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Constitution of the United States

Constitution of the United States
Constitutional Convention · Public domain · source

Overview

The Constitution of the United States is the supreme law of the United States of America. It superseded the Articles of Confederation, the nation's first constitution, on March 4, 1789. Originally including seven articles, the Constitution defined the foundational structure of the federal government.

The drafting of the Constitution by many of the nation's Founding Fathers, often referred to as its framing, was completed at the Constitutional Convention, which assembled at Independence Hall in Philadelphia between May 25 and September 17, 1787. Influenced by English common law and the Enlightenment liberalism of philosophers like John Locke and Montesquieu, the Constitution's first three articles embody the doctrine of the separation of powers, in which the federal government is divided into the legislative, bicameral Congress; the executive, led by the president; and the judiciary, within which the Supreme Court has apex jurisdiction. Articles IV, V, and VI embody concepts of federalism, describing the rights and responsibilities of state governments, the states in relationship to the federal government, and the process of constitutional amendment. Article VII establishes the procedure used to ratify the constitution.

Since the Constitution became operational in 1789, it has been amended 27 times. The first ten amendments, known collectively as the Bill of Rights, offer specific protections of individual liberty and justice and place restrictions on the powers of government within the U.S. states. Amendments 13–15 are known as the Reconstruction Amendments. The majority of the later amendments expand individual civil rights protections, with some addressing issues related to federal authority or modifying government processes and procedures. Amendments to the United States Constitution, unlike ones made to many constitutions worldwide, are appended to the document.

The Constitution of the United States is the oldest and longest-standing written and codified national constitution in force in the world. The first permanent constitution, it has been interpreted, supplemented, and implemented by a large body of federal constitutional law and has influenced the constitutions of other nations.

Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).

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  1. But as the conduct of the English armies was different, so was that of the whole English nation at that time. In truth, the circumstances of our Revolution (as it is called) and that of France are just the reverse of each other in almost every particular, and in the whole spirit of the transaction. With us it was the case of a legal monarch attempting arbitrary power; in France it is the case of an arbitrary monarch…

    Edmund Burke, The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. 03

    States what Constitution of the United States is; the author is tied to Constitution of the United States in the knowledge graph.

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  2. This Constitution, so ingeniously made invulnerable, was, however, like Achilles, vulnerable at one point: not in its heel, but in its head, or rather, in the two heads into which it ran out—the Legislative Assembly, on the one hand, and the President on the other. Run through the Constitution and it will be found that only those paragraphs wherein the relation of the President to the Legislative Assembly is…

    Karl Marx, The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte

    States what Constitution of the United States is.

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  3. And as a further pledge of the sincere and cordial attachment of this Commonwealth to the union of the whole, so far as has been consented to by the compact called ‘The Constitution of the United States of America,’ (construed according to the plain and ordinary meaning of its language, to the common intendment of the time, and of those who framed it;) to give also to all parties and authorities, time for reflection…

    Thomas Jefferson, Memoir, Correspondence, and Miscellanies, From the Papers of Thomas Jefferson, Volume 4

    Names Constitution of the United States.

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Part of American philosophy.

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