Constitution of the United States

On June 11, 1776, the Second Continental Congress appointed three committees, one of which, made up of one representative from each colony, was to determine the form of the confederation; its principal writer was John Dickinson, whose draft named the confederation “the United States of America.” After debate and revision, Congress adopted the Articles of Confederation on November 15, 1777; the engrossed text fills six sheets of parchment.⁠[1]

Ratification by all 13 states was required before the Articles could take effect, and disputes over representation, voting and western lands delayed it; when MarylandMarylandMaryland is a Middle Atlantic state of the United States, deeply indented by Chesapeake Bay and bordered by Pennsylvania, Delaware, Virginia, the District of Columbia and West Virginia; its capital is Annapolis and its largest city is Baltimore. One of the original 13 states, it ratified the U.S. Constitution on April 28, 1788, as the seventh state to do so, and had a population of 6,177,224 in the 2020 census (April 1, 2020).Open the full entry ratified on March 1, 1781, the Congress of the Confederation came into being. The Articles described the union as a “league of friendship” in which each state retained its “sovereignty, freedom and independence”; each state had one vote in Congress, and any change to the Articles needed the agreement of Congress and confirmation by the legislature of every state.⁠[1]

The Congress of the Confederation could decide on peace and war, regulate the value of coin, fix weights and measures and establish post offices, but it could not levy taxes, which were raised by the state legislatures on its requisitions; it lacked sufficient power to regulate commerce and had little ability to settle disputes among the states over territory, war pensions, taxation and trade.⁠[1][2]

Commissioners from VirginiaVirginiaVirginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a U.S. state whose capital is Richmond. It entered the Union on June 25, 1788, as the 10th state, and had a population of 8,631,393 in the 2020 census (April 1, 2020).Open the full entry and Maryland had earlier met at Mount Vernon, the home of George WashingtonGeorge WashingtonGeorge Washington (1732–1799) was the first president of the United States, serving from 1789 to 1797. Earlier he commanded the Continental Army in the American Revolutionary War and presided over the Constitutional Convention of 1787.Open the full entry, to discuss trade between the two states, and suggested a convention at Annapolis to deal with common commercial problems. Nine states agreed to send delegates, but only five state delegations arrived on time.⁠[3]

On September 11, 1786, twelve commissioners from New York, New JerseyNew JerseyNew Jersey is a state in the eastern United States on the Atlantic Ocean, bordered by New York State, Delaware, and Pennsylvania, with the Hudson River forming its northeastern boundary and the Delaware River its western boundary; its capital is Trenton and its largest city is Newark. One of the original 13 colonies, it became the third state to ratify the U.S. Constitution on December 18, 1787, and its population in the 2020 census (April 1, 2020) was 9,288,994.Open the full entry, PennsylvaniaPennsylvaniaPennsylvania (officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania) is a Middle Atlantic state of the United States; its capital is Harrisburg, and Philadelphia and Pittsburgh are its two great metropolitan areas. One of the original 13 states, it ratified the U.S. Constitution on December 12, 1787, the second state to do so. Its population in the 2020 census (April 1, 2020) was 13,002,700.Open the full entry, DelawareDelawareDelaware is a U.S. state in the Mid-Atlantic region on the East Coast, with its capital at Dover and Wilmington as its largest city. On December 7, 1787, it became the first state to ratify the U.S. Constitution, entering the Union as the 1st state, and it had a population of 989,948 in the 2020 census (April 1, 2020).Open the full entry and Virginia met at Annapolis, Maryland. Because so few states were represented they did not take up trade; instead, on September 14, they agreed to a report proposing that the states send commissioners to Philadelphia on the second Monday of the following May to make the constitution of the federal government “adequate to the exigencies of the Union.” The signers included Alexander HamiltonAlexander HamiltonAlexander Hamilton (1755 or 1757–1804) was an American statesman, lawyer, and the first Secretary of the Treasury. He took part in founding the Bank of New York, co-wrote The Federalist Papers with James Madison and John Jay, and promoted policies on public credit, a national bank, and the development of manufacturing. In 1804, he died after being wounded in a duel with Aaron Burr.Open the full entry, James MadisonJames MadisonJames Madison (1751–1836) was the fourth president of the United States, serving from 1809 to 1817. He helped frame the Constitution, co-wrote The Federalist and guided the Bill of Rights through Congress, and earlier served as a U.S. representative and secretary of state.Open the full entry, Edmund Randolph and John Dickinson; the editorial note in Founders Online, relying on James Madison’s later statements, attributes the draft to Alexander Hamilton.⁠[4]

In 1786 farmers in MassachusettsMassachusettsMassachusetts (officially the Commonwealth of Massachusetts) is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States; its capital and largest city is Boston. One of the original 13 states, it ratified the U.S. Constitution on February 6, 1788, the sixth state to do so. Its population in the 2020 census (April 1, 2020) was 7,029,917.Open the full entry led by Daniel Shays, a former captain in the Continental Army, prevented the circuit court from sitting at Northampton and threatened the arsenal at Springfield before state troops put the uprising down. On February 21, 1787, the Confederation Congress endorsed the plan to revise the Articles of Confederation.⁠[5][3]

The Federal Convention was called for May 14, 1787, in the State House (Independence Hall) in Philadelphia, to revise the Articles of Confederation. Only two state delegations were present that day, and the members adjourned from day to day until a quorum of seven states was obtained on May 25.⁠[6]

On May 25 Robert Morris of Pennsylvania nominated George Washington as president of the convention, and the vote was unanimous. The delegates shut the windows of the State House and swore an oath of secrecy, and no reporters or visitors were admitted; Thomas JeffersonThomas JeffersonThomas Jefferson (1743–1826) was the author of the Declaration of Independence and the third president of the United States, serving from 1801 to 1809. He had earlier been governor of Virginia, minister to France, secretary of state and vice president.Open the full entry, writing from Paris, called the secrecy rule “so abominable a precedent.”⁠[5][2]

