Constitution of the United States of America

Signing the Constitution

The Constitution of the United States comprises the nation's fundamental law, providing the framework for its governance and the principles under which it must operate. Judicial reinterpretation has given the Constitution the flexibility to accommodate changes in the specific laws subject to its authority. As Chief Justice John Marshall pointed out early in the 19th century, the Constitution was "intended to endure for ages to come, and, consequently, to be adapted to the various crises of human affairs. To have prescribed the means by which government should, in all future times, execute its powers, would have been to change entirely, the character of the instrument, and give it the properties of a legal code."

The distinction Marshall made between the Constitution and other law was in keeping with the framers' provision for the supremacy of the Constitution in Article VI, which states: "This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land . . . ."

GENESIS OF THE CONSTITUTION

The first constitution of the United States was the Articles of Confederation ratified in 1781. Because this document left too much sovereignty to the states, it was defective as an instrument of government. Some leaders felt that the individual states suffered economically from the lack of a strong central authority; commercial barriers between the states seemed particularly onerous.

They also felt that the lack of unity among the states was causing serious problems in international relations and defense. The weakness of the central government was dramatized by such events as Shay's Rebellion (1786-87) in western Massachusetts, and by the ability of one state to block legislation desired by the other twelve. The Annapolis Convention of 1786 called for a general Constitutional Convention that met at Philadelphia in May 1787.

Constitutional Convention

Twelve states (all but Rhode Island) named 73 delegates to the Constitutional Convention. Of these, 55 came but only 39 signed the Constitution on Sept. 17, 1787. The leaders of the convention were statesmen who in modern parlance would be called middle-of-the-road: George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, John Jay, and Benjamin Franklin. Conspicuous by their absence were the firebrands of democracy, Patrick Henry and Sam Adams, and the author of the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson. In his keynote address at the convention, Edmund Randolph said: "Our chief danger arises from the democratic parts of our {state} constitutions. It is a maxim which I hold incontrovertible, that the powers of government exercised by the people swallow up the other branches." Writing later in The Federalist, Hamilton said: "The people are turbulent and changing; they seldom judge or determine right."

The prevailing political philosophy of the framers of the Constitution would later be articulated as follows by Madison in The Federalist:

It may be a reflection on human nature, that such devices {checks and balances} should be necessary to control the abuses of government. But what is government itself, but the greatest of all reflections on human nature? If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself. A dependence upon the people is, no doubt, the primary control on the government; but experience has taught mankind the necessity of auxiliary precautions.

What they sought was a balance that Madison called "mixed government" and "free government," a compromise between monarchy and democracy as they knew them.

Despite the consensus among the framers on the objectives of the Constitution, the controversy over the means by which those objectives could be achieved was lively. Controversy developed over the presidency and the way in which the President was to be elected; the relationship of the states to the national government; the relationship of the national government to the people; and the relationship of state to state. The latter conflict was partially resolved through the great compromise that gave small states equal representation with the large states in the Senate but apportioned representation according to population in the House of Representatives.

Other compromises involved the slavery issue; each slave was to be counted as three-fifths of a person in determining representation and in apportioning direct taxes, and the migration or importation of slaves was allowed to continue until 1808. Generally, sectional interests were also protected by compromise. Northern interests were upheld by giving the new government the power to regulate trade and commerce, and the South was protected against export taxes and the immediate prohibition of the slave trade. Southern and Western border interests were reassured that their territorial rights would be protected by the requirement that treaties be ratified by two-thirds of the Senate.

After it was signed, the Constitution was offered for ratification. By its own terms, "the Ratification of the Conventions of nine States" was required. This was achieved on June 21, 1788, and by 1790 all 13 of the original states had ratified it. Ratification was vigorously opposed by the Anti-Federalists, who feared that a powerful central government would minimize the role of the people in governance and threaten individual rights and local interests. The effort to counter the arguments of the Anti-Federalists led to intense campaigning, including the writing of The Federalist by Madison, Hamilton, and Jay . The significant and lasting accomplishment of the opponents was to get the Bill of Rights added to the Constitution.

(See Bibliography below)

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Bibliography: Beard, Charles, An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution of the United States (1935; repr. 1986); Corwin, Edward, The Constitution and What It Means Today, ed. Harold W. Chase and Craig R. Ducat, 14th rev. ed. (1979); Kelly, Alfred, and Harbison, Winfred, The American Constitution: Its Origins and Development, 6th ed. (1982); Levy, L. W., et al., eds., Encyclopedia of the American Constitution, 4 vols. (1986); McDonald, Forrest, We The People: The Economic Origins of the Constitution (1958; repr. 1976) and Novus Ordo Seclorum: The Intellectual Origins of the Constitution (1985); Mitchell, Broadus and Louise, A Biography of the Constitution of the United States, 2d ed. (1964); Peltason, J. W., Corwin and Peltason's Understanding the Constitution, 10th ed. (1985); Pritchett, Charles, The American Constitution, rev. ed. (1977); Swisher, Carl B., American Constitutional Development, 2d ed. (1954); Tugwell, Rexford, The Emerging Constitution (1974); Wellington, Harry H., Interpreting the Constitution: The Supreme Court and the Process of Adjudication (1991).