the constitution essay

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Constitution

By: History.com Editors

Updated: March 28, 2023 | Original: October 27, 2009

The Constitution of the United States established America’s national government and fundamental laws, and guaranteed certain basic rights for its citizens. 

It was signed on September 17, 1787, by delegates to the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia. Under America’s first governing document, the Articles of Confederation, the national government was weak and states operated like independent countries. At the 1787 convention, delegates devised a plan for a stronger federal government with three branches—executive, legislative and judicial—along with a system of checks and balances to ensure no single branch would have too much power. 

The Preamble to the U.S. Constitution

The Preamble outlines the Constitution's purpose and guiding principles. It reads:

The Bill of Rights were 10 amendments guaranteeing basic individual protections, such as freedom of speech and religion, that became part of the Constitution in 1791. To date, there are 27 constitutional amendments.

Articles of Confederation

America’s first constitution, the Articles of Confederation , was ratified in 1781, a time when the nation was a loose confederation of states, each operating like independent countries. The national government was comprised of a single legislature, the Congress of the Confederation; there was no president or judicial branch.

The Articles of Confederation gave Congress the power to govern foreign affairs, conduct war and regulate currency; however, in reality these powers were sharply limited because Congress had no authority to enforce its requests to the states for money or troops.

Did you know? George Washington was initially reluctant to attend the Constitutional Convention. Although he saw the need for a stronger national government, he was busy managing his estate at Mount Vernon, suffering from rheumatism and worried that the convention wouldn't be successful in achieving its goals.

Soon after America won its independence from Great Britain with its 1783 victory in the American Revolution , it became increasingly evident that the young republic needed a stronger central government in order to remain stable.

In 1786, Alexander Hamilton , a lawyer and politician from New York , called for a constitutional convention to discuss the matter. The Confederation Congress, which in February 1787 endorsed the idea, invited all 13 states to send delegates to a meeting in Philadelphia.

Forming a More Perfect Union

On May 25, 1787, the Constitutional Convention opened in Philadelphia at the Pennsylvania State House, now known as Independence Hall, where the Declaration of Independence had been adopted 11 years earlier. There were 55 delegates in attendance, representing all 13 states except Rhode Island , which refused to send representatives because it did not want a powerful central government interfering in its economic business. George Washington , who’d become a national hero after leading the Continental Army to victory during the American Revolution, was selected as president of the convention by unanimous vote.

The delegates (who also became known as the “framers” of the Constitution) were a well-educated group that included merchants, farmers, bankers and lawyers. Many had served in the Continental Army, colonial legislatures or the Continental Congress (known as the Congress of the Confederation as of 1781). In terms of religious affiliation, most were Protestants. Eight delegates were signers of the Declaration of Independence, while six had signed the Articles of Confederation.

At age 81, Pennsylvania’s Benjamin Franklin (1706-90) was the oldest delegate, while the majority of the delegates were in their 30s and 40s. Political leaders not in attendance at the convention included Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) and John Adams (1735-1826), who were serving as U.S. ambassadors in Europe. John Jay (1745-1829), Samuel Adams (1722-1803) and John Hancock (1737-93) were also absent from the convention. Virginia’s Patrick Henry (1736-99) was chosen to be a delegate but refused to attend the convention because he didn’t want to give the central government more power, fearing it would endanger the rights of states and individuals.

Reporters and other visitors were barred from the convention sessions, which were held in secret to avoid outside pressures. However, Virginia’s James Madison (1751-1836) kept a detailed account of what transpired behind closed doors. (In 1837, Madison’s widow Dolley sold some of his papers, including his notes from the convention debates, to the federal government for $30,000.)

Debating the Constitution

The delegates had been tasked by Congress with amending the Articles of Confederation; however, they soon began deliberating proposals for an entirely new form of government. After intensive debate, which continued throughout the summer of 1787 and at times threatened to derail the proceedings, they developed a plan that established three branches of national government–executive, legislative and judicial. A system of checks and balances was put into place so that no single branch would have too much authority. The specific powers and responsibilities of each branch were also laid out.

Among the more contentious issues was the question of state representation in the national legislature. Delegates from larger states wanted population to determine how many representatives a state could send to Congress, while small states called for equal representation. The issue was resolved by the Connecticut Compromise, which proposed a bicameral legislature with proportional representation of the states in the lower house ( House of Representatives ) and equal representation in the upper house (Senate).

Another controversial topic was slavery. Although some northern states had already started to outlaw the practice, they went along with the southern states’ insistence that slavery was an issue for individual states to decide and should be kept out of the Constitution. Many northern delegates believed that without agreeing to this, the South wouldn’t join the Union. For the purposes of taxation and determining how many representatives a state could send to Congress, it was decided that enslaved people would be counted as three-fifths of a person. Additionally, it was agreed that Congress wouldn’t be allowed to prohibit the slave trade before 1808, and states were required to return fugitive enslaved people to their owners.

Ratifying the Constitution

By September 1787, the convention’s five-member Committee of Style (Hamilton, Madison, William Samuel Johnson of Connecticut, Gouverneur Morris of New York, Rufus King of Massachusetts ) had drafted the final text of the Constitution, which consisted of some 4,200 words. On September 17, George Washington was the first to sign the document. Of the 55 delegates, a total of 39 signed; some had already left Philadelphia, and three–George Mason (1725-92) and Edmund Randolph (1753-1813) of Virginia , and Elbridge Gerry (1744-1813) of Massachusetts–refused to approve the document. In order for the Constitution to become law, it then had to be ratified by nine of the 13 states.

James Madison and Alexander Hamilton, with assistance from John Jay, wrote a series of essays to persuade people to ratify the Constitution. The 85 essays, known collectively as “The Federalist” (or “The Federalist Papers”), detailed how the new government would work, and were published under the pseudonym Publius (Latin for “public”) in newspapers across the states starting in the fall of 1787. (People who supported the Constitution became known as Federalists, while those opposed it because they thought it gave too much power to the national government were called Anti-Federalists.)

Beginning on December 7, 1787, five states– Delaware , Pennsylvania, New Jersey , Georgia and Connecticut–ratified the Constitution in quick succession. However, other states, especially Massachusetts, opposed the document, as it failed to reserve un-delegated powers to the states and lacked constitutional protection of basic political rights, such as freedom of speech, religion and the press. 

In February 1788, a compromise was reached under which Massachusetts and other states would agree to ratify the document with the assurance that amendments would be immediately proposed. The Constitution was thus narrowly ratified in Massachusetts, followed by Maryland and South Carolina . On June 21, 1788, New Hampshire became the ninth state to ratify the document, and it was subsequently agreed that government under the U.S. Constitution would begin on March 4, 1789. George Washington was inaugurated as America’s first president on April 30, 1789. In June of that same year, Virginia ratified the Constitution, and New York followed in July. On February 2, 1790, the U.S. Supreme Court held its first session, marking the date when the government was fully operative.

Rhode Island, the last holdout of the original 13 states, finally ratified the Constitution on May 29, 1790.

The Bill of Rights

In 1789, Madison, then a member of the newly established U.S. House of Representatives , introduced 19 amendments to the Constitution. On September 25, 1789, Congress adopted 12 of the amendments and sent them to the states for ratification. Ten of these amendments, known collectively as the Bill of Rights , were ratified and became part of the Constitution on December 10, 1791. The Bill of Rights guarantees individuals certain basic protections as citizens, including freedom of speech, religion and the press; the right to bear and keep arms; the right to peaceably assemble; protection from unreasonable search and seizure; and the right to a speedy and public trial by an impartial jury. For his contributions to the drafting of the Constitution, as well as its ratification, Madison became known as “Father of the Constitution.”

To date, there have been thousands of proposed amendments to the Constitution. However, only 17 amendments have been ratified in addition to the Bill of Rights because the process isn’t easy–after a proposed amendment makes it through Congress, it must be ratified by three-fourths of the states. The most recent amendment to the Constitution, Article XXVII, which deals with congressional pay raises, was proposed in 1789 and ratified in 1992.