Every state except Rhode IslandRhode IslandRhode Island (officially the State of Rhode Island) is a U.S. state on the Atlantic Ocean; its capital and largest city is Providence. One of the original 13 states, it ratified the U.S. Constitution on May 29, 1790, the last of the original 13 to do so. Its population in the 2020 census (April 1, 2020) was 1,097,379.Open the full entry appointed delegates, 70 in all, of whom 55 attended sessions. Richard Henry Lee, Patrick Henry, Samuel AdamsSamuel AdamsSamuel Adams (1722–1803) was a politician of the American Revolution and a leader of the Massachusetts radicals who organized resistance to British colonial taxes and troops, served as a delegate to the Continental Congress from 1774 to 1781, signed the Declaration of Independence and later became lieutenant governor and governor of Massachusetts.Open the full entry and John HancockJohn HancockJohn Hancock (1737–1793) was a Boston merchant and a statesman of the American Revolution who presided over the Continental Congress from 1775 to 1777, was the first signer of the Declaration of Independence and later served repeatedly as governor of Massachusetts.Open the full entry were among those who declined or could not attend, and Thomas Jefferson and John AdamsJohn AdamsJohn Adams (1735–1826) was the first vice president (1789–1797) and the second president (1797–1801) of the United States. Earlier he served in the Continental Congress, was a signer of the Treaty of Paris and became the first American minister to Great Britain.Open the full entry were on diplomatic missions in Europe. The oldest delegate was Benjamin FranklinBenjamin FranklinBenjamin Franklin (January 17, 1706 – April 17, 1790) was a printer, publisher, scientist, diplomat, and statesman of colonial North America and the founding era of the United States, and one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. In Philadelphia he ran the Pennsylvania Gazette and published Poor Richard’s Almanack, founded the first lending library in North America, and proposed the school that later became the University of Pennsylvania; known for his electrical experiments and inventions such as the lightning rod, he served as the first Postmaster General of the United States, took part in drafting the Declaration of Independence, signed the treaty between the United States and France while in France, and signed the Treaty of Paris that ended the Revolutionary War.Open the full entry, aged 81, and the youngest was Jonathan Dayton of New Jersey, aged 26.⁠[7][8]

Delegates were appointed by the state legislatures, with no limit on their number; probably 34 of the 55 were lawyers, and 40 had served in the Continental Congress. The twelve states that sent delegates were not all represented throughout: two New York delegates left on July 10, New HampshireNew HampshireNew Hampshire is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States, bordered by Quebec, Canada, to the north, Vermont across the Connecticut River to the west, Massachusetts to the south, and Maine and the Atlantic Ocean to the east; its capital is Concord. One of the original 13 colonies, it became the ninth state to ratify the U.S. Constitution on June 21, 1788, and its population in the 2020 census (April 1, 2020) was 1,377,529.Open the full entry’s delegates arrived on July 23, and no vote ever included more than eleven states. James Madison, aged 36, took notes on the debates without missing a day; in 1837 Andrew JacksonAndrew JacksonAndrew Jackson (1767–1845) was an American soldier and politician who served as President of the United States from 1829 to 1837, after leading U.S. forces to victory at the Battle of New Orleans in the War of 1812.Open the full entry secured from Congress an appropriation of $30,000 to buy his journal and other papers.⁠[9][5]

On May 29 Edmund Randolph, the governor of Virginia, presented the Virginia Plan, drafted by James Madison, which proposed a national government of three branches—legislative, executive and judicial—with checks and balances, and a two-house legislature with seats in both houses proportional to the size of each state. The original 15 resolutions submitted that day have never been found; the surviving text is the revised version of June 13, which has 19 resolutions.⁠[10][11][5]

In the June 13 text the first branch was to be elected by the people for three years and the second chosen by the state legislatures, its members at least 30 years old and serving seven years. A single national executive, chosen by the national legislature for seven years, could veto legislative acts subject to override by two-thirds of each branch; there was to be one supreme tribunal whose judges, appointed by the second branch, would serve during good behavior; and the national legislature could negative state laws contrary to the articles of union or to treaties.⁠[10]

The small states wanted to keep the equal vote they had under the Articles of Confederation; William Paterson of New Jersey stated that a confederacy “supposes sovereignty in the members composing it & sovereignty supposes equality.” On June 15 he presented the New Jersey Plan for a one-house legislature with one vote per state; the convention rejected it on June 19 and affirmed a two-house legislature on June 21. On June 18 Alexander Hamilton presented a plan of his own, with an executive and senators serving during good behavior, which won no support.⁠[12][5]

The large states argued for representation by population on the ground that they contributed more to the nation’s finances and defense. On June 11 the convention adopted proportional representation for the House, based on the “whole number of white & other free Citizens” plus “three fifths of all other persons”; Roger Sherman of Connecticut, supported by Oliver Ellsworth, moved for equal suffrage in the Senate, and the motion lost by one vote.⁠[12][11]

On July 2 another vote on equal representation in the Senate ended in a tie, and the convention appointed a “Grand Committee.” The committee brought back Sherman’s proposal with a provision added by Benjamin Franklin that revenue and spending bills originate in the House. On July 16 the delegates narrowly adopted this mixed plan, giving the states equal votes in the Senate; it is known as the “Great Compromise” or the “Connecticut Compromise.”⁠[12]

Earlier, on June 7, the delegates had approved the election of senators by the state legislatures, and on June 26 they adopted six-year Senate terms by 7 votes to 4 and, by the same margin, a system of three classes with one-third of the senators chosen every two years. The convention later agreed unanimously on two senators for each state and decided that senators would vote as individuals rather than as state delegations, with only Maryland opposed. In the finished Constitution representatives and direct taxes are apportioned among the states by population, counting “three fifths of all other Persons” in addition to free persons—that is, enslaved people were counted at three-fifths—and the compromise gave each state one representative in the House for every 30,000 people.⁠[11][13][2]

On July 24 the convention appointed a Committee of Detail—John Rutledge, Edmund Randolph, Nathaniel Gorham, Oliver Ellsworth and James Wilson—to put its decisions into writing, and then adjourned until August 6. The committee worked from the convention’s resolutions, the state constitutions and the Articles of Confederation; Edmund Randolph wrote a rough draft, James Wilson revised it, and the printers John Dunlap and David Claypoole printed copies for the delegates, which were kept secret.⁠[9][14]

