Confederation; grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal; coin Money; emit
Bills of Credit; make anything but gold and silver Coin a Tender in
Payment of Debts; pass any Bill of Attainder, ex post facto law, or Law
impairing the Obligation of Contracts, or grant any Title of Nobility.
No State shall, without the Consent of the Congress, lay any Imposts or
Duties on Imports or Exports, except what may be absolutely necessary for
executing its inspection. Laws: and the net Produce of all Duties and
Imposts, laid by any State on Imports or Exports, shall be for the Use of
the Treasury of the United States; and all of such Laws shall be subject
to the Revision and Control of the Congress.
No State shall, without the Consent of Congress, lay any duty of Tonnage,
keep Troops, or Ships of War in time of Peace, enter into any Agreement or
Compact with another State, or with a foreign Power, or engage in War,
unless actually invaded, or in such imminent Danger as will not admit of
Delay.
ARTICLE II.
The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of
America. He shall hold his Office during the Term of Four Years, and,
together with the Vice President, chosen for the same Term, be elected, as
follows
Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may
direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and
Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress: but no
Senator or Representative, or person holding an Office of Trust or Profit
under the United States, shall be appointed as Elector.
The Electors shall meet in their respective States, and vote by Ballot for
two persons, of whom one at least shall not be an Inhabitant of the same
State with themselves. And they shall make a List of all the Persons voted
for, and of the Number of Votes for each; which List they shall sign and
certify, and transmit sealed to the Seat of the Government of the United
States, directed to the President of the Senate. The President of the
Senate shall, in the Presence of the Senate and House of Representatives,
open all the Certificates, and the Votes shall then be counted. The Person
having the greatest Number of Votes shall be the President, if such Number
be a Majority of the whole Number of Electors appointed; and if there be
more than one who have such Majority, and have an equal Number of Votes,
then the House of Representatives shall immediately chuse by Ballot one of
them for President; and if no Person have a Majority, then from the five
highest on the List the said House shall in like Manner chuse the
President. But in chusing the President, the Votes shall be taken by
States, the Representation from each State having one Vote; A quorum for
this Purpose shall consist of a Member or Members from two-thirds of the
States, and a Majority of all the States shall be necessary to a Choice.
In every Case, After the Choice of the President, the Person having the
greatest number of Votes of the Electors shall be the Vice President. But
if there should remain two or more who have equal Votes, the Senate shall
chuse from them by Ballot the Vice President.
The Congress may determine the Time of chusing the Electors, and the Day
on which they shall give their Votes; which Day shall be the same
throughout the United States.
No person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United
States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be
eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any Person be eligible
to that Office who shall not have attained the age of thirty-five years,
and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States.
In Case of the Removal of the President from Office, or of his Death,
Resignation or Inability to discharge the Powers and Duties of said
Office, the Same shall devolve on the Vice President, and the Congress may
by Law provide for the Case of Removal, Death, Resignations, or Inability,
both of the President and Vice President, declaring what Officer shall
then act as President, and such Officer shall act accordingly, until the
Disability be removed, or a President shall be elected.
The President shall, at stated Times, receive for his Services, a
Compensation, which shall neither be increased nor diminished during the
Period for which he shall have been elected, and he shall not receive
within that Period any other Emolument from the United States, or any of
them.
Before he enter on the Execution of his Office, he shall take the
following Oath or Affirmation:—“I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I
will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and
will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the
Constitution of the United States.”
Section 2. The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy
of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when
called into the actual Service of the United States; he may require the
Opinion, in writing, of the principal Officer in each of the executive
Departments, upon any Subject relating to the Duties of their respective
Offices, and he shall have Power to grant Reprieves and Pardons for
Offences against the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment.
He shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to
make Treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur; and he
shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate,
shall appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of
the supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United States, whose
Appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be
established by Law: but the Congress may by Law vest the Appointment of
such inferior Officers, as they think proper, in the President alone, in
the Courts of Law, or in the Heads of Departments.
The President shall have Power to fill up all Vacancies that may happen
during the recess of the Senate, by granting Commissions which shall
expire at the End of their next Session.
Section 3. He shall from time to time give to the Congress Information of
the state of the Union, and recommend to their Consideration such Measures
as he shall judge necessary and expedient; he may, on extraordinary
Occasions, convene both Houses, or either of them, and in Case of
Disagreement between them, with Respect to the Time of Adjournment, he may
adjourn them to such Time as he shall think proper; he shall receive
Ambassadors and other public Ministers; he shall take Care that the Laws
be faithfully executed, and shall Commission all the Officers of the
United States.
Section 4. The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the
United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and
Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.
ARTICLE III.
Section 1. The judicial Power of the United States shall be vested in one
supreme Court, and in such inferior Courts as the Congress may from time
to time ordain and establish. The Judges, both of the supreme and inferior
Courts, shall hold their Offices during good Behaviour, and shall, at
stated Times, receive for their Services, a Compensation which shall not
be diminished during their Continuance in Office.
Section 2. The judicial Power shall extend to all Cases, in Law and
Equity, arising under this Constitution, the Laws of the United States,
and Treaties made, or which shall be made, under their Authority;—to all
Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls;—to all
Cases of admiralty and maritime Jurisdiction;—to Controversies to which
the United States, shall be a party;—to Controversies between two or more
States;—between a State and Citizens of another State;—between Citizens of
different States;—between Citizens of the same State claiming Lands under
Grants of different States, and between a State, or the Citizens thereof,
and foreign States, Citizens or Subjects.
In all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls,
and those in which a State shall be a Party, the supreme Court shall have
original Jurisdiction. In all the other Cases before mentioned, the
supreme Court shall have appellate Jurisdiction, both as to Law and Fact,
with such Exceptions, and under such Regulations as the Congress shall
make.
The trial of all Crimes, except in Cases of Impeachment, shall be by Jury,
and such Trial shall be held in the State where the said Crimes shall have
been committed; but when not committed within any State, the Trial shall
be at such Place or Places as the Congress may by Law have directed.
Section 3. Treason against the United States, shall consist only in
levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid
and Comfort. No person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the
Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open
Court.
The Congress shall have power to declare the Punishment of Treason, but no
Attainder of Treason shall work Corruption of Blood, or Forfeiture except
during the Life of the Person attainted.
ARTICLE IV.
Section 1. Full Faith and Credit shall be given in each State to the
public Acts, Records and judicial Proceedings of every other State. And
the Congress may by general Laws prescribe the Manner in which such Acts,
Records and Proceedings shall be proved, and the Effect thereon.