The Constitution Today

In the more than 200 years since the Constitution was created, America has stretched across an entire continent and its population and economy have expanded more than the document’s framers likely ever could have envisioned. Through all the changes, the Constitution has endured and adapted.

The framers knew it wasn’t a perfect document. However, as Benjamin Franklin said on the closing day of the convention in 1787: “I agree to this Constitution with all its faults, if they are such, because I think a central government is necessary for us… I doubt too whether any other Convention we can obtain may be able to make a better Constitution.” Today, the original Constitution is on display at the National Archives in Washington, D.C. Constitution Day is observed on September 17, to commemorate the date the document was signed.

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Home — Essay Samples — Law, Crime & Punishment — Constitution — The Constitution of the United States

The Constitution of The United States

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Published: Jan 4, 2019

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The first amendment, the declaration, the constitution, and the bill of rights.

by Jeffrey Rosen and David Rubenstein

At the National Constitution Center, you will find rare copies of the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights. These are the three most important documents in American history. But why are they important, and what are their similarities and differences? And how did each document, in turn, influence the next in America’s ongoing quest for liberty and equality?

There are some clear similarities among the three documents. All have preambles. All were drafted by people of similar backgrounds, generally educated white men of property. The Declaration and Constitution were drafted by a congress and a convention that met in the Pennsylvania State House in Philadelphia (now known as Independence Hall) in 1776 and 1787 respectively. The Bill of Rights was proposed by the Congress that met in Federal Hall in New York City in 1789. Thomas Jefferson was the principal drafter of the Declaration and James Madison of the Bill of Rights; Madison, along with Gouverneur Morris and James Wilson, was also one of the principal architects of the Constitution.

Most importantly, the Declaration, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights are based on the idea that all people have certain fundamental rights that governments are created to protect. Those rights include common law rights, which come from British sources like the Magna Carta, or natural rights, which, the Founders believed, came from God. The Founders believed that natural rights are inherent in all people by virtue of their being human and that certain of these rights are unalienable, meaning they cannot be surrendered to government under any circumstances.

At the same time, the Declaration, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights are different kinds of documents with different purposes. The Declaration was designed to justify breaking away from a government; the Constitution and Bill of Rights were designed to establish a government. The Declaration stands on its own—it has never been amended—while the Constitution has been amended 27 times. (The first ten amendments are called the Bill of Rights.) The Declaration and Bill of Rights set limitations on government; the Constitution was designed both to create an energetic government and also to constrain it. The Declaration and Bill of Rights reflect a fear of an overly centralized government imposing its will on the people of the states; the Constitution was designed to empower the central government to preserve the blessings of liberty for “We the People of the United States.” In this sense, the Declaration and Bill of Rights, on the one hand, and the Constitution, on the other, are mirror images of each other.

Despite these similarities and differences, the Declaration, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights are, in many ways, fused together in the minds of Americans, because they represent what is best about America. They are symbols of the liberty that allows us to achieve success and of the equality that ensures that we are all equal in the eyes of the law. The Declaration of Independence made certain promises about which liberties were fundamental and inherent, but those liberties didn’t become legally enforceable until they were enumerated in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. In other words, the fundamental freedoms of the American people were alluded to in the Declaration of Independence, implicit in the Constitution, and enumerated in the Bill of Rights. But it took the Civil War, which President Lincoln in the Gettysburg Address called “a new birth of freedom,” to vindicate the Declaration’s famous promise that “all men are created equal.” And it took the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, ratified in 1868 after the Civil War, to vindicate James Madison’s initial hope that not only the federal government but also the states would be constitutionally required to respect fundamental liberties guaranteed in the Bill of Rights—a process that continues today.

Why did Jefferson draft the Declaration of Independence?

When the Second Continental Congress convened in Philadelphia in 1775, it was far from clear that the delegates would pass a resolution to separate from Great Britain. To persuade them, someone needed to articulate why the Americans were breaking away. Congress formed a committee to do just that; members included John Adams from Massachusetts, Benjamin Franklin from Pennsylvania, Roger Sherman from Connecticut, Robert R. Livingston from New York, and Thomas Jefferson from Virginia, who at age 33 was one of the youngest delegates.

Although Jefferson disputed his account, John Adams later recalled that he had persuaded Jefferson to write the draft because Jefferson had the fewest enemies in Congress and was the best writer. (Jefferson would have gotten the job anyway—he was elected chair of the committee.) Jefferson had 17 days to produce the document and reportedly wrote a draft in a day or two. In a rented room not far from the State House, he wrote the Declaration with few books and pamphlets beside him, except for a copy of George Mason’s Virginia Declaration of Rights and the draft Virginia Constitution, which Jefferson had written himself.

The Declaration of Independence has three parts. It has a preamble, which later became the most famous part of the document but at the time was largely ignored. It has a second part that lists the sins of the King of Great Britain, and it has a third part that declares independence from Britain and that all political connections between the British Crown and the “Free and Independent States” of America should be totally dissolved.

The preamble to the Declaration of Independence contains the entire theory of American government in a single, inspiring passage:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.—That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,—That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

When Jefferson wrote the preamble, it was largely an afterthought. Why is it so important today? It captured perfectly the essence of the ideals that would eventually define the United States. “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal,” Jefferson began, in one of the most famous sentences in the English language. How could Jefferson write this at a time that he and other Founders who signed the Declaration owned slaves? The document was an expression of an ideal. In his personal conduct, Jefferson violated it. But the ideal—“that all men are created equal”—came to take on a life of its own and is now considered the most perfect embodiment of the American creed.

When Lincoln delivered the Gettysburg Address during the Civil War in November 1863, several months after the Union Army defeated Confederate forces at the Battle of Gettysburg, he took Jefferson’s language and transformed it into constitutional poetry. “Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal,” Lincoln declared. “Four score and seven years ago” refers to the year 1776, making clear that Lincoln was referring not to the Constitution but to Jefferson’s Declaration. Lincoln believed that the “principles of Jefferson are the definitions and axioms of free society,” as he wrote shortly before the anniversary of Jefferson’s birthday in 1859. Three years later, on the anniversary of George Washington’s birthday in 1861, Lincoln said in a speech at what by that time was being called “Independence Hall,” “I would rather be assassinated on this spot than to surrender” the principles of the Declaration of Independence.

It took the Civil War, the bloodiest war in American history, for Lincoln to begin to make Jefferson’s vision of equality a constitutional reality. After the war, the Declaration’s vision was embodied in the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments to the Constitution, which formally ended slavery, guaranteed all persons the “equal protection of the laws,” and gave African-American men the right to vote. At the Seneca Falls Convention in 1848, when supporters of gaining greater rights for women met, they, too, used the Declaration of Independence as a guide for drafting their Declaration of Sentiments. (Their efforts to achieve equal suffrage culminated in 1920 in the ratification of the 19th Amendment, which granted women the right to vote.) And during the civil rights movement in the 1960s, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said in his famous address at the Lincoln Memorial, “When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men—yes, black men as well as white men—would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

In addition to its promise of equality, Jefferson’s preamble is also a promise of liberty. Like the other Founders, he was steeped in the political philosophy of the Enlightenment, in philosophers such as John Locke, Jean-Jacques Burlamaqui, Francis Hutcheson, and Montesquieu. All of them believed that people have certain unalienable and inherent rights that come from God, not government, or come simply from being human. They also believed that when people form governments, they give those governments control over certain natural rights to ensure the safety and security of other rights. Jefferson, George Mason, and the other Founders frequently spoke of the same set of rights as being natural and unalienable. They included the right to worship God “according to the dictates of conscience,” the right of “enjoyment of life and liberty,” “the means of acquiring, possessing and protecting property, and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety,” and, most important of all, the right of a majority of the people to “alter and abolish” their government whenever it threatened to invade natural rights rather than protect them.