The draft that the committee delivered on August 6 had a preamble and twenty-three articles containing fifty-seven sections. George Washington’s working copy of this printed draft is held by the National Archives and Records AdministrationNational Archives and Records AdministrationThe National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) is an independent agency of the United States federal government whose mission is to provide public access to the federal government records in its custody and control. It was established in 1934 and has borne its present name since 1985.Open the full entry.⁠[9][2]

On August 21 Luther Martin of Maryland proposed a tax on the importation of slaves, opening a heated debate on slavery and commerce. George Mason later described the outcome as a “bargain”: South CarolinaSouth CarolinaSouth Carolina (officially the State of South Carolina) is a U.S. state on the Atlantic Ocean bordering Georgia and North Carolina; its capital is Columbia and its most populous city is Charleston. One of the original 13 states, it ratified the U.S. Constitution on May 23, 1788, the eighth state to do so. Its population in the 2020 census (April 1, 2020) was 5,118,425.Open the full entry and Georgia secured twenty more years of slave importation in exchange for allowing navigation laws to pass by a simple majority. The final text bars Congress from prohibiting such importation before 1808 while permitting a tax of up to ten dollars on each person.⁠[5][15]

On September 7 the delegates voted 8 to 2 to make the vice president the president of the Senate, with a vote only in case of a tie, and unanimously adopted the clause under which the president nominates officers “by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate”; on September 8 they passed, 8 to 2, the final measure giving the Senate the power to try impeachments.⁠[11]

Debate on the draft continued until September 8, when a Committee of Style—William Samuel Johnson, Alexander Hamilton, Gouverneur Morris, James Madison and Rufus King—was named to revise it. In less than four days the committee condensed twenty-three articles into seven, and on September 12 it presented the draft in approximately its final shape; the literary form is believed to be largely the work of Gouverneur Morris, and the committee wrote the Preamble.⁠[9][2]

From September 12 the delegates went through the text section by section. On September 15 Edmund Randolph proposed that state conventions offer amendments to be settled by another general convention; George Mason and Elbridge Gerry joined him, and the proposal was rejected. The final vote was taken late that afternoon, and every state delegation answered “Aye.”⁠[5]

Jacob Shallus, assistant clerk of the Pennsylvania General Assembly, spent about 40 hours engrossing the final text on four sheets of parchment and was paid $30; each sheet measures about 28¾ by 23⅝ inches, and the text runs to 4,543 words including the signatures. His name does not appear on the document, and the engrosser’s identity was established only in 1937, for the 150th anniversary of the Constitution.⁠[8][9]

At the last session, on September 17, James Wilson read a speech written by Benjamin Franklin. George Washington signed first, followed by the state delegations in order from north to south. The document bears 39 signatures, one of them that of the absent John Dickinson, added at his request by his fellow Delaware delegate George Read; Edmund Randolph, George Mason and Elbridge Gerry, who were present, refused to sign, and fourteen delegates had already gone home. The National Archives account attributes the three refusals to the absence of a bill of rights.⁠[5][8][9]

The attestation records that the document was “done in Convention by the Unanimous Consent of the States present,” witnessed by William Jackson, the convention’s secretary; only eleven states voted on the final question. George Washington and William Jackson also signed a fifth page, the Resolution of Transmittal, which set out how the Constitution was to be submitted to the states for ratification. The convention adjourned at 4 o’clock in the afternoon, and the printers worked through the night on a six-page printing of the Constitution, copies of which left Philadelphia on the morning stage.⁠[15][9][16][17][5]

The Constitution was submitted to the 13 states on September 28, 1787. Under Article VII it was to be ratified not by the state legislatures but by specially elected conventions, and “The Ratification of the Conventions of nine States, shall be sufficient for the Establishment of this Constitution”; the framers expected the legislatures to resist giving up power to a national government. At the time only 6 of the 13 states showed a majority in favor of the Constitution.⁠[18][2][15]

Those who favored ratification were called Federalists and those who opposed it Antifederalists. The opponents held that the powerful central government it created resembled the one they had just overthrown, and that it lacked a bill of rights. On October 5, 1787, Samuel Bryan published the first of his “Centinel” essays in Philadelphia’s Independent Gazetteer; essays signed “Cato” attacked the Constitution in New York newspapers, and many Americans, persuaded by a pamphlet written by George Mason, opposed the new government. Patrick Henry attacked the Constitution before the Virginia convention for its vagueness and lack of specific protection against tyranny, and Richard Henry Lee deplored its lack of provisions to protect essential rights.⁠[9][2][5][19]

On October 27, 1787, the Independent Journal of New York printed the first essay signed “Publius.” The 85 essays, written by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and John JayJohn JayJohn Jay (1745–1829) was an American Founding Father, lawyer and diplomat who presided over the Continental Congress, served as secretary of foreign affairs under the Articles of Confederation, helped negotiate the Treaty of Paris that ended the Revolutionary War, became the first Chief Justice of the United States and later served as governor of New York.Open the full entry between October 1787 and May 1788, appeared mainly in The New York Packet and The Independent Journal and were meant to persuade New Yorkers to ratify the Constitution; a bound edition with revisions by Alexander Hamilton, The Federalist, was printed by J. and A. McLean in 1788. The Library of CongressLibrary of CongressThe Library of Congress is the library of the United States Congress. Founded in 1800 and housed on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., it answers reference requests from Congress, the public and other federal agencies.Open the full entry table of authors assigns 51 essays to Alexander Hamilton, 15 to James Madison and 5 to John Jay, lists 11 as “Hamilton or Madison” and 3 as written jointly by the two.⁠[20][21]

No. 10, by James Madison, challenged the assumption that individual rights can be secured only in small countries with homogeneous populations; No. 78, by Alexander Hamilton, deals with the judiciary, and his No. 84 answers miscellaneous objections to the Constitution. The bound edition helped the ratification campaigns in New York and Virginia; the Library of Congress also notes that The Federalist was one of many perspectives in a national debate.⁠[20][21]

