty of Paris in September of 1783, the American Colonies found themselves without a king. It was an unlikely story: a bunch of ragtag volunteers–aided by the French–beat the world’s strongest army. Legend has it that the British Army band played a tune from the 1640s, entitled, “The World Turned Upside Down,” as the British Army surrendered to General George Washington at Yorktown. Truly, the world had turned upside down.
But now the colonies faced a new challenge: governing themselves. During the Revolutionary War, the colonies set up a loose form of government under the Articles of Confederation, which served to protect the sovereignty and independence of each state. The Articles were weak in a number of areas:
- While they gave Congress the power to assemble and pay for an Army, it gave no authority for a central government to compel the states to send troops or funding to the army.
- While Congress was responsible for the foreign policy of all 13 colonies, it was nearly impossible to implement because the Articles of Confederation gave Congress no power to enforce attendance at Congressional proceedings. They had difficulty raising a quorum of delegates to ratify foreign treaties, even the Treaty of Paris.
- Under the Articles, Congress’s powers of taxation were kept in check. Remember, they had just declared and fought for independence from a central government’s taxation. So the colonies purposefully left taxation and commerce clauses weak under the Articles. With no power to tax or regulate international or interstate trade, Congress was left to the will of the states for funding.
In essence, the Revolutionary War left the colonies independent but in disarray. As John Jay, the eventual 1st Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court stated, “that [under the Articles of Confederation] America had no sooner become independent than she became insolvent.”
To protect her infancy, several of our most notable Founding Fathers, including James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, John Jay and John Adams, called for a convention in Annapolis, Maryland, in 1786 to discuss revisions to the Articles of Confederation. The Annapolis Convention approved a follow-up convention in Philadelphia the next year starting in May with the original purpose of revising the Articles. But as momentum grew, the delegates held closed-door meetings in the sweltering-hot summer of 1787 to create a new Constitution.
In creating the Constitution, the Founding Fathers set up a framework whereby this new sovereign country would govern itself. The debates lasted from mid-May 1787, through September 17, 1787, when it was signed and sent to the states for ratification.
The Constitution of the United States is divided into four sections, comprising a Preamble and its seven Articles.
- Articles I-III are known as the Separation of Powers section, whereby the federal government is laid out into three separate and distinct bodies with various authorities.
- Article I outlines the duties of a bi-cameral legislative branch. Called the Congress of the United States, the legislative branch is divided into the upper house, known as the Senate, and the lower house, known as the House of Representatives. Article one outlines the length of each term of service of the two houses (6 years for Senators and 2 years for Representatives). It also outlines how they are elected, what their governing responsibilities are and how old they must be to serve in each body.
- Article II outlines the duties of the executive branch, led by the President of the United States and other subordinate officers, such as the Vice President, and Secretaries of State, Treasury and War. (These have since been expanded to 15 Secretaries in the President’s Cabinet). Similar to Article I, it outlines how the president is elected (the Electoral College, which I will cover in another blog post), the length of a term and the age requirement for the President. It also states that the President, unlike the members of Congress, must be a person born in the United States.
- Article III provides the framework around the judicial system, with the Supreme Court as the “highest court in the land.” This article talks about the idea of advice and consent, meaning the President provides names of judges in the federal court system, including the Supreme Court Justices, and those individuals are confirmed or denied by the Senate. This branch of government is not elected, but appointed to these positions. Within the Supreme Court, they serve for the duration of their lives, or until they retire.
- Articles IV-VI outline the concepts of federalism (which we will cover in greater detail in another blog post).
- Article IV describes the states’ responsibilities in relation to the federal government, their relationship with one another, and gives the Federal Government the power to admit new states to the United States.
- Article V describes the process whereby the Constitution may be altered. It involves a two-step process to get an Amendment added to the Constitution: 1 – a Proposal for an Amendment may be proposed by a member of Congress, with two-thirds approval in each house of Congress, or it may be proposed by a convention of states called for by at least two-thirds of state legislatures; and 2 – a Ratification of at least three-fourths of the state legislatures. It has only happened 27 times in the nearly 235 year history of the United States, with one of the Amendments striking down another.
- Article VI establishes the laws and treaties of the United States made in accordance with the Constitution as the “Supreme Law of the Land,” forbids a religious test as a requirement for holding a governmental position, and holds the United States under the Constitution responsible for debts incurred by the United States under the Articles of Confederation.
- Article VII provides the process for ratification of the Constitution in the 13 states. It states that 9 of the 13 states needed to ratify it for it to become the law. The first state to ratify it, by a vote of 30-0, was Delaware on December 7, 1787. New Hampshire became the ninth state to ratify the Constitution on June 21, 1788, by a vote of 57-47. Its vote ensured the Constitution would be the law of the land. Rhode Island was the last of the 13 original states to ratify it on May 29, 1790, more than a year after George Wahington had taken the oath of office as the first President of the United States.
- I know this is out of order, but the Preamble is my personal favorite part of the Constitution. It is arguably the most famous part of the Constitution and contains one of the most famous phrases in all of American history: We the people…
- The Preamble outlines the purpose of setting up the Constitution and has two purposes. The first is to set up a “more perfect union” rather than the “perpetual union” under the Articles of Confederation. The second is to secure the blessings of liberty not only to themselves, but to their posterity.
- I love the phrase, “a more perfect union,” included in the Preamble. It indicates to me that the Founding Fathers knew there were flaws in not only the current union and society that existed during their time, but also in the document they had just written and debated. But the word “more” indicates they knew it would never be perfect, but would be the ideal worth striving for always.
- Securing the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity includes creating a framework whereby men and women of all races could be free. Again, they were keenly aware of the limitations of their own society. They knew it wasn’t perfect, but in setting up this framework, they hoped their posterity would be able to fix some of their inadequacies through establishing justice, ensuring domestic tranquility, providing for the defense of the country from foreign invasion, promoting the general welfare of the people, thereby securing liberty well into the future.
- The Preamble outlines the purpose of setting up the Constitution and has two purposes. The first is to set up a “more perfect union” rather than the “perpetual union” under the Articles of Confederation. The second is to secure the blessings of liberty not only to themselves, but to their posterity.
In debating through the sweltering heat of the Philadelphia Summer of 1787, our Founding Fathers saw what could be. They had been through the inferno of the Revolution, the crucible of the loosely associated states, and saw the potential of what America could become. They were full of hope, and in reading the Constitution, it is filled with hope.
The influence of the Constitution can be felt around the world. It was a groundbreaking document focused on the principles of the rule of law, separation of powers, and individual rights. It was one of the earliest to allow for amendment procedures and judicial review, and as most of the world at that time was ruled by a sovereign authority, it was the first to state outright that the government was for, of, and by the people, and has become the benchmark for republicanism around the world.
The Constitution of the United States is the oldest active codified constitution in the world. While the average “life expectancy” of a nation’s constitution is about 19 years, the U.S. Constitution has been an active document for more than 230 years.