In other words, when Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence and began to articulate some of the rights that were ultimately enumerated in the Bill of Rights, he wasn’t inventing these rights out of thin air. On the contrary, 10 American colonies between 1606 and 1701 were granted charters that included representative assemblies and promised the colonists the basic rights of Englishmen, including a version of the promise in the Magna Carta that no freeman could be imprisoned or destroyed “except by the lawful judgment of his peers or by the law of the land.” This legacy kindled the colonists’ hatred of arbitrary authority, which allowed the King to seize their bodies or property on his own say-so. In the revolutionary period, the galvanizing examples of government overreaching were the “general warrants” and “writs of assistance” that authorized the King’s agents to break into the homes of scores of innocent citizens in an indiscriminate search for the anonymous authors of pamphlets criticizing the King. Writs of assistance, for example, authorized customs officers “to break open doors, Chests, Trunks, and other Packages” in a search for stolen goods, without specifying either the goods to be seized or the houses to be searched. In a famous attack on the constitutionality of writs of assistance in 1761, prominent lawyer James Otis said, “It is a power that places the liberty of every man in the hands of every petty officer.”

As members of the Continental Congress contemplated independence in May and June of 1776, many colonies were dissolving their charters with England. As the actual vote on independence approached, a few colonies were issuing their own declarations of independence and bills of rights. The Virginia Declaration of Rights of 1776, written by George Mason, began by declaring that “all men are by nature equally free and independent, and have certain inherent rights, of which, when they enter into a state of society, they cannot, by any compact, deprive or divest their posterity; namely, the enjoyment of life and liberty, with the means of acquiring and possessing property, and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety.” 

When Jefferson wrote his famous preamble, he was restating, in more eloquent language, the philosophy of natural rights expressed in the Virginia Declaration that the Founders embraced. And when Jefferson said, in the first paragraph of the Declaration of Independence, that “[w]hen in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another,” he was recognizing the right of revolution that, the Founders believed, had to be exercised whenever a tyrannical government threatened natural rights. That’s what Jefferson meant when he said Americans had to assume “the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them.”

The Declaration of Independence was a propaganda document rather than a legal one. It didn’t give any rights to anyone. It was an advertisement about why the colonists were breaking away from England. Although there was no legal reason to sign the Declaration, Jefferson and the other Founders signed it because they wanted to “mutually pledge” to each other that they were bound to support it with “our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.” Their signatures were courageous because the signers realized they were committing treason: according to legend, after affixing his flamboyantly large signature John Hancock said that King George—or the British ministry—would be able to read his name without spectacles. But the courage of the signers shouldn’t be overstated: the names of the signers of the Declaration weren’t published until after General George Washington won crucial battles at Trenton and Princeton and it was clear that the war for independence was going well.

What is the relationship between the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution?

In the years between 1776 and 1787, most of the 13 states drafted constitutions that contained a declaration of rights within the body of the document or as a separate provision at the beginning, many of them listing the same natural rights that Jefferson had embraced in the Declaration. When it came time to form a central government in 1776, the Continental Congress began to create a weak union governed by the Articles of Confederation. (The Articles of Confederation was sent to the states for ratification in 1777; it was formally adopted in 1781.) The goal was to avoid a powerful federal government with the ability to invade rights and to threaten private property, as the King’s agents had done with the hated general warrants and writs of assistance. But the Articles of Confederation proved too weak for bringing together a fledgling nation that needed both to wage war and to manage the economy. Supporters of a stronger central government, like James Madison, lamented the inability of the government under the Articles to curb the excesses of economic populism that were afflicting the states, such as Shays’ Rebellion in Massachusetts, where farmers shut down the courts demanding debt relief. As a result, Madison and others gathered in Philadelphia in 1787 with the goal of creating a stronger, but still limited, federal government.

The Constitutional Convention was held in Philadelphia in the Pennsylvania State House, in the room where the Declaration of Independence was adopted. Jefferson, who was in France at the time, wasn’t among them. After four months of debate, the delegates produced a constitution.

During the final days of debate, delegates George Mason and Elbridge Gerry objected that the Constitution, too, should include a bill of rights to protect the fundamental liberties of the people against the newly empowered president and Congress. Their motion was swiftly—and unanimously—defeated; a debate over what rights to include could go on for weeks, and the delegates were tired and wanted to go home. The Constitution was approved by the Constitutional Convention and sent to the states for ratification without a bill of rights.

During the ratification process, which took around 10 months (the Constitution took effect when New Hampshire became the ninth state to ratify in late June 1788; the 13th state, Rhode Island, would not join the union until May 1790), many state ratifying conventions proposed amendments specifying the rights that Jefferson had recognized in the Declaration and that they protected in their own state constitutions. James Madison and other supporters of the Constitution initially resisted the need for a bill of rights as either unnecessary (because the federal government was granted no power to abridge individual liberty) or dangerous (since it implied that the federal government had the power to infringe liberty in the first place). In the face of a groundswell of popular demand for a bill of rights, Madison changed his mind and introduced a bill of rights in Congress on June 8, 1789.

Madison was least concerned by “abuse in the executive department,” which he predicted would be the weakest branch of government. He was more worried about abuse by Congress, because he viewed the legislative branch as “the most powerful, and most likely to be abused, because it is under the least control.” (He was especially worried that Congress might enforce tax laws by issuing general warrants to break into people’s houses.) But in his view “the great danger lies rather in the abuse of the community than in the legislative body”—in other words, local majorities who would take over state governments and threaten the fundamental rights of minorities, including creditors and property holders. For this reason, the proposed amendment that Madison considered “the most valuable amendment in the whole list” would have prohibited the state governments from abridging freedom of conscience, speech, and the press, as well as trial by jury in criminal cases. Madison’s favorite amendment was eliminated by the Senate and not resurrected until after the Civil War, when the 14th Amendment required state governments to respect basic civil and economic liberties.

In the end, by pulling from the amendments proposed by state ratifying conventions and Mason’s Virginia Declaration of Rights, Madison proposed 19 amendments to the Constitution. Congress approved 12 amendments to be sent to the states for ratification. Only 10 of the amendments were ultimately ratified in 1791 and became the Bill of Rights. The first of the two amendments that failed was intended to guarantee small congressional districts to ensure that representatives remained close to the people. The other would have prohibited senators and representatives from giving themselves a pay raise unless it went into effect at the start of the next Congress. (This latter amendment was finally ratified in 1992 and became the 27th Amendment.)

To address the concern that the federal government might claim that rights not listed in the Bill of Rights were not protected, Madison included what became the Ninth Amendment, which says the “enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.” To ensure that Congress would be viewed as a government of limited rather than unlimited powers, he included the 10th Amendment, which says the “powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” Because of the first Congress’s focus on protecting people from the kinds of threats to liberty they had experienced at the hands of King George, the rights listed in the first eight amendments of the Bill of Rights apply only to the federal government, not to the states or to private companies. (One of the amendments submitted by the North Carolina ratifying convention but not included by Madison in his proposal to Congress would have prohibited Congress from establishing monopolies or companies with “exclusive advantages of commerce.”)

But the protections in the Bill of Rights—forbidding Congress from abridging free speech, for example, or conducting unreasonable searches and seizures—were largely ignored by the courts for the first 100 years after the Bill of Rights was ratified in 1791. Like the preamble to the Declaration, the Bill of Rights was largely a promissory note. It wasn’t until the 20th century, when the Supreme Court began vigorously to apply the Bill of Rights against the states, that the document became the centerpiece of contemporary struggles over liberty and equality. The Bill of Rights became a document that defends not only majorities of the people against an overreaching federal government but also minorities against overreaching state governments. Today, there are debates over whether the federal government has become too powerful in threatening fundamental liberties. There are also debates about how to protect the least powerful in society against the tyranny of local majorities.

What do we know about the documentary history of the rare copies of the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights on display at the National Constitution Center?

Generally, when people think about the original Declaration, they are referring to the official engrossed —or final—copy now in the National Archives. That is the one that John Hancock, Thomas Jefferson, and most of the other members of the Second Continental Congress signed, state by state, on August 2, 1776. John Dunlap, a Philadelphia printer, published the official printing of the Declaration ordered by Congress, known as the Dunlap Broadside, on the night of July 4th and the morning of July 5th. About 200 copies are believed to have been printed. At least 27 are known to survive.

