Background information of the us constitution

Following further debates, the instrument was finally submitted to the states for ratification as a new Constitution in September One year later, in September , the new Constitution came into effect. A very short document consisting of seven articles, the Constitution was designed to set up a federal government of limited power and to protect the rights of the states. Articles I-III focus on the power and authority belonging to the three branches of the federal government: the Legislature, the Executive, and the Judiciary. Article IV addresses the relationship among the several states.

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Article V establishes the guidelines for amending the Constitution. The Constitution, as ratified, did not provide for protection of civil liberties. Including the Bill of Rights, the Constitution has been amended twenty-seven times. The 17 additional amendments have addressed several issues, including criminalizing slavery, introducing female suffrage, and ensuring the protection of voting rights.

The most recent amendment, in , established that any law changing the compensation of members of Congress would not take effect until after a new Congressional election had been held.

History of the United States Constitution - Wikipedia

Executive power is vested in the President, who serves a four-year term, renewable once. To qualify for the Presidency, an individual must be a natural born US citizen who has been a resident of the United States for at least fourteen years and is at least thirty-five years old. The President receives foreign diplomats and, with the consent of the Senate, makes treaties.

All legislative power, both enumerated and implied, granted to the federal government vest in the Congress comprised of the House of Representatives and the Senate. Representatives must be at least twenty-five years old, be a citizen of the United States for seven years, and live in the district they represent. Senators must be at least 30 years old, be a citizen for nine years, and live in the state they represent.

Representatives are directly elected for a two-year term, while Senators serve six. The Vice President serves as the President of the Senate.

What is the U.S. Constitution?

Article I, Section 8 enumerates the legislative powers, which include: To make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers, to provide for the common welfare, to provide for and maintain the armed forces, to borrow money and to declare war. The Constitution also gives Congress the power to regulate foreign and interstate commerce.


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The Constitution vests the judicial power of the United States in the Supreme Court and any other inferior courts that may be created. In all cases affecting ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls, and those in which a state is a party, the Supreme Court has original jurisdiction. In all the other cases before mentioned, the Supreme Court has appellate jurisdiction, both as to law and fact, with such exceptions, and under such regulations as the Congress shall make. Because the Court has jurisdiction over issues arising under the Constitution, it has the power of judicial review.

The court can decide whether the actions taken by the states, the executive, or the legislature are constitutional. Supreme Court Justices are nominated by the President and confirmed by a majority of the Senate. Justices have a lifetenure, unless he or she retires or is impeached. The British Parliament repealed the Stamp Act and issued the Declaratory Act, which asserted its "full power and authority to make laws and statutes McCulloch v.

Maryland — Supreme Court ruling prohibited state laws from infringing upon federal Constitutional authority. Eleven pro-slavery southern states secede from Union and form Confederate States of America under leadership of Jefferson Davis, triggering civil war with abolitionist northern states. Civil Rights Act of Enforcement act guaranteeing African Americans equal treatment in public accommodations, public transportation, and prohibited exclusion from jury service.

Constitution of the United States

Plessey v. McCarthyism takes hold of the nation, suppressing all communism and all those suspected of being communist. Brown v. In June , after the Constitution had been ratified by nine states as required by Article VII , Congress set March 4, , as the date for the new government to commence proceedings the first elections under the Constitution were held late in Because ratification in many states was contingent on the promised addition of a Bill of Rights , Congress proposed 12 amendments in September ; 10 were ratified by the states, and their adoption was certified on December 15, One of the original 12 proposed amendments, which prohibited midterm changes in compensation for members of Congress, was ratified in as the Twenty-seventh Amendment.


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The last one, concerning the ratio of citizens per member of the House of Representatives, has never been adopted. It was hoped that the new Constitution would remedy this problem. The framers of the Constitution were especially concerned with limiting the power of government and securing the liberty of citizens. The doctrine of legislative, executive , and judicial separation of powers , the checks and balances of each branch against the others, and the explicit guarantees of individual liberty were all designed to strike a balance between authority and liberty—the central purpose of American constitutional law.

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