Section 2. The Citizens of each State shall be entitled to all Privileges
and Immunities of Citizens in the several States.
A Person charged in any State with Treason, Felony, or other Crime, who
shall flee from Justice, and be found in another State, shall on demand of
the executive Authority of the State from which he fled, be delivered up,
to be removed to the State having Jurisdiction of the Crime.
No Person held to Service or Labour in one State, under the Laws thereof,
escaping into another, shall, in Consequence of any Law or Regulation
therein, be discharged from such service or Labour, but shall be delivered
up on Claim of the Party to whom such Service or Labour may be due.
Section 8. New States may be admitted by the Congress into this Union; but
no new State shall be formed or erected within the Jurisdiction of any
other State; nor any State be formed by the Junction of two or more
States, or parts of States, without the Consent of the Legislatures of the
States concerned as well as of the Congress.
The Congress shall have Power to dispose of and make all needful Rules and
Regulations respecting the Territory or other property belonging to the
United States; and nothing in this Constitution shall be so construed as
to Prejudice any Claims of the United States, or of any particular State.
Section 4. The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union
a Republican Form of Government, and shall protect each of them against
invasion; and on Application of the Legislature, or of the Executive (when
the Legislature cannot be convened) against domestic Violence.
ARTICLE V.
The Congress, whenever two thirds of both Houses shall deem it necessary,
shall propose Amendments to this Constitution, or, on the Application of
the Legislatures of two thirds of the several States, shall call a
Convention for proposing Amendments, which, in either Case, shall be valid
to all Intents and Purposes, as Part of this Constitution, when ratified
by the Legislatures of three-fourths of the several States, or by
Conventions in three-fourths thereof, as the one or the other Mode of
Ratification may be proposed by the Congress; Provided that no Amendment
which may be made prior to the Year One thousand eight hundred and eight
shall in any Manner affect the first and fourth Clauses in the Ninth
Section of the first Article; and that no State, without its Consent,
shall be deprived of its equal Suffrage in the Senate.
ARTICLE VI.
All Debts contracted and Engagements entered into, before the Adoption of
this Constitution, shall be as valid against the United States under this
Constitution, as under the Confederation.
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;
and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the
Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.
The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the
several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both
of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or
Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious Test shall
ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under
the United States.
ARTICLE VII.
The Ratification of the Conventions of nine States shall be sufficient for
the Establishment of this Constitution between the States so ratifying the
Same.
DONE in Convention by the Unanimous Consent of the States present the
Seventeenth Day of September in the Year of our Lord one thousand seven
hundred and Eighty seven, and of the Independence of the United States of
America the Twelfth. In Witness whereof We have hereunto subscribed our
Names,
Go. Washington
Presidt. and Deputy from Virginia
ARTICLES IN ADDITION TO, AND AMENDMENT OF THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED
STATES OF AMERICA, PROPOSED BY CONGRESS, AND RATIFIED BY THE LEGISLATURES
OF THE SEVERAL STATES PURSUANT TO THE FIFTH ARTICLE OF THE ORIGINAL
CONSTITUTION
ARTICLE I.
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.
ARTICLE II.
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State,
the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
ARTICLE III.
No Soldier shall, in time of peace, be quartered in any house, without the
consent of the Owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed
by law.
ARTICLE IV.
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and
effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be
violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported
by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be
searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
ARTICLE V.
No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous
crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in
cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in
actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be
subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb;
nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against
himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due
process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use,
without just compensation.
ARTICLE VI.
In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a
speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury, of the State and district
wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have
been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and
cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him;
to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to
have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence.
ARTICLE VII.
In suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty
dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried
by a jury shall be otherwise re-examined in any Court of the United
States, than according to the rules of the common law.
ARTICLE VIII.
Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor
cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.
ARTICLE IX.
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be
construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
ARTICLE X.
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.
ARTICLE XI.
The Judicial power of the United States shall not be construed to extend
to any suit in law or equity, commenced or prosecuted against one of the
United States by Citizens of another State, or by Citizens or Subjects of
any Foreign State.
ARTICLE XII.
The Electors shall meet in their respective states and vote by ballot for
President and Vice-President, one of whom, at least, shall not be an
inhabitant of the same state with themselves; they shall name in their
ballots the person voted for as President, and in distinct ballots the
person voted for as Vice-President, and they shall make distinct lists of
all persons voted for as President, and of all persons voted for as
Vice-President, and of the number of votes for each, which lists they
shall sign and certify, and transmit sealed to the seat of the government
of the United States, directed to the President of the Senate;—The
President of the Senate shall, in presence of the Senate and House of
Representatives, open all the certificates and the votes shall then be
counted;—The person having the greatest number of votes for President,
shall be the President, if such number be a majority of the whole number
of Electors appointed; and if no person have such majority, then from the
persons having the highest numbers not exceeding three on the list of
those voted for as President, the House of Representatives shall choose
immediately, by ballot, the President. But in choosing the President, the
votes shall be taken by states, the representation from each state having
one vote; a quorum for this purpose shall consist of a member or members
from two-thirds of the states, and a majority of all the states shall be
necessary to a choice. And if the House of Representatives shall not
choose a President whenever the right of choice shall devolve upon them,
before the fourth day of March next following, then the Vice-President
shall act as President, as in the case of the death or other
constitutional disability of the President.—The person having the greatest
number of votes as Vice-President, shall be the Vice-President, if such
number be a majority of the whole number of Electors appointed, and if no
person have a majority, then from the two highest numbers on the list, the
Senate shall choose the Vice-President; a quorum for the purpose shall
consist of two-thirds of the whole number of Senators, and a majority of
the whole number shall be necessary to a choice. But no person
constitutionally ineligible to the office of President shall be eligible
to that of Vice-President of the United States.
ARTICLE XIII.
Section 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a
punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted,
shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their
jurisdiction.
Section 2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by
appropriate legislation.
ARTICLE XIV.
Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and
subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and
of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law
which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United
States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or
property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its
jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
Section 2. Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States
according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of
persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to
vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and
Vice-President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the
Executive and Judicial officers of a State, or the members of the
Legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such
State, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States,
or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other
crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the
proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole
number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State.
Section 3. No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or
elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or
military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having
previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the
United States, or as a member of any State Legislature, or as an executive
or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the
United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the
same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may, by
a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.
Section 4. The validity of the public debt of the United States,
authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and
bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not
be questioned. But neither the United States nor any other State shall
assume to pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or
rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss or
emancipation of any slave; but all such debts, obligations and claims
shall be held illegal and void.