On September 29, 1787, a Philadelphia mob dragged two Antifederalist members to the State House to make up a quorum of the Pennsylvania assembly. Delaware was the first state to ratify, unanimously with 30 votes, on December 7, 1787; Pennsylvania followed on December 12 by 46 votes to 23, New Jersey on December 18 unanimously with 38 votes, Georgia on January 2, 1788, unanimously with 26 votes, and ConnecticutConnecticutConnecticut is a U.S. state in the New England region. Its capital is Hartford and its largest city is Bridgeport (2010 census). It entered the Union on January 9, 1788, as the 5th state, and had a population of 3,605,944 in the 2020 census (April 1, 2020).Open the full entry on January 9 by 128 to 40.⁠[5][22]

The contest in Massachusetts was close. The Federalists agreed that the convention would recommend a list of amendments amounting to a bill of rights, John Hancock, at first kept away by gout, delivered a critical block of votes, and on February 6, 1788, the convention ratified by 187 votes to 168; this “vote now, amend later” approach is known as the Massachusetts Compromise, and six of the remaining states appended similar recommendations.⁠[5][2][22][23]

On March 24, 1788, Rhode Island rejected the Constitution in a popular referendum by about 10 to 1. Maryland ratified on April 28 by 63 votes to 11, the only remaining state convention that did not recommend amendments, and South Carolina on May 23 by 149 to 73. On June 21 a reconvened convention in New Hampshire ratified, making it the ninth state; the National Constitution Center gives the vote as 57 to 47, the Senate Manual as 57 to 46.⁠[5][22][23]

Virginia ratified on June 25, 1788, by 89 votes to 79 and New York on July 26 by 30 to 27, both adding amendments of their own. The state conventions offered seventy-eight amendments in all, not counting Rhode Island’s twenty-one or those demanded by the first convention in North CarolinaNorth CarolinaNorth Carolina is a state in the South Atlantic region of the United States; its capital is Raleigh and its largest city is Charlotte. One of the original 13 states, it ratified the U.S. Constitution on November 21, 1789, becoming the 12th state, and its population in the 2020 census was 10,439,388.Open the full entry.⁠[22][5][9]

The Confederation Congress received notice of New Hampshire’s ratification on July 2, 1788, and appointed a committee to arrange the first federal elections. Its resolution of September 13 provided that the ratifying states appoint electors on the first Wednesday in January 1789, that the electors vote for president on the first Wednesday in February, and that proceedings under the Constitution begin on the first Wednesday in March—March 4, 1789—at the seat of Congress, then New York City.⁠[9][14]

The old Confederation went out of existence on March 3, 1789, and the new government began legally to function on March 4, as the Supreme Court of the United StatesSupreme Court of the United StatesThe Supreme Court of the United States is the highest court of the U.S. federal judiciary. Established under the Constitution and the Judiciary Act of 1789, it has consisted since 1869 of a Chief Justice and eight Associate Justices and sits in Washington, D.C.Open the full entry held in Owings v. Speed; both houses of Congress did not have quorums until April 6. George Washington received 69 electoral votes, all that were cast: of the 81 there should have been, two electors each in Virginia and Maryland did not vote, and New York’s eight votes were not cast because its legislature could not agree on how to appoint electors. He was inaugurated as president on April 30, 1789.⁠[9]

The Judiciary Act of September 24, 1789, drafted largely by Senator Oliver Ellsworth, organized the Supreme Court with a chief justice and five associate justices, gave each state a district court and created a three-tiered court system; George Washington appointed John Jay chief justice, and the Court held its first session on February 2, 1790.⁠[9][24]

North Carolina ratified the Constitution on November 21, 1789; the Encyclopedia of North Carolina article published on NCpedia gives the vote as 194 to 77, the Senate Manual as 184 to 77. Rhode Island ratified on May 29, 1790, by 34 to 32, the last of the 13 states to do so.⁠[22][25][24]

James Madison and other supporters of the Constitution had argued that a bill of rights was unnecessary because the government could exercise only the powers the Constitution specified. On June 8, 1789, he introduced a list of amendments in the First Congress, concentrating on rights and setting aside proposals that would have changed the structure of the government.⁠[19]

The House passed a joint resolution containing 17 amendments, the Senate reduced them to 12, and a conference committee of the two houses settled the remaining differences in September 1789. On September 25 Congress proposed the 12 amendments to the state legislatures, and on October 2 George Washington sent them to the states.⁠[19][26]

William Lambert and Benjamin Bankson, the engrossing clerks of the House and Senate, made 14 handwritten copies, which were signed by Speaker of the House Frederick Muhlenberg, Vice President John Adams, Clerk of the House John Beckley and Secretary of the Senate Samuel A. Otis. A copy went to each of the 11 states then in the Union and to Rhode Island and North Carolina, which had not yet ratified the Constitution. Delaware applied its certificate of ratification and state seal directly to the parchment it had received, dated January 28, 1790; that copy is now in the National Archives.⁠[27]

By December 15, 1791, three-fourths of the state legislatures had ratified articles 3 to 12 of the twelve, which became the first ten amendments, known as the Bill of Rights. The original second article, on the pay of members of Congress, was not ratified at the time, and the original first article, on the number of constituents for each representative, was never ratified.⁠[26]

The First Amendment forbids Congress to make laws “respecting an establishment of religion” and protects the free exercise of religion, speech, the press, peaceable assembly and petition; the Second concerns the right of the people to “keep and bear Arms”; the Third limits the quartering of soldiers in private homes; the Fourth forbids unreasonable searches and seizures and requires probable cause for warrants. The Fifth requires grand-jury indictment for serious crimes, bars double jeopardy and compelled self-incrimination, guarantees due process of law and requires just compensation when private property is taken for public use.⁠[26][28]

The Sixth guarantees criminal defendants a speedy and public trial by an impartial jury, notice of the charges, confrontation of witnesses and the assistance of counsel; the Seventh preserves jury trial in civil suits where more than twenty dollars is in dispute; the Eighth forbids excessive bail and fines and “cruel and unusual punishments.” The Ninth provides that the enumeration of certain rights shall not be construed to deny others retained by the people, and the Tenth reserves to the states or to the people the powers not delegated to the United States nor prohibited to the states.⁠[26][28]