The document on display at the National Constitution Center is known as a Stone Engraving, after the engraver William J. Stone, whom then Secretary of State John Quincy Adams commissioned in 1820 to create a precise facsimile of the original engrossed version of the Declaration. That manuscript had become faded and worn after nearly 45 years of travel with Congress between Philadelphia, New York City, and eventually Washington, D.C., among other places, including Leesburg, Virginia, where it was rolled up and hidden during the British invasion of the capital in 1814.

To ensure that future generations would have a clear image of the original Declaration, William Stone made copies of the document before it faded away entirely. Historians dispute how Stone rendered the facsimiles. He kept the original Declaration in his shop for up to three years and may have used a process that involved taking a wet cloth, putting it on the original document, and creating a perfect copy by taking off half the ink. He would have then put the ink on a copper plate to do the etching (though he might have, instead, traced the entire document by hand without making a press copy). Stone used the copper plate to print 200 first edition engravings as well as one copy for himself in 1823, selling the plate and the engravings to the State Department. John Quincy Adams sent copies to each of the living signers of the Declaration (there were three at the time), public officials like President James Monroe, Congress, other executive departments, governors and state legislatures, and official repositories such as universities. The Stone engravings give us the clearest idea of what the original engrossed Declaration looked like on the day it was signed.

The Constitution, too, has an original engrossed, handwritten version as well as a printing of the final document. John Dunlap, who also served as the official printer of the Declaration, and his partner David C. Claypoole, who worked with him to publish the Pennsylvania Packet and Daily Advertiser , America’s first successful daily newspaper founded by Dunlap in 1771, secretly printed copies of the convention’s committee reports for the delegates to review, debate, and make changes. At the end of the day on September 15, 1787, after all of the delegations present had approved the Constitution, the convention ordered it engrossed on parchment. Jacob Shallus, assistant clerk to the Pennsylvania legislature, spent the rest of the weekend preparing the engrossed copy (now in the National Archives), while Dunlap and Claypoole were ordered to print 500 copies of the final text for distribution to the delegates, Congress, and the states. The engrossed copy was signed on Monday, September 17th, which is now celebrated as Constitution Day.

The copy of the Constitution on display at the National Constitution Center was published in Dunlap and Claypoole’s Pennsylvania Packet newspaper on September 19, 1787. Because it was the first public printing of the document—the first time Americans saw the Constitution—scholars consider its constitutional significance to be especially profound. The publication of the Constitution in the Pennsylvania Packet was the first opportunity for “We the People of the United States” to read the Constitution that had been drafted and would later be ratified in their name.

The handwritten Constitution inspires awe, but the first public printing reminds us that it was only the ratification of the document by “We the People” that made the Constitution the supreme law of the land. As James Madison emphasized in The Federalist No. 40 in 1788, the delegates to the Constitutional Convention had “proposed a Constitution which is to be of no more consequence than the paper on which it is written, unless it be stamped with the approbation of those to whom it is addressed.” Only 25 copies of the Pennsylvania Packet Constitution are known to have survived.

Finally, there is the Bill of Rights. On October 2, 1789, Congress sent 12 proposed amendments to the Constitution to the states for ratification—including the 10 that would come to be known as the Bill of Rights. There were 14 original manuscript copies, including the one displayed at the National Constitution Center—one for the federal government and one for each of the 13 states.

Twelve of the 14 copies are known to have survived. Two copies —those of the federal government and Delaware — are in the National Archives. Eight states currently have their original documents; Georgia, Maryland, New York, and Pennsylvania do not. There are two existing unidentified copies, one held by the Library of Congress and one held by The New York Public Library. The copy on display at the National Constitution Center is from the collections of The New York Public Library and will be on display for several years through an agreement between the Library and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania; the display coincides with the 225th anniversary of the proposal and ratification of the Bill of Rights.

The Declaration, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights are the three most important documents in American history because they express the ideals that define “We the People of the United States” and inspire free people around the world.

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The US Constitution Overview and Its Aspects Essay

Introduction, overview of the constitution, social aspects in the constitution, political aspects in the constitution, economical aspects in the constitution, works cited.

Debates regarding the interpretation of the constitution have been present for decades and up to date, a unified conclusion remains to be realized. While the grammatical and ideological agreement may be unanimous, there is disagreement in the event of interpretation of the same.

Different scholars and politicians come up with varied interpretations which are guided by the theories they follow or their own personal beliefs. In the end, there has to be an interpretation of the constitution for it to become a governing law. This means interpretation whether good or bad has to be established with the majority carrying the day.

The American constitution, which is one of the world’s oldest, has been subjected to many amendments over the years due to ideological differences from one generation to the next. The feeling of the need for a change in governance in pursuit for a better mode of leadership system has been the driving force for this. This paper will set out to analyze a number of articles which discuss various aspects of the American constitution. The paper will discuss the differing opinions and offer my opinion on the matter of the US constitution.

The American constitution is arguably the most liberal and complex in the entire world. It differs with the rest of the western constitutions both in its length and the biblical influence. It finds most of its inspiration from the bible since majority of American citizens are Christians. Consequently, its interpretation has been revolving around the unbalanced religious divide.

The debate on the right of individuals to own fire arms prompted by Martin Luther king, Jr., and Robert F. Kennedy’s assassinations were a major challenge with regards to interpretation of the constitution. In the second amendment of the constitution as pointed out by Hannan seems to offer a window for the formation of militia groups (4). This is however seen as a self-centered sentiment coined to manipulate the constitution to favor self interest.

In the constitution a lot of individual rights are mentioned and seem to be the top agenda in the composition of its text. The need to respect the original meaning and intention for every law therein is therefore vital. Amendments without considering the originality of the constitution have been the major cause of wrong and misguided interpretation of the law.

The interpretation of the constitution should not be left to the politically influenced judiciary. The high court should not form the highest authority on constitution interpretation rather this should be left to the people. These are national guiding and governance terms and should not be decided by an individual or a group of elite individuals rather should be an all inclusive activity in the best interest of the public.

Prudently, it is a high level of ignorance to assume that the constitution is the unquestionable supreme power over the people. It also, like many other writings and principles, has a number of limitations with regards to its implementation. This is much evident on the sections that address social interactions. The interpretation of the constitution by different institution in the various fields attracts much attention and criticism.

It would be of much assistance to really trace back to the historical events that influenced the actual drive to come up with the constitution. A study carried out shows that a colossal percentage of the population in America is in the dark with regards to the contents of the constitution. Many do not even have the basic knowledge on law regarding human rights. This however is not blamed on the uninformed citizens but lies squarely in the leadership and the governance of the country.

Holding some practices as illegal on one hand infringes into the right of self acceptance and freedom of choice. However, allowing the same practices like same sex marriages undermine human dignity as far as sexuality and religious teachings are concerned. This calls for the original meaning of the constitution if this kind of duplicity is to be brought to rest. The urgency of this matter is proved by the vote out of office judges who supported gay marriages (Hannan 6).

The only way to find true justice in the current system of governance can only be influenced by the original intention and adherence to the spirit of the constitution. “Liberal legal scholars have tried different approaches in countering this argument” (Hannan 5). Hannan points out that “democratic legitimacy is the measure of a sound constitutional interpretive practice” (5).

Explaining a principle without an understanding of the same can be quit difficult, hence interpretation is the first priority in the road to understanding the true meaning of the constitutional clauses. With this in mind then it becomes easier to come to an agreeable and contented conclusion. One that can have a majority backing from the public domain and not one that seems like a government project forced down the public’s throat. This is an assurance of a democratic form of governance that is of the people by the people and for the people.

The constitution is a document and a set of laws to govern a nation in managing and guarding its political integrity and economic recourses for the benefit of all. The political elite therefore are charged with the responsibility of being the custodians of the perfect will of the people. The contents of the constitution represent the will of the citizens in general and should be guarded in integrity and in respect of the people’s dignity.

This not withstanding, the people trusted with the custody of this document turn around and abuse the powers vested in them. The elite have turned against the same people who have trusted them with the power to oversee the implementation of the rule of the land. In his book The New Road to Serfdom, Hannan asserts that “no one familiar with the affairs of our government, can have failed to notice how large a proportion of our statesmen appear never to have read the constitution of the united.”