Section 5. The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate
legislation, the provisions of this article.
ARTICLE XV
Section 1. The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be
denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of
race, color, or previous condition of servitude.
Section 2. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by
appropriate legislation.
ARTICLE XVI
The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from
whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States,
and without regard to any census or enumeration.
ARTICLE XVII
The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from
each State, elected by the people thereof, for six years; and each Senator
shall have one vote. The electors in each State shall have the
qualifications requisite for electors of the most numerous branch of the
State legislatures.
When vacancies happen in the representation of any State in the Senate,
the executive authority of such State shall issue writs of election to
fill such vacancies: Provided, That the legislature of any State may
empower the executive thereof to make temporary appointment until the
people fill the vacancies by election as the legislature may direct.
This amendment shall not be so construed as to affect the election or term
of any Senator chosen before it becomes valid as part of the Constitution.
ARTICLE XVIII
Section 1. After one year from the ratification of this article the
manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors within, the
importation thereof into, or the exportation thereof from the United
States and all territory subject to the jurisdiction thereof for beverages
purposes is hereby prohibited.
Section 2. The Congress and the several States shall have concurrent power
to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.
Section 3. This article shall be inoperative unless it shall have been
ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by the legislatures of the
several States, as provided in the Constitution, within seven years from
the date of the submission hereof to the States by the Congress.
ARTICLE XIX
The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or
abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.
Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate
legislation.
FOOTNOTES
1 Boys and girls often do not realize the value of an education as a
preparation for success in life. The following figures from an
educational authority show what education does for a boy or a girl.
(a) Less than three per cent of the people of the United States have
a college education, but this three per cent furnishes fifty-nine
per cent of the men and women called successful. Fourteen per cent
come from those having had some college training. This shows that
nearly three-fourths of all men and women in the United States
called successful have had some college training.
(b) During the past ten years Massachusetts has given all her
children a minimum of seven years of schooling, while Tennessee has
given her children but three years. The Massachusetts citizens
produce per capita $260 per year, while the Tennessee citizens
produce per capita $116 per year.
(c) Of the fifty-five members attending the Federal convention that
made the Constitution of the United States in 1787, thirty had
attended college, and twenty-six had college degrees. Of the forty
State officers in Iowa in 1918, thirty were college graduates, seven
were graduates of high schools, and only three had less than a high
school education.
(d) The child with no schooling has one chance in 150,000 of
performing distinguished services; with elementary education he has
four times the chance; with high school education he has
eighty-seven times the chance; with college education he has eight
hundred times the chance.
(e) Every boy and every girl should stick to his school work until
he at least graduates from a fully accredited high school.
2 “Law can do nothing without morals.”—Benjamin Franklin.
“Through the whole of life and the whole system of duties, much the
strongest moral obligations are such as were never the results of
our option.”—Edmund Burke.
“To do evil that good may come of it, is for the bungler in politics
as well as in morals.”—Benjamin Franklin.
“Duty is not collective; it is personal.”—Calvin Coolidge.
3 “Ignorance of the law excuses no man.”—Selected.
“Knowledge is in every country the surest basis of public
happiness.”—George Washington.
4 “The thorough education of all classes of people is the most
efficacious means of promoting the prosperity of the Nation. The
material interests of its citizens, as well as their moral and
intellectual culture, depend upon its accomplishment.”—Robert E.
Lee.
“In a Republic education is indispensable. A Republic without
education is like the creature of imagination, a human being without
a soul, living and moving blindly, with no just sense of the present
or the future.”—Charles Sumner.
“Without popular education, no government which rests upon popular
action can long endure. The people must be schooled in the
knowledge, and if possible in the virtues, upon which the
maintenance and success of free institutions depend.”—Woodrow
Wilson.
5 “Where the State has bestowed education, the man who accepts it must
be content to accept it merely as charity, unless he returns it to
the State in full in the shape of good citizenship.”—Theodore
Roosevelt.
6 “_Government_—_Liberty_—_Authority_—_Law_—the man or the woman who
fails to appreciate the true meaning of these terms, lacks the
training necessary to be a good citizen in a Republic.”—Abraham
Lincoln.
“We need more of the office desk and less of the show-window in
politics. Let men in office substitute the midnight oil for the
lime-light.”—Calvin Coolidge.
7 “Government is the aggregate of authorities which rule a society.”
“Government is that institution or aggregate of institutions by
which society makes and carries out those rules of action which are
necessary to enable men to live in a social state, or which are
imposed upon the people forming that society by those who possess
the power or authority of prescribing them.”—Bouvier’s _Law
Dictionary_, Vol. I, p. 891.
8 Government is the organized means and power that a State or Nation
employs for the purpose of securing the rights of the people, and of
perpetuating its own existence.
The real aim and purpose is well stated in the preamble to our
Constitution when it says: “to form a more perfect Union, establish
Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common
Defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the blessings of
Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity”.
Government can never rise higher than the ideals of the people who
compose the government. Good governments are the products of good
people. Good governments can only exist where the people are
intelligent and upright in character, and where each citizen is
willing to guard the rights and privileges of others as well as
those of himself.
“This government _of the people_, _by the people_, and _for the
people_, shall not perish from the earth.”—Abraham Lincoln.
9 The object of government is to protect the citizens of a country and
to promote their general welfare, and it is composed of the
officials who care for the public interests of the citizens.
Under republican government, the weakest citizen enjoys the same
rights and privileges as do the strongest citizens, the poorest have
the same protection given to the richest, the most humble man or
woman has a chance to become the head of his or her government and
to lead the Nation among the most powerful Nations in the world.
“Brains and character rule the world. There were scores of men a
hundred years ago who had more intellect than Washington. He
outlives and overrides them all by the influence of his
character.”—Wendell Phillips.
“The true greatness of nations is in those qualities which
constitute the greatness of the individual.”—Charles Sumner.
10 “There is always hope in a man that actually and honestly works. In
idleness alone is there perpetual despair.”—Thomas Carlyle.
“He that hath a trade hath an estate, and he that hath a calling
hath an office of profit and honor.”—Benjamin Franklin.
“If you have the great talents, industry will improve them; if
moderate abilities, industry will supply their deficiencies.”—Joshua
Reynolds.
“Other nations have received their laws from conquerors; some are
indebted for a constitution to the suffering of their ancestors
through revolving centuries. The people of this country, alone, have
formally and deliberately chosen a government for themselves, and
with open and uninfluenced consent bound themselves into a social
compact. Here no man proclaims his birth or wealth as a title to
honorable distinction, or to sanctify ignorance and vice with the
name of hereditary authority. He who has most zeal and ability to
promote public felicity, let him be the servant of the public.”—John
Adams.