After the Supreme Court ruled that a citizen of South Carolina could sue the State of GeorgiaGeorgia (U.S. state)The State of Georgia is a U.S. state in the Deep South whose capital and largest city is Atlanta. It ratified the U.S. Constitution on January 2, 1788, becoming the 4th state, and had a population of 10,711,908 in the 2020 census (April 1, 2020).Open the full entry over unpaid Revolutionary War debts, Congress passed the Eleventh Amendment on March 4, 1794, and it was ratified on February 7, 1795. It provides that the federal judicial power does not extend to suits against a state by citizens of another state or by citizens or subjects of a foreign state, modifying Article III, Section 2.⁠[17][29]

The presidential election of 1800 ended in a tie that was decided by the House of Representatives. Congress passed the Twelfth Amendment on December 9, 1803, and it was ratified on June 15, 1804; it requires electors to cast separate ballots for president and vice president and superseded part of Article II, Section 1. No further amendment was added for sixty-one years, the longest such interval.⁠[17][29][9]

The text of the Constitution does not expressly provide for judicial review. State courts had overturned acts of state legislatures before 1789, and Alexander Hamilton and James Madison both stressed the function in The Federalist. In Hylton v. United States (1796) the Court upheld a carriage tax.⁠[30][9]

In 1801 the outgoing president, John Adams, issued William Marbury a commission as justice of the peace for the county of Washington in the District of Columbia; the new secretary of state, James Madison, refused to deliver it, and William Marbury sued. In 1803 the Court, in an opinion by Chief Justice John MarshallJohn MarshallJohn Marshall (1755–1835) was an American statesman and jurist who served as a U.S. Representative and Secretary of State and, from 1801 to 1835, as Chief Justice of the United States, establishing the principle of judicial review in Marbury v. Madison.Open the full entry, held that he had a right to the commission but that the statutory provision authorizing the Supreme Court to issue a writ of mandamus in such a case went beyond the original jurisdiction allowed by the Constitution and was therefore void, and it discharged the rule.⁠[31]

The opinion states: “It is emphatically the province and duty of the judicial department to say what the law is.” It was the first time the Supreme Court declared unconstitutional a law passed by Congress and signed by the president; no other law was declared unconstitutional until the Dred Scott decision of 1857.⁠[31]

The Emancipation Proclamation issued by Abraham LincolnAbraham LincolnAbraham Lincoln (February 12, 1809 – April 15, 1865) was the 16th president of the United States (1861–1865). Born to a frontier farming family in Kentucky, he had less than a year of formal schooling, taught himself law, and served in the Illinois legislature and the U.S. House of Representatives before winning the presidency as the Republican candidate in 1860. During the Civil War he preserved the Union, issued the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863 and pushed the Thirteenth Amendment abolishing slavery through Congress. He was shot by John Wilkes Booth at Ford’s Theatre in Washington on April 14, 1865, and died the next day.Open the full entry in 1863 applied only to areas of the Confederacy in rebellion, not to the loyal border states. The Senate passed the Thirteenth Amendment in April 1864; the House at first did not, and then passed it on January 31, 1865, by 119 votes to 56. On February 1 Abraham Lincoln signed the joint resolution submitting it to the state legislatures. Ratified on December 6, 1865, it provides that “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude” shall exist in the United States except as punishment for a crime of which the party has been duly convicted, and it superseded part of Article IV, Section 2.⁠[32][17][29]

Congress passed the Fourteenth Amendment on June 13, 1866, and submitted it to the states on June 16; it was ratified on July 9, 1868, and a certificate of the secretary of state dated July 28, 1868, declared it ratified by 28 of the 37 states. Section 1 makes “All persons born or naturalized in the United States” citizens and forbids any state to deprive any person of life, liberty or property “without due process of law” or to deny any person “the equal protection of the laws”; the primary author of Section 1 was Representative John A. Bingham of Ohio.⁠[33][29]

Section 2 apportions seats in the House by “the whole number of persons” in each state, ending the three-fifths rule; Section 3 bars from certain offices those who, having sworn to support the Constitution, engaged in insurrection or rebellion, a disability Congress may remove by a two-thirds vote of each house; Section 4 affirms the validity of the public debt of the United States and voids debts incurred in aid of rebellion and claims for the loss or emancipation of slaves; Section 5 empowers Congress to enforce the amendment by legislation.⁠[33][17]

Congress passed the Fifteenth Amendment on February 26, 1869, and it was ratified on February 3, 1870; it provides that the right of citizens to vote shall not be denied or abridged “on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.” From the early 1890s literacy tests, “grandfather clauses” and other devices were written into the laws of former Confederate states to disenfranchise Black voters; the Voting Rights Act of 1965 abolished the remaining deterrents to exercising the right to vote.⁠[34][29]

Congress passed the Sixteenth Amendment on July 2, 1909; it was ratified by the thirty-sixth state on February 3, 1913, and declared ratified on February 25. It empowers Congress to tax “incomes, from whatever source derived” without apportionment among the states, modifying Article I, Section 9.⁠[29][9]

Resolutions for the direct election of senators appeared in the House as early as 1826. In 1895 the Delaware legislature took 217 ballots over 114 days without choosing a senator, and the state went unrepresented in the Senate for two years; early in the twentieth century OregonOregonOregon (officially the State of Oregon) is a state on the Pacific coast of the western United States; its capital is Salem and its largest city is Portland. It was admitted to the Union on February 14, 1859, as the 33rd state. Its population in the 2020 census (April 1, 2020) was 4,237,256.Open the full entry let voters express their choice for senator, and by 1912 as many as 29 states chose senators through party primaries or general elections. Senator Joseph Bristow of Kansas offered a resolution to amend the Constitution in 1911, and the Senate passed it on June 12, 1911; Congress completed passage of the Seventeenth Amendment on May 13, 1912, and Connecticut’s approval on April 8, 1913, supplied the required three-fourths. The amendment replaced “chosen by the Legislature thereof” with “elected by the people thereof”; 1914 was the first year in which all Senate elections were held by popular vote.⁠[35][29]