Bad governance that lacks the interest of the electorates at heart is a major set back in the realization of the American dream. Realizing the long-term goal of the constitution goes beyond self-seeking political parties and political alienation for selfish gain. It is the reason of fulfilling the spirit of the constitution that should be the main cause of seeking political responsibilities as it is the sole duty of political leaders.

The constitution is the supreme law of the land and should be treated in due respect and only leaders with this kind of knowledge should be trusted with the responsibility to guard its integrity. Information is power and the elite know what implications this has, especially when the electorate knows their rights. This could possibly be the reason why the government is not keen to ensure the contents of the constitution are known to the public.

Under this misinformation the black people were taken advantage of and denied rights that they deserved by being citizens in the United States of America. Hannan says that the federal government was “made by the white men for the benefit of the white me and their posterity forever” (8). He goes on to point in his book that “there is nothing in the United States constitution that gives the congress, the president or the supreme court the right to declare that white and colored students must attend the same school” (8).

A sign in Boston reads “where in the constitution is the separation of church and state?” Legal education on the clauses of the constitution is paramount for the public to have it broken down by the legal experts on constitutional law. This is primarily due to the fact that the language used in its representation is not easy for the common citizen to understand. Hence, a simpler interpretation is required to have everyone onboard in the pursuit for the democracy.

This is the responsibilities of the government to inform the public and the citizens’ right to be informed. The government is doing very little to achieve this and it has been the trend throughout the subsequent governments. Time has come for the long awaited change of the status quo in response to respect of the rule of law.

Economical implications in response to political responsibility are enormous in such a time when the economy is experiencing difficulties in all directions. Political responsibility is key in ensuring a sound economic security and growth as well. Proper planning and innovative policies are what can save a crumpling nation economically.

The tragedy is with all the economic-sensitive provisions in the constitution, our government and political leaders are so busy pursuing their own personal gains at the expense of their constitutional responsibility. Economical Growth therefore seems like an unachievable milestone where else it is out of neglect in duty that the economy is subjected to this kind of set backs.

Corruption is a major disappointment and it greatly undermines the growth of an economy. The political elite are more than ever involved in corrupt dealings that rob our economy of the precious remittances that finance the public utilities. As Hannan puts it, “part of the problem might appear to be the distance between our location and theirs.” It would prove to be an unyielding endeavor to realize any significant economical steps ahead if the effort does not emanate from the leaders.

Our leaders are required by law to safeguard our sovereignty and our national resources. But that, all along, has not been the case as the same leaders are in a rush to grab as much wealth as they can from the public. Instead of working towards the benefit of all they are only concerned with their own selfish ambitions.

The constitution gives all the citizens in the United States of America equal chances and equal opportunity to benefit from the resources found in the country without any discriminatory procedures. But the elite have created their own discriminative procedures that deliberately sideline other citizens from the free benefit of being a citizen in the United States of America. This is brought about by the introduction of a new political order of “threats false rumors and extremist rhetoric” (Crain 11).

These turn of events in leadership has brought the obvious downplay of the rule of law as the leadership has been accused to be involved in the funding of insurgence. This is done blindly as a way of acquiring power but has proven to be a time bomb in waiting in the long-run.

This destabilizes the economy as corrupt and unlawful operations are given a blind eye as the insurgences work hand in hand with he custodians of the law. This in the long-run will cause a major break down in the economy and recovery may never be realized as fast as the breakdown happens.

The common citizen is the main shareholder in the political arena yet he or she is the most neglected by the same people who promised to provide fair leadership. In the light of the constitution, the common citizen does not understand the complex use of legal terminologies. What is the government doing about this and what measures have they taken to ensure that the American citizen is well informed and that he or she understands the contents of the document.

Does the government take this issue as a priority to inform its public on the governing law and the protection abound in the constitution? Is it in their interest to have the public taught by legal experts about the interpretation of this law? The government must take it upon itself to ensure there is a legal explanation and original unbiased interpretation of the law for the good and benefit of the public who double-up as the government’s employer.

The political elite must realize their responsibilities and be faithful to keep their end of the bargain. It is very disappointing to be let down by the same government that one has trusted to take good care of the nation. A country that lacks an economical future is a country in trouble and lacks security. Financial security in a country is vital as it influences many different avenues that attract economical growth.

Financial security is a sure way to attract investors in the country and this translate to social and economical benefits with other countries. This is an endeavor to any reasonable government that has its citizen’s welfare in mind. Formulating trade laws that favor economic growth should be in every government’s consideration all through revising them more often to cease any upcoming advantage.

As ascertained by Crain, replacing the three pence duty on foreign molasses with a one penny duty was a relief to importers who would bribe at just about the same price (14). This brought to halt the loss of funds in the black market and eliminated smuggling. There has to be a significant link between the politically elite and the electorate. This is important if a mutual benefit is to be realized otherwise it will be just a matter of exploiting the electorate in the guise of unfulfilled promises.

Smuggling and illegal trade is a major hurt to the smooth running of the economy hence a threat to its growth as well. Government’s involvement in the business industry is paramount for traders as the government has the power to cushion traders during harsh economic times. If traders are not protected they stand to loose a lot in their merchandise and may be unable to comeback to business after the tough times are gone.

Development in any country depends on the commercial stability in the country hence it must be in the interest of the government to protect its business community. This is done by creating amiable business environment for business to thrive. Nothing gives a country the sense of security like financial security does and the United States of America is not different. The leadership has to embrace the challenge and give its citizens the security they so yarn for.

The constitution is the pillar of a nation and must be regarded as so in dignity and the law therein upheld and obeyed to the latter. The constitution is clear that no individual or institution is above its grip. Upholding the constitution is a gesture of submission and respect to our country’s sovereignty (Brooks 24). The elite living in harmony with the spirit of the constitution is the guiding principle in the pursuit for democracy.

It all begins with a political drive to reinforce policies that with influence growth in the entire country. With such systems in place, growth is inevitable in a receptive population in terms of investments and business interactions. The elite are elected to oversee the development of the people and to reinforce the will of the people. If the will of the people is respected then the running of the country’s economic affairs is in good hands and one can only project growth.

Better information as noted by Lepore, is key for development and mutual understanding in the society. Should this virtue lack, then trouble strikes-in in a way we might find it difficult to handle the repercussions. In the United States of America every one longs for better economic and financial dawn (Lepore 25). But this has been like a dream as the efforts towards achieving this are halted by the policies in place and misrepresentation of the will of the people.

In the wake of these tough economic times it is vital to have proper policies in place to maximize on possible chances to better our national income. This can not happen with the current policies and misinterpretation of the constitution. Proper interpretation must be provided to the public and the judiciary must have it right in the courts form free and fair justice to be experienced.

The constitution is an important document since it provides the basis upon which the country is governed. It is the only document that equalizes the citizen in the United States of America. The spirit of the constitution and its original intention was for the good of the people. However, the will of the people have significantly been ignored and replaced with self driven ambitions by those in power and assumed custodians of the law (BBC 21).

This is unfortunate but can be corrected by casting of votes to responsible and trusted people who have the will of the people at heart always. These are the kind of leaders who can lead the country into better economical heights with dignity and respect to the original spirit of the constitution.

In my opinion, leadership is the main drive to any achievements; be it economical or even political. When good leadership structures are achieved development is automatic. At all times leaders must be on the forefront to champion developments and better management of resources for the benefit of all. This is the spirit of statesmanship and good will.

BBC. Us constitution read aloud in House of Representatives . 2011.

Brooks, David. “ The Wal-mart hippies .” The New York Times. 2010. Web.

Crain, Caleb. Tea and Antipathy: Did principle or pragmatism start the American Revolution. New York: The New Yorker, 2010.

Hannan, Daniel. The new road to serfdom: The Tea Party Tradition . 2010. Web.

Lepore, Jill. The commandments: the constitution and its worshippers . New York: The New Yorker, 2011.Print.