“The basis of our political system is the right of the people to
make or alter their constitution of government.”—George Washington.
“Let us then, fellow citizens, unite with one heart and one mind and
labor for the welfare of the country.”—Thomas Jefferson.
“The Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United
States are parts of one consistent whole, founded upon one and the
same theory of government,—that the people are the only legitimate
source of power, and that all just powers of government are derived
from the consent of the governed.”—John Quincy Adams.
11 This description almost perfectly fits the making of the Mayflower
Compact in the cabin of the ship Mayflower on November 11, 1620.
Those Pilgrim Fathers drew up an agreement which was the first
attempt at a written constitution in the New World. The Fundamental
Orders of Connecticut, of 1638, are generally conceded to be the
oldest real constitution in America.
12 When Jefferson wrote “all men are created equal”, he did not mean
that all infant children have equal capacities for learning or
accomplishment, but that all children ought to be given equal
opportunities by the government of a republic. He meant that in a
republic all children, whether rich or poor, whether of the
aristocracy or of the common people, had great opportunities to be
good and great men and women. He meant that a poor boy born in the
Kentucky mountains and a rail splitter in the woods of Illinois had
the opportunity to become President of the United States.
“The Declaration of Independence was not a mere temporary expedient,
but is an enunciation of fundamental truths intended for all
time.”—William J. Bryan.
“Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth upon this
continent a new nation, _conceived in liberty_, and dedicated to the
proposition that all men are created equal.”—Abraham Lincoln.
“Where slavery is, there _liberty_ cannot be and where _liberty_ is,
slavery cannot be.”—Abraham Lincoln.
“Respect for its (the government’s) authority, compliance with its
laws, acquiesence in its measures, are duties enjoined by the
fundamental maxims of true Liberty.”—George Washington.
“Liberty—on its positive side, denotes the fulness of individual
existence; on its negative side it denotes the necessary restraint
on all, which is needed to promote the greatest possible amount of
liberty for each.”—Bouvier’s _Law Dictionary_, Vol. I. p. 217.
13 “Other nations have received their laws from conquerors; some are
indebted for a constitution to the sufferings of their ancestors
through revolving centuries. The people of this country, alone have
formally and deliberately chosen a government for themselves, and
with open and uninfluenced consent bound themselves into a social
compact. Here no man proclaims his birth or wealth as a title to
honorable distinction, or to sanctify ignorance and vice with the
name of hereditary authority.”—John Adams.
14 “Liberty means freedom in the enjoyment of all one’s faculties in
all lawful ways, the liberty to earn a livelihood by any lawful
calling, the liberty to live and work where one wills.”—_Allgeyer
vs. Louisiana, 165 U. S. 578._
15 “Civil liberty is the liberty belonging to men in organized society.
It is liberty defined, regulated and protected by positive law of
the State or recognized as existing under customary
law.”—_Cyclopedia of American Government_, Vol. II, p. 347.
The American people are a peculiar people. They are peculiar in
their origin, peculiar in their make-up, and due to their
sufferings, their persecutions, and their enduring perseverance,
they are still a peculiar people. From the first white man to steer
his little wooden ship westward across the great Atlantic ocean to
the latest arrival among the most recent immigrants, the people
coming to America have been different from those people remaining in
their European homes. The conditions surrounding the lives of those
people in Europe who left their homes and first settled in America
were not materially different from the conditions surrounding the
lives of thousands of other people who were satisfied and content to
remain on their European shores. Many men thought the earth was
round long before Christopher Columbus sailed away from that little
seaport town in Spain to test his own ideas of finding a shorter
route to India. Many people believed in religious liberty long
before the Pilgrims and Puritans landed on the bleak New England
shores and suffered the hardships of first settlers in a new country
in order to worship God as they pleased. Many people seriously and
intelligently doubted the divine right of kings, and believed in the
rights of the people to govern themselves long before the American
colonists adopted the Declaration of Independence. But it was left
for these people—these coming Americans—to demonstrate to all the
world that America was to be peopled by men and women of different
ideals, different hopes, and different ambitions from all the other
nations of the world.
16 A pure democracy would be that form of government in which all
people of the age of twenty-one years could actually take part in
making the laws and administering the government. A country would
need be very small indeed, if _all_ the people above twenty-one
years of age could assemble in any one place and organize and
conduct a meeting in which _all_ could take part in law-making. No
building would be large enough to accommodate all the people and
even if all the people assembled out of doors, the number would be
so large that those standing or sitting near the outer edge of the
assembly would be so far from the speaker that they could not hear
what he said when he spoke to them. A pure democracy is a physical
impossibility. The nearest form of government to a pure democracy is
a representative democracy, or one in which groups of people choose
one or more persons to represent them. Then these representatives
make laws and carry on the government in the name of all the people
whom they represent. Therefore a democracy is that form of
government in which all people have equal opportunities, and in
which all may take part in the government through their chosen
representatives.
“No matter how widely democracy may be extended, if it is not
accompanied by a certain equality of opportunity among the members
of the political society, it is not democracy.”—_Cyclopedia of
American Government_, Vol. I, p. 561.
“Democracy is that form of government in which the people rule. The
basis of democracy is equality, as that of the aristocracy is
privilege.”—Bouvier’s _Law Dictionary_, Vol. I, p. 540.
“The beginnings of democracy were best observed in the townships of
New England, where the Puritans from England settled and organized
towns which were centers of democracy.”—Peter Roberts.
In an absolute monarchy, the ruler is supreme; in a limited
monarchy, the parliament or congress sets a limit to the powers of
the ruler; in a democracy, the people rule.
“It is almost impossible that all the people will exactly agree on
any proposition, either political or social. Therefore the rule of
government in a democracy is, that all the people shall accept and
obey those laws and regulations that are pleasing to the majority.”
“The basis of our political system is the right of the _people_ to
make or alter their constitution of government.”—George Washington.
“No man is good enough to govern another man without that other
man’s consent.”—Abraham Lincoln.
“This country, with all its institutions, belongs to the people who
inhabit it.”—Abraham Lincoln.
“I believe that the American people accept, as one just definition
of democracy, Napoleon’s phrase, ’Every career is open to
talent’.”—Charles William Eliot.
Lincoln defined a democracy as “A government of the people, by the
people, and for the people”.
17 “A Republic may be defined as a state in which the sovereign power
rests in the people as a whole but is exercised by representatives
chosen by a popular vote.”—_Cyclopedia of American Government_, Vol.
III, p. 188.
