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THE UNITED
STATES CONSTITUTION
SUMMARIZED BY
ARTICLE
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| The Preamble |
| The Preamble does not confer
power, but its first words, “We the People of the
United States,” describe the source of the powers
conferred by the rest of the Constitution and have
been used by the advocates of a strong union arguing
against the proponents of
states’ rights.
The Preamble also states the purpose of the
document. One of the statements of purpose,
“to … promote the general welfare,” has been of
great importance in the 20th century in upholding
social legislation, for which no warrant could be
found in the enumerated powers of Congress. |
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| The Articles |
| The first three articles set
up the threefold separation of powers, said to have
been modeled on Montesquieu’s study, which on this
point was incorrect, of the British government. In
actuality this separation has been weakened by the
granting of greater powers to the President and his
administrative agencies, which now have legislative
and judicial as well as executive functions. |
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| 1: Congress |
| Article 1 provides for
the establishment of the bicameral Congress composed
of the Senate and the House of Representatives. The
various powers of the Congress and the respective
houses, together with their methods of election, are
enumerated in the article. The Seventeenth
Amendment, passed in 1916, instituted the direct
popular election of Senators and removed the power
of their election from the state legislatures as had
originally been provided in Article 1. |
| Section 4 of Article 1 gives
the states power over the conduct of federal
elections but permits the Congress to alter such
regulations at any time. In 1842 the Congress
imposed the district system on the United States. In
1962 the Supreme Court dealt with proper
apportionment of election districts and in its
decision in Baker v. Carr allowed
voters to go into a federal court to force equitable
representation in a state legislature. This decision
was, however, based on the equal protection clause
of the Fourteenth Amendment. Later, the court ruled
(1964) that state legislative apportionment must
reflect the one-person one-vote principle. |
| As a legislative body Congress
has certain inherent powers. Among these are the
power to investigate pursuant to legislative needs.
Congressional investigations have led to a great
many court decisions concerning the right of a
witness before a Congressional committee to refuse
to testify even when granted immunity from
prosecution. |
| Section 8 of Article 1 lists
the enumerated powers of the Congress. The clause of
this section, the “commerce clause,” which grants
the Congress the right to “regulate commerce with
foreign nations, and among the several States,” has,
in the 20th cent., been used as a strong argument
for the expansion of government power. Since the
historic case of
Gibbons v. Ogden
(1824), the commerce clause has been the
battleground over which much of the struggle for and
against increased federal regulation of private
enterprise has been fought. Until the late 1930s
Congress exercised its powers under the clause
solely with reference to transportation. But after a
series of dramatic reversals by the Supreme Court,
Congress began to enter areas that had previously
been controlled only by the states. The commerce
clause is now the source of important peacetime
powers of the national government and an important
basis for the judicial review of state actions. |
| Besides its enumerated and
inherent powers, the Congress has implied powers
under Article 1 “to make all laws which shall be
necessary and proper for carrying into execution”
the enumerated or expressed powers. Sections 9 and
10 of Article 1 contain guarantees of the writ of
habeas corpus,
prohibit bills of attainder and ex post facto laws,
and also improve certain limitations on state power. |
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| 2: The Executive Branch |
| Article 2 creates the
executive branch of government headed by the
President, elected, along with the Vice President,
for a term of four years (see
president;
electoral
college). The Twenty-second
Amendment (1951) provides that no person may be
elected President more than twice. The Twenty-third
Amendment (1961) permits District of Columbia
residents to vote in presidential elections. Since
the adoption of the Constitution there have been two
conflicting views of Article 2. The first is that
the powers of the President are limited to those
enumerated in the article. The opposite view is that
the President is given executive power not limited
by the provisions of the rest of the article. Every
President has had to make the choice of
interpretations for himself. |
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| 3: The Judiciary |
| Article 3 provides for
a judiciary and defines
treason.
Besides its enumerated powers, the judiciary has the
inherent authority to interpret laws and the
Constitution with an authority that must be deferred
to. Article 3 also guarantees trial by jury in
criminal cases and lays the basis for federal
jurisdiction. The Eleventh Amendment (1798), which
prohibits suits against any state by citizens of
another state or foreigners (see
sovereignty),
was passed in reaction to the Supreme Court’s
accepting jurisdiction of a suit against a state by
a citizen of another state. |
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| 4: The States |
| Article 4 deals with
the relations of the states (see
conflict of laws),
providing that “Full faith and credit shall be given
in each State to the public acts, records, and
judicial proceedings of every other State.” Section
2 prohibits any state from discriminating against
citizens of other states, or in favor of its own. It
also provides for the extradition of criminals. The
article guarantees a republican form of government
to every state and provides for the admission of new
states as well as the government of territories. |
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| 5: Amending the
Constitution |
| Article 5 provides for
amending the Constitution. The supremacy of the
federal Constitution and of federal law over those
of the states is the heart of the federal system and
is established by Article 6. Article 6 also provides
for an oath of office for members of the three
branches of the federal government and the states
and specifically forbids any religious qualification
for office. Article 7 declares that the Constitution
should go into force when ratified by nine states. |
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| The Amendments |
| The Constitution has undergone
gradual alteration with the growth of the country.