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First Amendment :

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

The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, 1 Footnote U.S. Const. amend. I . viewed broadly, protects religious liberty and rights related to freedom of speech. Specifically, the Religion Clauses prevent the government from adopting laws “respecting an establishment of religion” —the Establishment Clause—or “prohibiting the free exercise thereof” —the Free Exercise Clause. The First Amendment also expressly protects the freedoms of speech, press, peaceable assembly, and petition to the Government.

The Constitution Annotated essays discussing the First Amendment begin with the Religion Clauses, reviewing the history of these clauses before explaining, in turn, the Supreme Court’s interpretation of the Establishment and Free Exercise Clauses. The Religion Clause section ends with an essay exploring the relationship between the Religion Clauses and the Free Speech Clause. The Constitution Annotated then turns to this latter clause, discussing interpretations of the Free Speech Clause before describing Supreme Court cases recognizing constitutional protections for freedom of association. Next, the Constitution Annotated explains the Free Press Clause. The First Amendment essays end by discussing the clauses protecting the freedoms of assembly and petition.

‘Reading the Constitution’ Review: The Pragmatic Stephen Breyer

I n the 1980s, after two decades of judicial activism, Antonin Scalia and a small band of brothers made the case for “originalism” and “textualism”—for interpreting the Constitution according to its original meaning and interpreting statutes according to the original meaning of their own particular words.

Today Scalia’s methods are the predominant vocabulary of American jurisprudence—and not just among Federalist Society members. After Justice Stephen Breyer announced his retirement from the Supreme Court in 2022, his successor, Ketanji Brown Jackson, described her own approach along Scalia’s lines. She told the Senate Judiciary Committee at her confirmation hearing: “I am focusing on original public meaning because I’m constrained to interpret the text.”

In 2015, five years after President Barack Obama appointed her to the Supreme Court, Justice Elena Kagan said, in a public interview at Harvard University: “I think we’re all textualists now, in a way that just was not remotely true when Justice Scalia joined the bench.” Her interviewer asked: “Even Justice Breyer?” To which she replied: “Well, Justice Breyer might be a little bit of an outlier.”

To say the least. In nearly 30 years on the court, and in scores of judicial opinions and several books, Justice Breyer has pursued a very different interpretive model, one drawing on historical or contemporary materials to inform his judgments and taking into account his sense of the real-world effects of judicial decisions. Now, two years into retirement, he has written a book-length defense of his approach.

In “Reading the Constitution,” Mr. Breyer challenges Scalia’s jurisprudence—and Ms. Kagan’s quip. “One of my Supreme Court colleagues recently said (perhaps tongue in cheek), ‘We’re all textualists now.’ But I am not.” He calls his own approach “pragmatism.” He says that the task of interpreting legal language is “more complex” than simply reading constitutional and statutory texts. Thus his book’s title is somewhat mismatched—reading “beyond the Constitution” would be closer to the gist.

For statutory cases, Mr. Breyer argues, reading only the words that Congress enacted in legislation risks misunderstanding Congress’s broader goals—which, he says, might be seen more clearly in the committee reports and other forms of “legislative history” that congressmen and staffers formulate along the way. Even if members of Congress don’t read all those documents before they vote on a particular statute (as Mr. Breyer, a former Senate staffer, freely concedes they don’t), “legislative history can provide a simpler and clearer way to understand what a highly compact statutory phrase is all about.”

Relatedly, Mr. Breyer believes that judges should consider the “practical consequences” of a decision. “To fail to consider practical, purpose-based arguments means . . . a governmental system that will work less well.” He recounts a 2019 case involving the process of implementing Medicare in which Mr. Breyer (dissenting alone) argued that his colleagues were, among other things, undervaluing possible consequences. If practical matters had been taken into greater account, he says, the result would have been a “statute that worked better” for all involved.

The more Mr. Breyer describes “interpretation” along such lines—illustrated with detailed accounts of various cases from his time on the court—the harder it is to understand what he means by “interpretation.” He is not trying to understand what written words mean in any objective sense; he is trying to give meaning to those words by consulting his own sense of the problem Congress was trying to solve years before and his sense of the consequences that would follow from judicial decisions today. A justice or judge, in his view, is not interpreting a text so much as interpreting a situation—not reading a law so much as reading a room.

He takes a similar approach to constitutional questions. “The language of the Constitution will sometimes help,” he admits, and “precedent may prove useful.” But a judge should also look to broader values and purposes, to consequences and “workability.” When those factors point in different directions, then a judge should rely on “judicial instinct, informed by experience and focused upon the particular case.”

In the case of New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen (2022), he notes, the originalists on the court interpreted the Second Amendment’s right to keep and bear arms—and its effect on New York’s licensing rules for carrying guns in public—by looking to “the ‘public understanding’ of the text at about the time the provision was originally enacted.” Mr. Breyer dissented in that decision, preferring, as he shows, to focus less on what the Second Amendment’s words meant when it was enacted and more on the practical stakes today. Looking to the modern era’s horrific trends in gun violence—mass shootings, suicides, domestic violence, attacks on police—Mr. Breyer would have been much more deferential to New York lawmakers’ efforts to restrict access to guns.

Mr. Breyer gives special attention to the difficulty, for originalists, of understanding the historical context of a constitutional provision adopted in, say, 1789 or 1868. But Scalia himself conceded this difficulty from the start—most notably in a 1989 essay titled “Originalism: The Lesser Evil,” in which he noted that originalism would often be harder to honor in practice than in theory.

Mr. Breyer’s argument for his own pragmatism is more forgiving. To Scalia’s warning that the invocation of legislative history opens the door to judicial activism, Mr. Breyer responds: “This statement criticizes the misuse of congressional history, not its use.” The same defense, of course, could be made of any theory or argument—that its critics focus on its “misuse.” Attacking an emphasis on the original meaning of texts, he states that “judges are not historians” and have “little experience answering contested historical questions.” Yet the kind of pragmatic judge he prefers should, he says, pay attention to legislative history. So his judges are bad constitutional historians but good legislative historians.

Perhaps the most revealing aspect of “Reading the Constitution” is its attempt to anchor Mr. Breyer’s jurisprudence in the American founding. He calls his approach the truly “traditionalist” one, more rooted in the founding than Scalia’s originalism. To support this claim, he invokes Chief Justice John Marshall’s opinion in McCulloch v. Maryland (1819).

There the court upheld the creation of the Bank of the United States by relying on the constitutional provision authorizing Congress to enact laws that are “necessary and proper” for executing its other lawful powers. Mr. Breyer highlights Marshall’s focus on the practical importance of the bank; he also cites Marshall’s observation that the words “necessary and proper” are susceptible to different meanings.

McCulloch truly was one of the court’s best and most important decisions. But Mr. Breyer draws far too sweeping a lesson from it. The “necessary and proper” clause is, on its face, one of the Constitution’s most explicitly practical provisions. McCulloch interpreted the clause correctly, particularly in light of the bank’s importance during the recent War of 1812; but it didn’t purport to reduce the entire Constitution to one big “necessary and proper” clause.

Mr. Breyer also ascribes his pragmatism to James Madison, who, he contends, wanted judges to use interpretation to “adapt the Constitution to changing times.” For this point, he quotes an 1824 letter in which Madison said he hoped that a “just construction” of the Constitution would, over time, help to avoid “dangerous schisms.”

But Mr. Breyer should read Madison’s next sentences: “I entirely concur in the propriety of resorting to the sense in which the Constitution was accepted and ratified by the nation. In that sense alone it is the legitimate Constitution.” If its original meaning were not “the guide in expounding it,” Madison warned, “there can be no security for a consistent and stable [or] faithful exercise of its powers.” He lamented: “The language of our Constitution is already undergoing interpretations unknown to its founders.” He may not have been an arch-textualist—his Federalist No. 37 is a profound meditation on the limits of written laws—but he was no free-floating judicial “pragmatist” either.

Alexander Hamilton, in his own defense of the Constitution’s judicial power, wrote that “to avoid an arbitrary discretion in the courts,” judges must “be bound down by strict rules and precedents.” Mr. Breyer’s affection for the Supreme Court—and for his colleagues and the Constitution—is clearly boundless. But so is his judicial philosophy.