“A Republic, in the modern sense of the term, is a government which
derives all its powers directly, or indirectly, from the great body
of the people, i. e. the majority—and is administered by persons
holding their offices for a limited period.”—_Cyclopedia of American
Government_, Vol. III, p. 188.
“Republican government is a government of the people; a government
by representatives chosen by the people.”—Bouvier’s _Law
Dictionary_.
The Constitution of the United States in Art. IV, Sec. 4 guarantees
to every State a republican form of government, but it does not
define what is republican government. It is generally assumed that
if for any reason the representative government of a State should be
destroyed or temporarily set aside, it would be the duty of the
Federal government, acting through the President as chief executive,
to use whatever force was necessary (including the army and navy) to
overcome such agency and to restore to the people of that State its
former representative government.
“It is left to Congress to decide what constitutes a republican form
of government, and Congress also has the right to say which
government in a state is the legal government. This necessarily
follows because before Congress can decide whether the government is
Republican it must decide which government is in force.”—_Luther vs.
Borden, 7 Howard 1._
“It is Congress and not the President who decides what is Republican
government in a state.”—_Martin vs. Mott, 12 Wheaton 19._
18 “It may well be contended that a republican form of government
necessarily involves the exercise of powers of government by
representative officers and bodies, and the distribution of powers
of government among distinct and independent departments.”—McClain’s
_Constitutional Law_, p. 10.
_ 19 Initiative_ means the right of the people to initiate or commence
the process of lawmaking. It is done by circulating a petition
asking that a certain provision be enacted into law. If the petition
receives the signatures of a certain percentage of qualified voters,
the legislature is required to enact the provision into law, or
submit it to the voters to determine whether it shall become law.
_Referendum_ means that the qualified voters through the process of
balloting may determine whether a measure proposed either through
the action of the legislature, or through the initiative, shall
become law.
_Recall_ is the method by which the qualified voters may remove an
undesirable officer from office before the expiration of his term.
It is done through a petition requiring a certain percentage of
signers from among the qualified voters. If the petition is
sufficient an election is called at which time the officer may
appear for continuation in office and others may appear as
candidates for that office. The one receiving the largest vote is
duly chosen.
20 Children who attend the public school are subject to the law as well
as are grown people who work in factories or on farms. The teacher
must have rules and regulations governing the conduct of pupils in
school. These are laws which the children must obey. If a pupil
insists on disturbing other pupils or talking out loud—such may be a
violation of the rules governing a good school and the pupil may be
punished for such violation.
21 Law has been defined as: “The aggregate of those laws and principles
of conduct which the governing power in a community recognizes as
the rules and principles which it will enforce or sanction, and
according to which it will regulate, limit, or protect the conduct
of its members.”—Bouvier’s _Law Dictionary_, Vol. II, p. 144.
“Law consists of the rules and methods by which society compels or
restrains the actions of its members.”
In the legal sense—A law is a rule which the courts will enforce.
The courts will not enforce all rules, and therefore there are many
rules which are not law in the legal sense.
“Law _might_ be defined as the aggregate of those rules and
principles promulgated by legislative authority or established by
local custom, and our laws are the resultant derived from a
combination of the divine or moral laws, the laws of nature and
human experience, as such resultant has been evolved by human
intellect, influenced by the virtue of the ages.”—_Words and
Phrases_, p. 33.
“Law has her seat in the bosom of God; her voice in the harmony of
the world.”—Hooker.
“Laws are the very bulwark of liberty. They define every man’s
rights, and stand between and defend individual liberties of
all.”—J. G. Holland.
“Laws exist in vain for those who do not have the courage and the
means to defend them.”—Thomas B. Macauley.
“Laws, written, if not on stone tablets, yet on the azure of
infinitude, in the inner heart of God’s creation, certain as life,
certain as death, are they, and thou shalt not disobey them.”—Thomas
Carlyle.
“A rule of civil conduct prescribed by the supreme power in a
state.”—Bouvier’s _Law Dictionary_.
22 Laws and rules are statements of what has been agreed upon as proper
conduct among persons who associate together. A person living on a
lonely island in the ocean with no other person near would not need
law. But as soon as two persons share the island and its fruits and
animals and plants, then certain rules need be set up for the
protection of each against the other. Where people are most closely
associated, we need the greatest number of rules or laws. People
living in large cities must more often need law than do those living
in rural districts.
23 A person may drive an automobile at twenty miles per hour on a
country road with perfect safety, but twenty miles per hour in a
crowded city would be positively dangerous to people crossing the
streets. Therefore the speed limit of five or perhaps ten miles per
hour in cities.
24 People have as much right to walk on the sidewalks of the town or
city as do other people to drive teams and wagons or automobiles on
the streets. Each must obey the traffic laws. At crossings their
rights of passage conflict, therefore each must be on the look-out
when crossing the street. The law provides street crossings,
therefore footmen must not “cut the crossings” but go the directed
way.
25 When election time comes each year, or every two years, those who
are qualified to vote ought by all means give careful consideration
to the candidates for office and to the issues that constitute the
campaign. It requires good men to make good laws. Good men are only
chosen to office when good people interest themselves in the
candidates and attend the elections and cast intelligent votes. Good
laws are properly enforced only when good men are chosen to office.
26 “A child, an apprentice, a pupil, a mariner, and a soldier owe
respectively obedience to the lawful commands of the parent, the
master, the teacher, the captain of the ship, and the military
officer having command: and in case of disobedience submission may
be enforced by correction.”—Bouvier’s _Law Dictionary_, Vol. II, p.
531.
“To obey is better than sacrifice.”
“Children, obey your parents in all things; for this is well
pleasing unto the Lord.”
“Servants, obey in all things your masters according to the flesh;
not with eye service, as men pleasers; but in singleness of heart,
fearing God.”
“Masters, give unto your servants that which is just and equal;
knowing that ye also must be obedient.”—Quotations from _The Bible_.
“The capacity of the people for self government, and their
willingness, ... to submit to all needful restraints, and exactions
of municipal law, have been favorably exemplified in the history of
the American States.”—Martin Van Buren.
“Let us have faith that right makes might and in that faith let us
to the end dare do our duty as we understand it.”—Abraham Lincoln.
“Surely I do not misinterpret the spirit of the occasion when I
assume that the whole body of the people convenant with me today to
support and defend the Constitution and ... to yield a willing
obedience to all the laws, and each to every other citizen his equal
civil and political liberty.”—Benj. Harrison.
“Patriotism calls for the faithful performance of all the duties of
citizenship in small matters as well as great, at home as well as on
tented fields.”—William J. Bryan.