Some of the 26 amendments were brought on by Supreme
Court decisions. However, the first 10 amendments,
which constitute the Bill of Rights, were added
within two years of the signing of the federal
Constitution in order to ensure sufficient
guarantees of individual liberties. The Bill of
Rights applied only to the federal government. But
since the passage of the
Fourteenth Amendment
(1868), many of the guarantees contained in the Bill
of Rights have been extended to the states through
the “due process” clause of the Fourteenth
Amendment. |
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| The Bill of Rights |
| The First Amendment
guarantees the freedom of worship, of speech, of the
press, of assembly, and of petition to the
government for redress of grievances. This
amendment has been the center of controversy in
recent years in the areas of free speech and
religion. The Supreme Court has held that freedom of
speech does not include the right to refuse to
testify before a Congressional investigating
committee and that most organized prayer in the
public schools violates the First Amendment. |
| The right to bear arms
openly—adopted with reference to state militias—is
guaranteed by the Second Amendment, while freedom
from quartering soldiers in a house without the
owner’s consent is guaranteed by the Third
Amendment. The Fourth Amendment protects people
against unreasonable search and seizure, a safeguard
only recently extended to the states. |
| The Fifth Amendment provides
that no person shall be held for “a capital or
otherwise infamous crime” without indictment, be
twice put in “jeopardy of life or limb” for the same
offense, be compelled to testify against himself, or
“be deprived of life, liberty, or property without
due process of law.” The privilege against
self-incrimination has been the center of a great
deal of controversy as a result of the growth of
Congressional investigations. The phrase “due
process of law,” which appears in the Fifth
Amendment, is also included in the Fourteenth
Amendment. As a result there has been much debate as
to whether both amendments guarantee the same
rights. Those in favor of what is termed fixed due
process claim that all the safeguards applied
against the federal government should be also
applied against the states through the Fourteenth
Amendment. The supporters of the concept of flexible
due process are only willing to impose those
guarantees on the states that “are implicit in the
concept of ordered liberty.” |
| The Sixth Amendment guarantees
the right of speedy and public trial by an impartial
jury in all criminal proceedings, while the Seventh
Amendment guarantees the right of trial by jury in
almost all common-law suits. Excessive bail, fines
and “cruel and unusual” punishment are prohibited by
the Eighth Amendment. The Ninth Amendment states
that “The enumeration in the Constitution of certain
rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage
others retained by the people.” |
| By the Tenth Amendment “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.” Powers reserved to the states are often
termed “residual powers.” This amendment, like the
commerce clause, has been a battleground in the
struggle over states’ rights and federal supremacy. |
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| The Other Amendments |
| Of the succeeding sixteen
amendments, the Eleventh, Seventeenth, Twenty-second
and Twenty-third Amendments have already been
discussed under Articles 1, 2, and 3. The Twelfth
(1804) revised the method of electing President and
Vice President. The Thirteenth (1865), Fourteenth
(1868), and Fifteenth (1870) are the Civil War and
Reconstruction amendments; they abolish slavery,
while guaranteeing civil rights and suffrage to U.S.
citizens, including former slaves. The Sixteenth
Amendment (1913) authorizes the
income tax.
Prohibition
was established by the Eighteenth Amendment (1919)
and repealed by the Twenty-first (1933). The
Nineteenth (1920) grants
woman suffrage.
The Twentieth (1933) abolishes the so-called
lame-duck Congress and alters the date of the
presidential inauguration. The poll tax and any
other tax made a requirement for voting in primaries
and elections for federal office was outlawed by the
Twenty-fourth Amendment (1964). The Twenty-fifth
(1967) establishes the procedure for filling the
office of Vice President between elections and for
governing in the event of presidential disability.
The Twenty-sixth Amendment (1971) lowers the voting
age in all elections to 18. The Twenty-seventh
Amendment (1992), first proposed in 1789,
establishes procedures for Congressional pay
increases. |
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| Bibliography |
| See C. A. Beard, An
Economic Interpretation of the Constitution
(1913, repr. 1965); E. S. Corwin, The
Constitution and What It Means Today (13th rev.
ed. 1973); R. Tugwell, The Emerging Constitution
(1974); F. M. Coleman, Politics, Policy, and the
Constitution (1983); M. Kammen, ed., The
Origins of the American Constitution (1986); F.
McDonald, Novus Ordo Seclorum: Intellectual
Origins of the Constitution (1990); L. H. Tribe
and M. G. Dorf, On Reading the Constitution
(1992); J. T. Noonan, The Lustre of Our Country
(1998). |
"Alone, we are nothing.
As part of a group that does not achieve, we are
nothing." Together, We Are The People.
Let's stand together!
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