The Eighteenth Amendment, passed by Congress on December 18, 1917, and ratified on January 16, 1919, prohibited the manufacture, sale and transportation of intoxicating liquors “for beverage purposes”; it was enforced through the National Prohibition Act, known as the Volstead Act.⁠[29][17]

The House of Representatives passed the Nineteenth Amendment on May 21, 1919, and the Senate on June 4 by 56 votes to 25; TennesseeTennesseeTennessee is a U.S. state in the southeast-central United States, with its capital at Nashville. It was admitted to the Union on June 1, 1796, as the 16th state, and the 2020 census (April 1, 2020) counted 6,910,840 residents.Open the full entry became the thirty-sixth state to ratify on August 18, 1920, and Secretary of State Bainbridge Colby certified the ratification on August 26. The amendment provides that the right to vote shall not be denied or abridged “on account of sex”; Woodrow WilsonWoodrow WilsonWoodrow Wilson (1856–1924) was an American scholar and politician who served as president of Princeton University and governor of New Jersey and was the 28th president of the United States from 1913 to 1921, leading the country through World War I and proposing the League of Nations.Open the full entry had voiced his support for it in 1918.⁠[29][36][37][17]

The engrossed Constitution passed into the custody of the Department of State in 1789 and travelled with the government from New York to Philadelphia and then to Washington; in 1814, before the British attack on Washington, it was moved to Leesburg, Virginia. Before the 1920s it was never exhibited, and it is mentioned only a few times in the historical record.⁠[16][5]

In 1920 a committee of scholars studied how the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution could be permanently preserved and whether they could be exhibited. On September 29, 1921, on the recommendation of Secretary of State Charles Evans Hughes, Warren G. HardingWarren G. HardingWarren G. Harding (1865–1923) was an American newspaper publisher and politician who served as lieutenant governor of Ohio and as a U.S. senator before becoming the 29th president of the United States in March 1921; he died in office in August 1923.Open the full entry issued an executive order transferring both documents to the Library of Congress; the next day the Librarian of Congress, Herbert Putnam, took them to the Library in a Model-T Ford truck and placed them in the safe in his office.⁠[16][5]

Congress voted twelve thousand dollars for a suitable exhibit. The shrine at the Library was dedicated on February 28, 1924, and the Constitution went on public display for the first time.⁠[16][38][5]

On December 23, 1941, the Declaration and the Constitution were removed from the shrine and sent for safekeeping to the bullion depository at Fort Knox, KentuckyKentuckyKentucky is a U.S. state bordered by Illinois, Indiana and Ohio to the north, West Virginia and Virginia to the east, Tennessee to the south and Missouri to the west; its capital is Frankfort and its largest city is Louisville. It entered the Union on June 1, 1792, as the 15th state and the first state west of the Appalachian Mountains, and had a population of 4,505,836 in the 2020 census (April 1, 2020).Open the full entry; on October 1, 1944, they were again on view at the Library of Congress.⁠[38][16]

The Twentieth Amendment, passed by Congress on March 2, 1932, and ratified by the thirty-sixth state on January 23, 1933, fixed noon on January 20 as the start of the terms of the president and vice president and January 3 as the start of congressional terms; it is called the “Lame Duck” Amendment.⁠[29][17][9]

The Twenty-first Amendment, passed by Congress on February 20, 1933, and ratified on December 5, 1933, repealed the Eighteenth. It is the only amendment that repeals an earlier amendment in its entirety and the only one ratified by state conventions rather than state legislatures.⁠[29][17]

The Twenty-second Amendment, passed by Congress on March 21, 1947, and ratified on February 27, 1951, provides that “No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice”; the two-term tradition had remained unbroken until Franklin D. RooseveltFranklin D. RooseveltFranklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945) was an American politician who served as the 32nd president of the United States from 1933 to 1945, the only president elected four times; he led the country through the Great Depression and World War II and greatly expanded the federal government’s role through the New Deal.Open the full entry won third and fourth terms in 1940 and 1944.⁠[29][17]

The Twenty-third Amendment (passed June 16, 1960; ratified March 29, 1961) lets the district that is the seat of government appoint electors for president and vice president, no more than the least populous state. The Twenty-fourth (passed August 27, 1962; ratified January 23, 1964) forbids denying the vote in federal elections for failure to pay a poll tax or any other tax; when it was ratified, five states still had a poll tax: AlabamaAlabamaAlabama is a U.S. state in the Southeast on the Gulf of Mexico, with its capital at Montgomery. It was admitted to the Union on December 14, 1819, as the 22nd state, and the 2020 census (April 1, 2020) counted 5,024,279 residents.Open the full entry, ArkansasArkansasArkansas is a U.S. state bounded on the east by the Mississippi River; its capital and largest city is Little Rock. Arkansas was admitted to the Union on June 15, 1836, as the 25th state. Its population at the 2020 Census (April 1, 2020) was 3,011,524.Open the full entry, MississippiMississippiMississippi is a state of the United States on the Gulf of Mexico; Jackson is both its capital and its largest city. It was admitted to the Union on December 10, 1817, as the 20th state, and its population in the 2020 census (April 1, 2020) was 2,961,279.Open the full entry, TexasTexasTexas is a U.S. state in the south-central United States, with its capital at Austin and its largest city Houston. It was admitted to the Union on December 29, 1845, as the 28th state, and the 2020 census (April 1, 2020) counted 29,145,505 residents.Open the full entry and Virginia.⁠[29][17]

After the assassination of John F. KennedyJohn F. KennedyJohn F. Kennedy (1917–1963) was an American politician who represented Massachusetts in the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate and served as the 35th president of the United States from 1961 to 1963. The youngest person elected president and the first Roman Catholic to hold the office, he was assassinated in Dallas on November 22, 1963.Open the full entry in 1963, Congress proposed the Twenty-fifth Amendment on July 6, 1965; ratified on February 10, 1967, it deals with succession to the presidency, the filling of a vacancy in the vice presidency and presidential inability. The Twenty-sixth, passed by Congress on March 23, 1971, and ratified on July 1, 1971, lowered the voting age from 21 to 18 and was ratified more quickly than any other amendment.⁠[29][17]