27 We must see ourselves as we are, moving in our daily life, guarded
and safeguarded in every act by law. Every act in life is lawful or
unlawful; that is, we are protected by the law in our every act, or
we are condemned or punished. Here are two children on their way to
school, one walking upon the sidewalk, exercising a lawful right;
one riding his bicycle upon the sidewalk, performing an unlawful
act. The one is an example of a careful law-abiding citizen, the
other an example of a law-violator.
28 Constitution of the United States, Art. I, Sec. 8, Cl. 5.
29 Created by an Act of Congress of March 3rd, 1901. It is a bureau of
the Department of Commerce, and is charged with comparing the
standards used in scientific investigations, commerce, and
educational institutions with standards adopted and recognized by
the government.
30 The Thirty-fifth General Assembly of the State of Iowa provided for
a State Inspector of Weights and Measures whose duty is to travel
over the State and investigate conditions among those who buy and
sell, and to make arrests and prosecute those found defrauding
others by giving short weights or measures, or who sell or offer for
sale spoiled foods, or keep their shops or stores in an unsanitary
condition.
31 Constitution of the United States, Art. I, Sec. 8, Cl. 5.
_ 32 Revised Statutes of the United States_, Sec. 5413 and following.
33 Very few letters are ever lost in the mails. The writer one time
addressed a letter to a friend living in Sydney, Australia. It was
mailed at Iowa City, Iowa, and was sent east. That letter went by
way of New York, England, France, Italy, the Suez Canal, and the
Indian Ocean to Sydney, Australia. The person to whom it was sent
had, in the meantime, left Sydney and the letter failed of delivery.
About three months after being first mailed it was returned to the
writer whose return address was on the outside of the envelope. In
being returned it came by way of the Pacific Ocean to San Francisco
and across the United States from the west. The letter had encircled
the globe and was returned safely to the original sender. Pretty
good work for the International Mail System.
34 Constitution of the United States, Art. I, Sec. 8, Cl. 7.
35 There are four general theories as to the origin of the Constitution
of the United States: (1) That it was an entirely new document. This
theory was inspired by the statement of Gladstone. People who heard
Mr. Gladstone or read of his comment on the Constitution
misinterpreted his saying and came to believe he meant that that
great Constitution was the work of the moment as conceived by the
men in the convention at Philadelphia. No one knew better than Mr.
Gladstone himself that such was not true. (2) That it was copied
almost entirely after the English constitution of that time. This
was the theory of Sir Henry Maine, and it was just as erroneous as
was the common acceptance of Gladstone’s statement. There are many
things in the Constitution of the United States that were not in the
English constitution of that time. (3) That it was based entirely
upon the experience of the colonists themselves. This theory is also
incorrect as the facts show that many fundamentals of the
Constitution were copied directly from the governments of European
countries. (4) That it was due to all the above influences taken
together, but that they were worked out by the colonists and the
Constitution makers in their many years of experience in making
Constitutions for the States after their independence from England,
and during the time of the Confederation.
A careful study of the debates in the convention at Philadelphia
will reveal the fact that the different governments, institutions,
rulers, and statesmen of Europe were referred to in the making of
the Constitution.
During the discussions in the convention one hundred and thirty
allusions were made to the government and institutions of England.
The allusions made to France numbered nineteen. Those made to the
German States were seventeen. Those made to Holland were nineteen.
Greece was referred to thirteen times; Switzerland was alluded to
five times; and Rome was alluded to sixteen times.
The English government and institutions were held up as a model to
be imitated fifty times; as an example to be avoided, twenty-four
times. France was held up as a model three times, and as a warning
five times. Rome was cited five times as a model and seven times as
a warning.
From the standpoint of training, experience, and general
qualifications for constitution makers, the delegates who sat in the
Federal convention at Philadelphia were the most remarkable group of
statesmen the world has ever seen. Sixty-five delegates were chosen,
of whom fifty-five attended the convention and of these thirty-nine
signed the Constitution, three were present but refused to sign, and
thirteen were absent on the last day. Of the fifty-five who sat in
the convention, twenty-five were from northern States and thirty
from southern States. Of the thirty-nine signers, nineteen were from
the North and twenty from the South.
Of the fifty-five men thirty were college men, twenty-six had
degrees, forty-seven were afterwards prominent in public life; of
the remaining eight, at least four died soon after the close of the
convention. The most noted men were: Washington, Franklin, Hamilton,
Madison, Wilson, Patterson, Gerry, Sherman, Pinckney, and Randolph.
Six men who signed the Constitution had also signed the Declaration
of Independence—Benjamin Franklin, James Wilson, Robert Morris, and
George Clymer of Pennsylvania, Roger Sherman of Connecticut, and
George Read of Delaware.—Meyerholz’s _The Federal Convention_.
36 Montesquieu, a famous French writer of the eighteenth century, tells
us that political liberty consists in the security one feels in
doing whatever the law permits. However we must remember that the
laws themselves must likewise be sound.
37 We must notice that Article I of “The Short Constitution” commences,
“_Congress shall make no law_” etc., which means that these first
eight amendments to the Constitution of the United States apply only
to the Federal government, and are limitations on the powers of
Congress rather than on the powers of the States. However most
States have similar provisions in their Constitutions.
38 Article X is important because it tells in a few words the exact
relation of the States to the Federal government.
39 Article V of the main body of the Constitution provides that when
nine States should ratify the Constitution, it should be established
as the frame of government. The first State to ratify was Delaware,
December 7, 1787; the ninth State was New Hampshire, June 21, 1788;
and the last State was Rhode Island, May 29, 1790.
40 George Washington expressed the vast importance of this thought when
he said: “_The basis of our political system is the right of the
people to make or alter their constitution of government._”
“The Constitution is itself in every rational sense and to every
useful purpose a bill of rights.”—Alexander Hamilton.
“Much of the strength and efficiency of any government in procuring
and securing happiness to the people depends on opinion, on the
general opinion of the goodness of the government, as well as of the
wisdom and integrity of its governors. I hope, therefore, for our
own sakes, as a part of the people and for the sake of our
posterity, that we shall act heartily and unanimously in
recommending this Constitution wherever our influence may extend,
and turn our future thoughts and endeavors to the means of having it
well administered.”—Benjamin Franklin.
