The United States Of America

The Constitution

Constitution of the United States, the fundamental law of the United States of America. Drafted by the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, Pa., between May 25 and Sept. 17, 1787, it is the world's oldest written constitution still in effect. The document presents a set of general principles out of which implementing statutes and codes have emerged. As such, it embodies the essence of constitutionality--that government must be confined by the rule of law.
The success of the framers of the U. S. Constitution in writing a document geared to serving the varied and changing needs of Americans has been complemented by an ability on the part of successive Congresses and courts to readapt it to these changing demands. The Constitution's 25 amendments, added over a period of 180 years, have in most cases, plugged minor loopholes rather than changed the focus or the general structure of the document. As President Franklin D. ROOSEVELT  stated in his first inaugural address on March 4, 1933: "Our Constitution is so simple and practical that it is possible always to meet extraordinary needs by changes in emphasis and arrangement without loss of essential form. That is why our constitutional system has proved itself the most superbly enduring political mechanism the modern world has produced."

Basic Principles 
The Constitution was a product of the thought of the 18th century "Age of the Enlightenment." European and American philosophers, such as John Locke, Voltaire, Montesquieu, and Thomas Paine, attacked despotic government and advanced the following ideas: that government comes from below, not from above, and that it derives its powers from the consent of the governed; that men have certain natural, inalienable rights; that it is wise and feasible to distribute and balance powers within government, giving local powers to local governments, and general powers to the national government; that men are born equal and should be treated as equal before the law. The framers of the U. S. Constitution sought to do what, as yet, Europeans had not tried: to make these enlightenment ideas the governing principles of a nation. Hence, the document stressed that the people were forming the government ("We, the People... do ordain and establish this Constitution. ...") and were themselves dividing power in such a way as to afford checks and balances on its use and potential abuse.
The allotting to the federal government of only those powers specifically delegated--a principle further bolstered by the addition of the 10th Amendment-made clear that the residual powers would remain with the local units of government. The creation of three separate branches within the federal structure, each in numerous ways dependent upon the others for its healthy functioning, afforded another way to ensure that federal power would not be used indiscriminately. The extensive powers of the president likewise were proscribed in a number of places by designated responsibilities. The judicial power, which the framers clearly intended to "extend to all cases, in law and equity, rising under this Constitution, the laws of the United States, and treaties made . under their authority," was to be wielded by judges, "holding their offices during good behaviour"; explicit jurisdiction of the courts was subject to congressional definition and, by implication, redefinition.

Indeed, so impressed were certain of the framers with the viability of Montesquieu's concepts of separation and balance of power that John Adams counted eight explicit balancing mechanisms and proudly proclaimed them as evidence of the Constitution's republican virtue. These instances of government branches checking one another were as follows:
(1) The states v. the central government
(2) the House v. the Senate
(3) the president v. Congress
(4) the courts v. Congress
(5) the Senate v. the president (with regard to appointments and treaties)
(6) the people v. their representatives
(7) the state legislatures v. the Senate (in the original election of senators)
(8) the Electoral College v. the people

Individual Liberties
No Bill Of Rights was included in the original document. It was considered unnecessary by many of the framers because of the fact that Congress' powers were delegated and this precluded their being used to deprive man of his inalienable rights. However, a number of basic protections were spelled out. Such traditional guarantees of Anglo-Saxon liberty as habeas corpus and protection against ex post facto laws and bills of attainder were included, along with the assurance that "the citizens of each state shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of citizens in the several states."

As to the principle that men should have equal rights and opportunities so far as society can assure them, the Constitution was without specific mechanisms for their attainment. But its clear thrust-that men create government to secure their rights; that such a government should be a government of laws and not of men; and that when government fails to serve men well and equally it should be replaced-institutionalized a presumption of equality, which later generations found they could work for within the basic constitutional structure.

Historical Background
The Articles of Confederation, which had been framed when British armies were in America and hostility to centralized British tyranny was at its peak, had so implemented American anathema to strong national authority as to leave most effective governmental power in local hands. Upon ratification of the Articles in 1781, the problems inherent in the weak confederation structure became apparent. Change was essential.

Government Under the Articles
Lacking both a national executive and a national judiciary and with no effective power to raise and utilize national military forces, the central government was unable to enforce its laws. It could not impose its will on its own citizens directly and therefore could not prevent violations by a state of the rights of another, nor could it conduct effective relations with foreign powers. Further, the requirement of unanimous support of all 13 states for amendment of the Articles virtually precluded strengthening the central government through normal processes. Critical developments in the Confederation period demonstrated the necessity for a sharply different approach to the solving of American governmental problems-the need for a "more perfect union." Obviously, American interests in international relations had to be protected. England had refused to advance diplomatic recognition and was exploiting American weaknesses in world trade and hindering westward settlement through intrigue with Indians. Spain was working to seize economic control of the lower Mississippi valley, even to the point of encouraging the secession of American communities there.
There also was a pressing need for powers that would enable the central government to promote economic development in an orderly manner. The credit of the new nation was precarious because of the inability of the central government to tax and to redeem its domestic and foreign obligations, and the domestic economy was throttled by a mass of prejudicial interstate commercial barriers and discriminations. Internal domestic antagonisms actually had burst into open revolt in defiance of federal authority, most notably in Shays' Rebellion in Massachusetts (1786-1787).

Revision Plans
Talk of revision had grown steadily. Alexander Hamilton, for one, had been dissatisfied with the Articles from the start. Several attempts to amend them failed, and state representatives met at Mount Vernon in 1785 and Annapolis in 1786 to consider various alternatives.

Following Annapolis, the Confederation Congress responded cautiously but favorably to a resolution for a special convention so long as the "sole and express purpose" was revising the Articles. Five states named delegates in 1786. Shays' Rebellion speeded the process in the others. By 1787, 12 states (all but Rhode Island) had named 73 delegates, 55 of whom came to the Philadelphia Convention and 39 of whom eventually signed the Constitution.

The Convention of 1787
The convention delegates agreed that a new constitution was needed. However, many controversies had to be resolved before one could be drafted. A basic issue was the extent of powers to be granted to the national government, and a major obstacle was the conflicting interests of large and small states.

The Framers of the Constitution
The activists who sought a new effective national structure were a singular group. Predominantly educated and respected men of affairs, some with considerable wealth, they had in many cases participated prominently in the unified national effort against the British in the Revolutionary years, therein sublimating their local interests to the broader national cause. George Washington (who presided over the convention), James MADISON , Alexander Hamilton, James Wilson, John Jay, Rufus King, Edmund Randolph, Gouverneur Morris, and Benjamin Franklin all had served either in the army or as diplomats or key administrative officers of the Confederation government or members of its Congress. These Convention delegates were younger than such apprehensive localists as Samuel Adams, Patrick Henry, Richard Henry Lee, and George CLINTON , who still feared the experience of centralized British rule, and whose minds could not embrace the concept of a national interest in which they themselves might share.

The future framers of the Constitution were not so transfixed by the specter of national authority as to feel that any departure from tight local political control would destroy local interests. Conscientious students of comparative government and of America's prior experience, they aimed to create a workable republican structure, strong enough to establish national supremacy and to control "the turbulence and follies of democracy" but limited enough to ensure individual self-determination within a structure of ordered liberty. Their differences lay primarily in means. Their common objectives were summarized by Madison as "the necessity of providing more effectively for the security of private rights and the steady dispensation of justice."

Courtesy - Department of Humanities Computing, NL


  << Back