The Twenty-seventh Amendment was one of the twelve articles Congress proposed in 1789; enough states had ratified it only by May 7, 1992, nearly 203 years later; the Archivist of the United States, Don Wilson, certified it on May 18, 1992, as effective from May 7. It provides that a law varying the pay of senators and representatives cannot take effect “until an election of Representatives shall have intervened.”⁠[17][39][29]

The Bill of Rights had gone directly from the Department of State to the National Archives in 1938. In 1951 the National Bureau of Standards sealed the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution in helium-filled glass cases, and a ceremony at the Library of Congress on September 17, 1951, marked the new encasement.⁠[38][16]

At 11 a.m. on December 13, 1952, the documents were formally handed over at the Library of Congress. The six parchment sheets, in their helium-filled cases inside wooden crates, were laid on mattresses in an armored Marine Corps personnel carrier and, escorted by light tanks and motorcycles, reached the National Archives Building at 11:35 a.m., where the Archivist of the United States took custody. The enshrining ceremony began at 10:15 a.m. on December 15 in the Exhibition Hall, with Chief Justice Fred M. Vinson presiding; Harry S. TrumanHarry S. TrumanHarry S. Truman (1884–1972) was an American politician who served as a U.S. senator from Missouri and as vice president in 1945, succeeding Franklin D. Roosevelt on his death that year and serving as the 33rd president of the United States from 1945 to 1953, a period spanning the end of World War II and the early Cold War.Open the full entry said there, “We are enshrining these documents for future ages.”⁠[16][5]

From then until 2001 the first and last pages of the Constitution were displayed with the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights.⁠[38]

A 1995 examination of the cases holding the Bill of Rights and the Declaration of Independence found microscopic crystals on the inner surfaces of the glass, which experts judged not to be an immediate threat to the documents. The National Archives, working with NIST, NASANASAThe National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is the U.S. federal agency responsible for the civilian space program, aeronautics research and space science. Established by law in 1958 and headquartered in Washington, D.C., it has run programs including Mercury, the Apollo Moon landings, the Space Shuttle, the International Space Station and Artemis.Open the full entry and Heery International, built new encasements with frames of nickel-plated titanium and bases of aluminum alloy, filled with argon in place of helium; a 1998 grant of $800,000 from the Pew Charitable Trusts paid for the prototype, and Congress appropriated $4 million for the cases, a monitoring laboratory and a new vault.⁠[38]

The exhibition side of the National Archives Building closed on July 5, 2001, and the documents received conservation treatment in the agency’s Document Conservation Lab. The Rotunda for the Charters of Freedom was rededicated on September 17, 2003, in a ceremony attended by George W. BushGeorge W. BushGeorge W. Bush (born 1946) is an American politician and Republican who worked in the energy business and was a part owner of the Texas Rangers baseball team before becoming the 46th governor of Texas in 1995 and serving as the 43rd president of the United States from 2001 to 2009.Open the full entry, and reopened to the public on September 18, displaying all four pages of the Constitution for the first time.⁠[38][40]

Section 106 of Title 36 of the United States Code designates September 17 as Constitution Day and Citizenship Day, commemorating the formation and signing of the Constitution in 1787 and honoring those who have become citizens by coming of age or by naturalization. The provision derives from an act of February 29, 1952, and the day was originally named Citizenship Day; in 1956 Congress also established Constitution Week, beginning each year on September 17.⁠[41][42]

In 2004 Senator Robert C. Byrd of West Virginia sponsored the legislation; Public Law 108–447 of December 8, 2004, added “Constitution Day and” to the name and requires each federal agency to give new employees educational and training materials on the Constitution and to provide such materials to all employees on September 17 each year, and each educational institution receiving federal funds to hold an educational program on the Constitution for its students on that day.⁠[42][41]

From September 16 to October 9, 2025, the National Archives displayed the entire Constitution: the original together with the fifth page, the engrossed Bill of Rights of 1789 and the Eleventh through Twenty-seventh Amendments. The agency described it as the first such display and as only the second time the fifth page had been shown there.⁠[17]

As of November 2026 the Constitution has 27 amendments, the most recent ratified in 1992, and all four pages of the document are on permanent display at the National Archives.⁠[13][43]

The Preamble opens “We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union,” names six purposes and declares that the people “do ordain and establish this Constitution.” The National Archives account observes that under the Articles of Confederation the states acted together only for specific purposes, whereas the Constitution placed the power of the union in the people.⁠[43]

Articles I through III establish the legislative, executive and judicial branches; Articles IV through VII deal with relations between the states and the federal government, the amendment process, the Constitution’s standing as supreme law and ratification. BritannicaEncyclopædia BritannicaEncyclopædia Britannica is a general English-language encyclopedia first published in Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1768; the name also refers to its publisher, Chicago-based Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. (which presents itself as The Britannica Group). The print edition ended in 2012, and the company’s main businesses since then have been the online encyclopedia Britannica.com, digital education products for schools and libraries, and Merriam-Webster dictionaries.Open the full entry describes it as the oldest written national constitution in use; the National Archives calls it the oldest written constitution in effect in the world and one of the shortest.⁠[24][18][17]

Article I, Section 1 provides that “All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States,” consisting of a Senate and a House of Representatives. Representatives serve two-year terms and must be at least 25 years old and seven years a citizen; senators must be nine years a citizen. An enumeration of the population is to be made within three years of the first meeting of Congress and every ten years thereafter.⁠[15][13]

Revenue bills must originate in the House. The president has ten days, Sundays excepted, to act on a bill passed by Congress, and two-thirds of each house can override a veto. The House brings impeachments, and conviction requires the concurrence of two-thirds of the senators present.⁠[13][44][11]

Section 8 lists the powers of Congress, among them to levy taxes, borrow money, regulate “Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes,” raise military forces and declare war, with army appropriations limited to two years; its final clause authorizes all laws “necessary and proper” for carrying those powers into execution. Section 9 forbids bills of attainder and ex post facto laws, and Section 10 bars the states from making treaties or coining money.⁠[44][13][28]