“In the fullness of time a Republic rose up in the wilderness of
America. Thousands of years had passed away before this child of the
ages could be born. From whatever there was of good in the systems
of former centuries, she drew her nourishment; the wrecks of the
past were her warnings. The wisdom which had passed from India
through Greece, with what Greece had added of her own, the
jurisprudence of Rome, the mediaeval municipalities, the Teutonic
method of representation, the political experience of England, the
benignant wisdom of the expositors of the law of nature and of
nations in France and Holland, all shed on her their selectest
influence. Out of all the discoveries of statesmen and sages, out of
all the experience of past human life, she compiled a perennial
political philosophy, the primordial principles of national
ethics—she sought the vital elements of social forms and blended
them harmoniously in the free commonwealth which comes nearest to
the illustration of the natural equality of all men. She entrusted
the guardianship of established rights to law; the movement of
reform to the spirit of the people and drew her force from the happy
reconciliation of both.”—George Bancroft.
“In spite of its supposed precision, and its subjection to judicial
construction, our constitution has always been indirectly made to
serve the turn of that sort of legislation which its friends call
progressive, and its enemies call revolutionary, quite as
effectively as though Congress had the omnipotence of parliament.
The theory of the latent powers to carry out those granted has been
found elastic enough to satisfy almost any party demands in time of
peace, to say nothing of its enormous extensions in time of
war.”—_The Nation_, November 7, 1872, No. 384, p. 300.
“Our fathers by an almost divine prescience, struck the golden
mean.”—Pomeroy’s _An Introduction to the Constitutional History of
the United States_, p. 102.
“It (the United States Constitution) ranks above every other written
Constitution for the intrinsic excellence of its scheme, its
adaptation to the circumstances of the people, the simplicity,
brevity and precision of its language, its judicious mixture of
definition in principle with elasticity in details. One is induced
to ask, to what causes, over and above the capacity of its authors
and the patient toil they bestowed upon it, these merits are due, or
in other words, what were the materials at the command of the
Philadelphia Convention for the achievement of so great an
enterprise as the creation of a nation by means of an instrument of
government. The American Constitution is no exception to the rule
that everything which has power to win the obedience and respect of
men must have its roots deep in the past, and that the more slowly
every institution has grown, so much the more enduring it is likely
to prove. There is little in this Constitution that is absolutely
new. There is much that is as old as Magna Charta.”—James Bryce,
author of _The American Commonwealth_.
“Let reverence for the law be breathed by every mother to the
lisping babe that prattles on her lap; let it be taught in schools,
seminaries, and colleges; let it be written in primers, spelling
books and almanacs; let it be preached from pulpits, and proclaimed
in legislative halls, and enforced in courts of justice; let it
become the political religion of the nation.”—Abraham Lincoln.
“The Constitution, which may at first be confounded with the Federal
Constitutions which have preceded it, rests in truth upon a wholly
novel theory—a great discovery in modern political science. In all
the Confederations which have preceded the American Constitution of
1787, the Allied States ... agreed to obey the injunctions of a
federal government; but they reserved to themselves the right of
ordaining and enforcing the laws of the Union....” (The American
government, he explains, claims directly the allegiance of every
citizen, and acts upon each directly through its own courts and
officers.) “This difference has produced the most momentous
consequences.”—Tocqueville’s _Democracy in America_.
“It will be the wonder and admiration of all future generations and
the model of all future constitutions.”—William Pitt, after reading
the Constitution of the United States.
“The Constitution of the United States is by far the most important
production of its kind in human history. It created, without
historic precedent, a federal-national government It combined
national strength with individual liberty in a degree so remarkable
as to attract the world’s admiration. Never before in the history of
man had a government struck so fine a balance between liberty and
union, between state rights national sovereignty. The world had
labored for ages to solve this greatest of all governmental
problems, but it had labored in vain. Greece in her mad clamor for
liberty had forgotten the need of the strength that union brings,
and she perished. Rome fostered union, nationality, for its
strength, until it became a tyrant and strangled the child liberty.
It was left for our own Revolutionary fathers to strike the balance
between these opposing forces to join them in a perpetual wedlock in
such a way as to secure the benefits of both. They selected the best
things that had been tried and proved. Hence their great success,
hence the fact that 132 years after its signing, this same
Constitution is still the supreme law of the land and more deeply
imbedded in the American heart than ever.”—Henry William Elson.
“The Constitution is not an arbitrary, unchangeable document, but
can be adapted to meet new conditions whenever the people decide. It
should be upheld because under its wise provisions the United States
has developed into a great nation of happy and prosperous people;
because it contains sacred guarantees of protection for the
individual; and because it affords freedom and opportunity for every
citizen, whether native-born or naturalized. American citizenship
securely rests upon its firm foundation.”—Henry Litchfield West.
“The Federal Constitution, the whole of it, is nothing but a code of
the people’s liberties, political and civil. The Constitution is not
a mass of rules, but the very substance of our freedom, not
obsolete; but in every part alive; more needful now than ever, and
as fitted to our needs.”—Stimson’s _The American Constitution_.
“No other country in the world possesses the guarantees of
individual liberty and inherent rights that are accorded by the
Constitution of the United States.”—David Jayne Hill’s _The People’s
Government_.
“We need not view with apprehension or even regret the gradual
adaptation of the Constitution to the ever-changing needs from
generation to generation of the most progressive nation in the
world. The Constitution is not a static institution. It is neither,
on the one hand, a sandy beach, which is quickly destroyed by the
erosion of the waves, nor, on the other hand, is it a Gibralter rock
which wholly resists the ceaseless washing of time and
circumstances. Its strength lies in its adaptability to slow and
progressive change. While the necessity of change may be recognised
in the non-essentials, yet the Constitution was based upon certain
fundamental principles which were not thus changeable. These times
should not wither nor custom stale. While the great compact
apparently dealt only with very concrete and practical details of
government in the very simplest language, and carefully avoided
anything that savored of visionary doctrinarism, yet, behind these
simply but wonderfully phrased delegations of power, was a broad and
accurate political philosophy, which constitutes the true doctrine
of American Government. Its principles are of eternal verity. They
are founded upon the inalienable rights of man. They are not the
thing of the day or temporary circumstance. If they are destroyed,
then the spirit of our government is gone, even if the form
survive.”—James M. Beck.
“The Constitution remains the surest and safest foundation for a
free government that the wit of man has yet devised.”—Nicholas
Murray Butler.
“I believe there is no finer form of government than the one under
which we live, and that I ought to be willing to live or die, as God
decrees, that it may not perish from the earth through treachery
within or through assault without.”—Thomas R. Marshall.
“Although not a citizen of your great country, I am heart and soul
with you and your associates in the glorious fight you are making
for the preservation of your peerless Constitution, which has made
your country what it is, and which is today the brightest hope of
mankind.”—Baron Rosen, formerly Russian Ambassador to the United
States of America.