Mr. White is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and co-director of the Antonin Scalia Law School’s C. Boyden Gray Center for the Study of the Administrative State.

Background Essay: Slavery and the United States Constitution

Was the United States Constitution a pro-slavery document or an anti-slavery document?

Written by: The Bill of Rights Institute

In the summer of 1787, delegates to the Constitutional Convention went to Philadelphia primarily to create a stronger national government than what existed under the first national framework of government, the Articles of Confederation. The issue of slavery was not on the agenda, but could hardly be avoided.

James Madison of Virginia wrote the main divisions in the convention were not those between large and small states, but “between the N[orthern] & South[er]n States” regarding the “institution of slavery & its consequences.”

James Madison, one of the leading delegates at the Constitutional Convention, believed that the main divisions during the drafting of the new framework of government was over the issue of slavery.

The discussion of representation in a national Congress sparked the first major argument about slavery. Southern delegates wanted enslaved people to count the same as a free person because of the region’s large slave population. Charles Pinckney of South Carolina urged it was “nothing more than justice.” Northern delegates did not want to count the enslaved at all. Slaveholders considered them property; counting them would give a political advantage to the South in terms of representation.

A contentious debate took place about slaves and representation. The North did not want to count enslaved people at all for purposes of representation, whereas the South wanted to count them as fully human. The convention settled on a Three-Fifths Compromise: three enslaved persons would count for every five free persons for the purpose of representation. Not for the last time, southern delegates threatened to walk out of the convention if they did not get their way. William Davie of North Carolina warned that “the business was at an end” if the convention did not accept at least the three-fifths rule (though he wanted the enslaved to count fully).

The final version of the Three-Fifths Compromise stated that representatives and direct taxes would be apportioned among the states according to the number of free persons and “three-fifths of all other persons.” Madison later explained the reason for using “person” instead of “slave.” The delegates did not “admit in the Constitution the idea that there could be property in men.” The Three-Fifths Clause was a compromise. It was a concession, or perhaps even a defeat, in the convention for the South because the section wanted five-fifths. However, it was a victory for the southern slave power in national politics. But the compromise did not validate slavery nationally.

The delegates to the Convention also fiercely debated the importation of enslaved Africans in the international slave trade. The issue became hotly contested after the Committee of Detail report of August 6 banned the national government from ever interfering with the slave trade.

The permanent protection of the slave trade angered many delegates who agreed with George Mason of Virginia, who called the slave trade an “infernal traf[f]ic.” Luther Martin of Maryland averred that the trade was “inconsistent with the principle of the revolution and dishonorable to the American character.” Edward Rutledge of South Carolina defensively argued that “religion and humanity had nothing to do with the question. Interest alone is the governing principle with Nations.” Twelve of 13 states already had bans or high taxes on the slave trade, so the topic was sure to stir debate.

George Mason was a slaveholder, in Virginia but he spoke out against the institution during the convention.

The delegates from North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia strongly argued in favor of the slave trade continuing forever to ensure a constant supply of enslaved Africans. They saw a national limitation on the slave trade as a threat to slavery itself. Charles Pinckney cautioned the people of his South Carolina would “never receive the plan if it prohibits the slave trade.” Many southern states, he predicted, “shall not be parties to the Union.”

A Committee of Eleven— known as the Committee on the Slave Trade —met to hammer out a compromise on the issue. The committee severely curtailed the previous inability of Congress from ever interfering with the slave trade. The committee offered that Congress could not interfere with the institution until 1800. The delegates of the Lower South bargained hard to get the convention to approve pushing the date back to 1808.

The South lost a major point of protecting the slave trade forever but forced a concession of 20 years under threat of disunion. The region, with the help of northern merchants, would tragically import tens of thousands of enslaved Africans during those two decades. Ultimately, in 1807 President Thomas Jefferson called for and Congress passed a law banning the international slave trade on January 1, 1808 — the earliest constitutionally-allowable moment.

After reaching its compromise on the slave trade, the Constitutional Convention addressed a committee’s proposal on fugitive slaves. The question of fugitive slaves became a major issue because northern emancipations meant enslaved persons might run away to free states in the hope of gaining their freedom. A consensus existed on allowing runaways to be claimed by slaveholders based upon state comity, or states respecting the laws of other states. Pierce Butler of Georgia and Charles Pinckney introduced a motion requiring “fugitive slaves and servants to be delivered up like criminals.” Yet many northern delegates opposed the motion because their states did not want to be forced to “deliver up” runaways.

The convention settled upon the Fugitive Slave Clause that read, “No Person held to Service or labor in one State, under the Laws thereof, escaping into another … shall be delivered up on Claim of the Party to whom such Service or labor may be due.” Significantly, the clause did not recognize a property in man, did not compel free states to participate in the recapture, and did not give national sanction to slavery because it stated the institution was under state law. Although the enforcement provision was removed from the final version, it nonetheless declares the fugitive “shall be delivered up.” The ambiguity would produce decades of controversy over who was responsible for enforcing the Fugitive Slave Clause. The Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 would later make highly controversial changes to this understanding and cause a firestorm of outrage and resistance in the North.

The Constitution was ratified in 1788 and became the law of the land. The Constitution did not end slavery, which continued to grow and spread in the South at the same time it receded in the North. However, the Constitution did not protect a property in man, nor did it provide for national validation of the institution. The Constitution supported the concept of “freedom national, slavery local.” That is, slavery was to remain a matter of state and local law. Importantly, the federal government therefore could not interfere with the institution in the states where it already existed. This tenuous compromise related to slavery resulted in a “house divided,” in Abraham Lincoln’s words, “half-slave and half-free.” This had significant consequences for the history of the United States from 1787 to 1865 and after.

The exact character of the Constitution also had significant consequences for how it was understood and interpreted. Some saw the Constitution as a pro-slavery document, even across a broad political spectrum. Radical abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison called the Constitution a “covenant with death” and an “agreement with hell.” Chief Justice Roger Taney endorsed the idea of a pro-slavery Constitution strongly in Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857), which stated Blacks were not citizens of the country and could not be because they were inferior. Senator John Calhoun of South Carolina advanced a similar argument.

Black abolitionist Frederick Douglass agreed with Garrison for several years but then notably changed his mind. After long study and reflection, he defended the idea that the Constitution was anti-slavery. He called the Constitution a “glorious liberty document” and believed it supported anti-slavery principles. Abraham Lincoln concurred and had to navigate the shoals of “freedom national, slavery local” in his decisions related to slavery as president. The Emancipation Proclamation and Thirteenth Amendment showed Lincoln bound by constitutionalism and the virtue of prudence in dealing with slavery.

Scholars on both sides of the question continue to argue about the pro-slavery or anti-slavery character of the U.S. Constitution and what it meant and means to the American republic.

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Essay on Constitution of India

500+ words indian constitution essay for students and children in english.

A Constitution is a set of rules and regulations guiding the administration of a country. The Constitution is the backbone of every democratic and secular fabric of the nation. The Constitution of India is the longest Constitution in the world, which describes the framework for political principles, procedures and powers of the government. The Constitution of India was written on 26 November 1949 and came into force on 26 January 1950. In this essay on the Constitution of India, students will get to know the salient features of India’s Constitution and how it was formed.

Constitution of India Essay

On 26th January 1950, the Constitution of India came into effect. That’s why 26th January is celebrated as Republic Day in India.

How Was the Constitution of India Formed?

The representatives of the Indian people framed the Indian Constitution after a long period of debates and discussions. It is the most detailed Constitution in the world. No other Constitution has gone into such minute details as the Indian Constitution.

The Constitution of India was framed by a Constituent Assembly which was established in 1946. Dr Rajendra Prasad was elected President of the Constituent Assembly. A Drafting Committee was appointed to draft the Constitution and Dr B.R. Ambedkar was appointed as the Chairman. The making of the Constitution took a total of 166 days, which was spread over a period of 2 years, 11 months and 18 days. Some of the salient features of the British, Irish, Swiss, French, Canadian and American Constitutions were incorporated while designing the Indian Constitution.