Article II, Section 1 provides: “The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America.” The president serves a four-year term, is chosen through the Electoral College, and must be a natural-born citizen, at least 35 years old and fourteen years a resident of the United States.⁠[15][24][13]

The president is commander in chief and may make treaties with the concurrence of two-thirds of the senators present; appointments of judges, cabinet members and other officers require the consent of the Senate. The president, vice president and all civil officers are removed from office on impeachment for and conviction of “Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.”⁠[44][13]

Article III, Section 1 provides that “The judicial Power of the United States, shall be vested in one supreme Court” and in such inferior courts as Congress may establish, with judges holding office during good behavior. The article is shorter than the first two, the convention having left most of the planning of the court system to the First Congress. Conviction of treason requires the testimony of two witnesses to the same overt act or a confession in open court.⁠[15][24][13]

The Constitution limits the courts to “Cases” and “Controversies”; John Jay declined to advise George Washington, and the Supreme Court does not give advisory opinions. Its constitutional rulings can be altered only by constitutional amendment or by a new ruling of the Court, whereas its interpretations of statutes can be changed by new legislation. In the words of John Marshall, “We must never forget that it is a constitution we are expounding.”⁠[30]

Article IV requires each state to give full faith and credit to the public acts, records and judicial proceedings of the others and to accord citizens of other states the same privileges and immunities as its own; Congress may legislate on how states honor one another’s acts and records. It also provides that “The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government” and promises protection against invasion and, on a state’s request, against domestic violence.⁠[44][24][15]

Article VI, Clause 2—the Supremacy Clause—provides that the Constitution, the laws of the United States made in pursuance of it and treaties “shall be the supreme Law of the Land,” binding the judges in every state notwithstanding anything to the contrary in a state’s constitution or laws; where a state law conflicts with federal law, federal law prevails.⁠[15][24][44]

Article VI also keeps debts contracted before the adoption of the Constitution valid and provides that “no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.” Article VII sets out the method of ratification, which bound only the states that ratified.⁠[13][15]

The National Archives summarizes the arrangement of the three branches thus: “A system of checks and balances prevents any one of these separate powers from becoming dominant.” The essays of The Federalist answered fears that a distant national government would become despotic by arguing that distributing power among the branches provides checks and balances; No. 51 says: “you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.”⁠[24][20][45]

Britannica notes that custom and practice not found in the text, such as political parties and the cabinet, also shape the Constitution’s meaning, and that the president’s informal powers, for example in proposing legislation, have grown beyond the text. An essay by the State Department’s Office of the Historian judges that requiring two-thirds of the Senate rather than a simple majority to approve treaties gave the South a greater voice in such matters.⁠[44][46]

The powers of the national government are enumerated in Article I, Section 8, paragraphs 1–17, and the rest are reserved to the states under the Tenth Amendment. Paragraph 18 is also called the elastic clause; McCulloch v. Maryland (1819) established that Congress has implied powers. Britannica notes that disputes over nullification, slavery, racial segregation and abortion have often turned on the boundary between implied and reserved powers.⁠[44]

Since a series of decisions in 1937 the courts have read Congress’s power over interstate commerce broadly, and states may not regulate interstate commerce that Congress has preempted.⁠[44]

The Bill of Rights originally applied only to the national government; Massachusetts kept an official state religion until 1833. In Gitlow v. New York (1925) the Supreme Court used the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to apply the protection of speech to the states, and later decisions applied other rights to the states through “selective incorporation”; McDonald v. Chicago (2010) did so for the Second Amendment. In Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka (1954) the Court ruled racial segregation in public schools unconstitutional.⁠[28]

Article V provides two ways of proposing amendments: by two-thirds of both houses of Congress, or by a convention called on the application of two-thirds of the state legislatures. An amendment becomes part of the Constitution when ratified by the legislatures of, or conventions in, three-fourths of the states, as Congress decides. Every amendment so far has been proposed by Congress; a national convention has never been called.⁠[47][17][44]

Article V further provides that the first and fourth clauses of Article I, Section 9 could not be amended before 1808 and that no state may be deprived of its equal suffrage in the Senate without its consent.⁠[15][13]

Congress proposes an amendment in the form of a joint resolution; the president has no constitutional role in the process, and the resolution does not go to the White House. Under 1 U.S.C. 106b the Archivist of the United States administers the ratification process and has delegated many of the ministerial duties to the Director of the Federal Register. With 50 states, 38 must ratify, and thirteen can block an amendment. When the required number is reached, the Archivist certifies that the amendment is valid and has become part of the Constitution, and the certification is published in the Federal Register and U.S. Statutes at Large.⁠[47][9]

Since 1789 Congress has sent 33 amendments to the states, six of which were not ratified by three-fourths of them. The National Archives’ Amending America dataset has nearly 12,000 entries for proposals introduced in Congress up to 2014.⁠[48][49]

The three earliest are the 1789 amendment on the size of the House (approved by the House on September 24 and the Senate on September 25); the 1810 amendment on foreign titles of nobility (Senate, April 27, 19 to 5; House, May 1, 87 to 3); and the 1861 amendment on slavery (House, February 28, 133 to 65; Senate, March 2, 24 to 12). The 1861 measure guaranteed the right of states that had legalized slavery to keep it, was approved by Congress two days before Abraham Lincoln became president, and was ratified by two states and possibly a third.⁠[48][50]

The three from the twentieth century are the child labor amendment of 1924 (House, April 26, 297 to 69; Senate, June 2, 61 to 23); the amendment on equal rights for women (House, October 12, 1971, 354 to 24; Senate, March 22, 1972, 84 to 8); and the amendment on representation for the District of Columbia (House, March 2, 1978, 289 to 127; Senate, August 22, 1978, 67 to 32). The last two carried ratification deadlines, both of which have passed; the District of Columbia amendment expired in 1985.⁠[48][50]

National Archives and Records Administration (Constitution pages): Official website: https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/constitution (opens in a new window).⁠[43]