“Under the American Constitution was realized the sublime conception
of a nation in which every citizen lives under two complete and
well-rounded systems of laws,—the state law and the federal law—each
with its legislature, its executive, and its judiciary moving one
within the other, noiselessly, and without friction. It was one of
the longest reaches of constructive statesmanship ever known in the
world. There never was anything quite like it before, and in Europe
it needs much explanation even for educated statesmen who have never
seen its workings. Yet to America it has become so much a matter of
course that they, too, sometimes need to be told how much it
signifies. _In 1787 it was the substitution of law for violence
between states that were partly sovereign. In some future still
grander convention we trust the same thing will be done between
states that have been wholly sovereign, whereby peace may gain and
violence be diminished over other lands than this which has set the
example._”—John Fiske, in 1888.
41 The English government forced laws upon the colonies to restrict
trade and manufactures, to place a standing army in America, and to
raise taxes. The tax laws were denounced as illegal by the
colonists, who argued that they were not represented in Parliament.
Read the charges made against the king and the government of England
in the Declaration of Independence.
42 Read the famous speech made by James Otis against the Stamp Act in
the Stamp Act Congress in New York, October, 1765. See _American
History Leaflets_.
43 The following were the fundamental defects of the Articles of
Confederation.
a. They did not provide for a central executive, and there was no
supreme executive to enforce the laws.
b. No provision was made for a central judiciary, and each State
interpreted the Federal laws as it saw fit.
c. They permitted concurrent legislation on vital subjects: i. e.
each State could legislate as it pleased on such subjects as tariff,
foreign treaties, currency, etc.
d. They permitted each State to regulate its own coinage and there
were at one time at least fourteen different kinds of coins in the
thirteen States. This greatly interfered with trade.
e. They gave Congress no power to enforce the observance of
treaties. Congress could pass laws but could not enforce them.
f. They gave Congress no power to coerce a State—it could only
recommend to the States.
g. They required a two-thirds vote on all questions in Congress, and
votes were cast by States. Most bills may pass the present Congress
by a majority vote.
h. Congress could not reach the individual to punish him for crime
committed against the Federal government, except through the State
in which the crime was committed. Often the States refused to act.
i. The Articles could not be amended without the consent of all of
the States. Several times one State defeated the amendment of the
Articles.
44 The small States having only small areas and therefore less room for
settlers, were afraid of any form of union government which gave the
States proportional representation in Congress. These small States
declared they would not ratify the Articles of Confederation until
those States having large areas of western lands would agree to cede
those lands to the Federal government. The seven States holding
western lands agreed to cede their lands in January, 1781, and on
March 1st, Maryland as the last State ratified the Articles of
Confederation.
45 The various States chose a total of sixty-five delegates to attend
the Federal convention at Philadelphia. Of these, fifty-five
actually sat in the convention. Of the entire number, forty-two were
present on the last day and thirty-nine signed the Constitution.
Of the fifty-five who sat in the convention, twenty-five were from
north of the Mason and Dixon Line, or from the northern States, and
thirty were from the southern States. Of the thirty-nine signers,
nineteen were from the North and twenty from the South. The three
who refused to sign were Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts and Edmund
Randolph and George Mason of Virginia. These three men thought the
Constitution gave too much power to the central government and did
not leave enough to the States.
Eight of the men who signed the Constitution were of foreign birth.
They were Alexander Hamilton, William Patterson, James Wilson,
Robert Morris, James McHenry, Thomas Fitzsimons, William R. Davie,
and Pierce Butler. You will notice that Hamilton, Wilson, Patterson,
and Morris were among the most influential men in the convention.
Many of America’s greatest men have been of foreign birth.
The oldest man in the convention was Benjamin Franklin who was
eighty-one years of age. The youngest man was Jonathan Dayton of New
Jersey who was only twenty-seven. Charles Pinckney was twenty-nine
years old, and Alexander Hamilton was thirty. The average age of the
entire membership in the convention was 43-2/5 years.
The membership in the convention included a remarkable group of
men—in fact the most remarkable group of statesmen that ever
assembled for the making of a constitution. They had gained their
experience in five different ways: colonial legislatures, State
legislatures, State conventions, Continental Congresses, and in the
Congress of the Confederation. Six of them had the honor of having
signed the Declaration of Independence—Benjamin Franklin, James
Wilson, Robert Morris, Roger Sherman, George Read, and George
Clymer. Thirty delegates were college men and twenty-six had
degrees.
46 A careful study of the debates in the Federal convention will reveal
the following allusions to the government and institutions of other
countries. A total of two hundred and twenty-three allusions were
made to the governments of Europe, the most important of which were
the following: one hundred and thirty allusions were made to
England, of which fifty were commendatory, and twenty-four were
warnings; nineteen allusions were made to France, of which five were
commendatory and three were warnings; Germany, or rather the German
States, had seventeen allusions; Holland had twenty allusions;
Greece had twenty-five; Rome had twenty-six. The two hundred and
twenty-three allusions were made in such way as to indicate that the
delegates were widely read in both government and history.
47 The Constitution in Article VII says, “The Ratification of the
Conventions of nine States shall be sufficient for the Establishment
of this Constitution between the States so ratifying the Same.”
The first State to ratify was Delaware on December 7, 1787. New
Hampshire, the ninth State, ratified on June 21, 1788, and Rhode
Island, the last, on May 29, 1790.
48 Every right begets a duty. The more rights our government gives us,
the more duties are imposed upon each one of us. In an absolute
monarchy the people have very few rights and they also have very few
duties to perform. In democracies like the United States the people
have a right to participate in government, they also have the duty
of becoming intelligent and becoming acquainted with the various
details of the administration of government. When people have a
right to participate in government, they have the duty of attending
every election and casting an intelligent ballot. Where people have
a right to make law, they must accept the duty of helping enforce
law. Where people have freedom of religious belief and worship, they
must refrain from interfering in the belief of other people. Where
they have freedom of speech and press, they must protect other
people in that same right. Where people have the right of trial in a
legally constituted court of law, they must refrain from mob rule or
from lynch law. The greater the privileges given a people by law,
the greater are their duties to see that law is always respected and
carefully enforced.
49 The government of the United States is a dual government. There is a
State government within each State, which is supreme over the
affairs of that State alone. Then there is a Federal government
which is supreme and sovereign throughout the entire United States
in all those affairs which the Federal Constitution gives to the
control of the Federal government. The _police power_ of a State is
commonly defined as the power of a State to control all of its
domestic internal affairs. The Federal government is not permitted
to interfere with the police powers of the States.