Also Read: Evolution and Framing of the Constitution

Features of The Constitution of India

The Constitution of India begins with a Preamble which contains the basic ideals and principles of the Constitution. It lays down the objectives of the Constitution.

The Longest Constitution in the world

The Indian Constitution is the lengthiest Constitution in the world. It had 395 articles in 22 parts and 8 schedules at the time of commencement. Now it has 448 articles in 25 parts and 12 schedules. There are 104 amendments (took place on 25th January 2020 to extend the reservation of seats for SCs and STs in the Lok Sabha and state assemblies) that have been made in the Indian Constitution so far.

How Rigid and Flexible is the Indian Constitution?

One of the unique features of our Constitution is that it is not as rigid as the American Constitution or as flexible as the British Constitution. It means it is partly rigid and partly flexible. Owing to this, it can easily change and grow with the change of times.

The Preamble

The Preamble has been added later to the Constitution of India. The original Constitution does not have a preamble. The preamble states that India is a sovereign, socialist, secular and democratic republic. The objectives stated by the Preamble are to secure justice, liberty, and equality for all citizens and promote fraternity to maintain the unity and integrity of the nation.

Federal System with Unitary Features

The powers of the government are divided between the central government and the state governments. The Constitution divides the powers of three state organs, i.e., executive, judiciary and legislature. Hence, the Indian Constitution supports a federal system. It includes many unitary features such as a strong central power, emergency provisions, appointment of Governors by the President, etc.

Fundamental rights and fundamental duties

The Indian Constitution provides an elaborate list of Fundamental Rights to the citizens of India. The Constitution also provides a list of 11 duties of the citizens, known as the Fundamental Duties. Some of these duties include respect for the national flag and national anthem, integrity and unity of the country and safeguarding of public property.

Also Read: Difference between Fundamental Rights and Fundamental Duties

India is a republic which means that a dictator or monarch does not rule the country. The government is of the people, by the people and for the people. Citizens nominate and elect its head after every five years.

Related Read: Constitution of India – 13 Major Features

The Constitution serves as guidelines for every citizen. It helped India to attain the status of a Republic in the world. Once Atal Bihari Vajpayee said that “governments would come and go, political parties would be formed and dissolved, but the country should survive, and democracy should remain there forever”.

We hope that this essay on the “Constitution of India” must have helped students. For the latest updates on ICSE/CBSE/State Board/Competitive Exams, stay tuned to BYJU’S. Also, download the BYJU’S App for watching interesting study videos.

Also Read: Independence Day Essay | Republic Day Essay | Essay on Women Empowerment

Frequently Asked Questions on Constitution of India Essay

Who is the father of our indian constitution.

Dr. B. R. Ambedkar is the father of our Indian Constitution. He framed and drafted our Constitution.

Who signed the Indian Constitution?

Dr. Rajendra Prasad was the first person from the Constitution Assembly to have signed the Indian Constitution.

What is mentioned in the Preamble of our Indian Constitution?

The preamble clearly communicates the purpose and emphasis the importance of the objectives of the Indian Constitution.

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Guest Essay

There’s No Such Thing as an American Bible

By Esau McCaulley

Contributing Opinion Writer

The presumptive Republican nominee for president of the United States, who weeks ago started selling shoes , is now peddling Bibles. During Holy Week.

What’s special about this Bible? So many things. For example, according to a promotional website, it’s the only Bible endorsed by Donald Trump. It’s also the only one endorsed by the country singer Lee Greenwood. Admittedly, the translation isn’t distinctive — it’s your standard King James Version — but the features are unique. This Bible includes the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, the Declaration of Independence, the Pledge of Allegiance and part of the lyrics of Mr. Greenwood’s song “God Bless the USA.” Perhaps most striking, the cover of the Bible does not include a cross or any symbol of the Christian tradition; instead, it is emblazoned with the American flag.

While part of me wants to laugh at the absurdity of it — and marvel at the sheer audacity — I find the messaging unsettling and deeply wrong. This God Bless the USA Bible, as it’s officially named, focuses on God’s blessing of one particular people. That is both its danger and, no doubt for some, its appeal.

Whether this Bible is an example of Christian nationalism I will leave to others. It is at least an example of Christian syncretism, a linking of certain myths about American exceptionalism and the Christian faith. This is the American church’s consistent folly: thinking that we are the protagonists in a story that began long before us and whose main character is in fact the Almighty.

Holy Week is the most sacred portion of the Christian calendar, a time when the church recounts the central events of our faith’s narrative, climaxing in the death and resurrection of Jesus. That story, unlike the parochial God Bless the USA Bible, does not belong to any culture.

Holy Week is celebrated on every continent and in too many languages to number. Some of the immigrants Mr. Trump declared were “ poisoning the blood” of America will probably shout “Christ is risen!” this Easter. Many of them come from the largely Christian regions of Latin America and the Caribbean. They may have entered the country with Bibles in their native tongues nestled securely among their other belongings.

One of the beauties of the Christian faith is that it leaps over the lines dividing countries, leading the faithful to call fellow believers from very different cultures brothers and sisters. Most of the members of this international community consist of the poor living in Africa, Asia and Latin America. There are more Spanish-speaking Christians than English- speaking ones .

If there are central messages that emerge from the variety of services that take place during Holy Week, for many Christians they are the setting aside of power to serve, the supremacy of love, the offer of divine forgiveness and the vulnerability of a crucified God.

This is not the stuff of moneymaking schemes or American presidential campaigns.

It was Pontius Pilate , standing in as the representative of the Roman Empire, who sentenced Jesus to death. The Easter story reminds believers that empires are more than willing to sacrifice the innocent if it allows rulers to stay in power. The church sees Christ’s resurrection as liberating the believer from the power of sin. The story challenges imperial modes of thinking, supplanting the endless pursuit of power with the primacy of love and service.

Easter, using the language of St. Augustine, represents the victory of the City of God over the City of Man. It declares the limits of the moral reasoning of nation-states and has fortified Christians who’ve resisted evil regimes such as fascists in South America, Nazis in Germany, apartheid in South Africa and segregation in the United States.

For any politician to suppose that a nation’s founding documents and a country music song can stand side by side with biblical texts fails at a theological and a moral level. I can’t imagine people in other countries going for anything like it. It is hard to picture a modern “God Bless England” Bible with elements of British common law appended to Christianity’s most sacred texts.

I am glad for the freedoms that we share as Americans. But the idea of a Bible explicitly made for one nation displays a misunderstanding of the story the Bible attempts to tell. The Christian narrative culminates in the creation of the Kingdom (and family) of God, a transnational community united by faith and mutual love.

Roman Catholics , Anglicans and Orthodox Christians, who together claim around 1.5 billion members, describe the Bible as a final authority in matters of faith. Evangelicals, who have overwhelmingly supported Mr. Trump over the course of three election cycles, are known for their focus on Scripture, too. None of these traditions cite or refer to any American political documents in their doctrinal statements — and for good reason.

This Bible may be unique in its form, but the agenda it pursues has recurred throughout history. Christianity is often either co-opted or suppressed; it is rarely given the space to be itself. African American Christians have long struggled to disentangle biblical texts from their misuse in the United States. There is a reason that the abolitionist Frederick Douglass said that between the Christianity of this land (America) and the Christianity of Christ, he recognized the “widest possible difference.”

And while Christianity was used to give theological cover to North American race-based chattel slavery, it was violently attacked in places like El Salvador and Uganda, when leaders including the archbishops Oscar Romero and Janani Luwum spoke out against political corruption.

The work of the church is to remain constantly vigilant to maintain its independence and the credibility of its witness. In the case of this particular Bible, discerning what is happening is not difficult. Christians are being played. Rather than being an appropriate time to debut a patriotic Bible, Easter season is an opportune moment for the church to recover the testimony of the supremacy of the cross over any flag, especially one on the cover of a Bible.

Esau McCaulley ( @esaumccaulley ) is a contributing Opinion writer, the author of “ How Far to the Promised Land: One Black Family’s Story of Hope and Survival in the American South ” and an associate professor of New Testament at Wheaton College.

The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips . And here’s our email: [email protected] .

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