The U.S. Constitution is Signed: September 17, 1787
This text comes from our book, All Ye Lands.
After the Continental Congress signed the Declaration of Independence, the colonies no longer thought of themselves as colonies but as independent states. During the war, these states thought it best to unite with one another for mutual protection and help. Thus, in 1781, they agreed to adopt a constitution to govern their union, the “United States of America.” This first U.S. constitution was called the Articles of Confederation.
The Articles of Confederation, however, failed to unite the states into one nation. It did not give the government of the United States — Congress — enough power to make the states obey it. Many Americans began to think the country needed a new constitution that could better unite the states. Such a constitution had to respect the American spirit of independence and self-reliance, as well as the English tradition of respect for law.
Thus, in 1787, representatives of the various states met in Philadelphia to draw up a new constitution. The president of this Constitutional Convention was none other than the war hero, George Washington. Under his direction the convention drew up a constitution that gave more power to the government of the union while yet respecting the authority of state governments.
The Constitution of the United States of America was presented to the convention delegates on September 7, 1787, and sent to the separate state assemblies for ratification. The questions the Constitutional Convention dealt with were those raised by the American spirit of independence and equality under the law. No one wanted any one man or group of men to have too much power. No one wanted one region of the country to dominate the others, or the large states to have more power than the small states. Moreover, convention delegates wanted to guarantee each free man’s right to vote for his laws and government.
The Constitution
After months of debate, the convention came up with a constitution that called for a three-part government, with a legislature, an executive, and a judiciary. The new constitution did the following things:
1. It set up a congress, made up of representatives of the people and the states. The congress makes all the laws for the new government. It is divided into two houses: the House of Representatives and the Senate.
2. The House of Representatives represents the people of the United States. The people in larger states send more representatives to the House than the people in smaller states. Each representative serves for two years. The Senate represents the states. Each state sends two senators to the Senate. Each senator serves for six years.
3. There is an executive, called the president, who does not make laws but makes sure the laws made by Congress are put into effect. The president, however, has to sign all bills passed by Congress before they can become laws. If the president refuses to sign (or vetoes) a bill, it cannot become law. The House and Senate, however, can reject the president’s veto if two-thirds of both houses vote to do so, and then the bill will become a law.
4. The president is commander and chief of the army and navy of the United States.
5. The constitution said that the president is to appoint the members of the third branch of government, the Supreme Court. The Senate, however, has to approve the men the president wants to appoint. A Supreme Court justice can serve for as long as he or she wishes, unless the House of Representatives impeaches the justice and the Senate convicts him or her of having committed a serious crime.
Slavery and a Bill of Rights
The last question the Constitutional Convention took up was the difficult question of slavery. The English colonies, like the French, Spanish, and Portuguese settlements in the New World, had accepted the ancient, but dreadful, custom of slavery. The colonists obtained their slaves from the West African coasts. All the United States had legal slavery, though the southern states had many more slaves than the northern New England states. Slavery had made large landowners in Virginia and the Carolinas (who grew tobacco, rice, and similar crops) very wealthy. Many of the founders of the United States were slave owners, including George Washington and Thomas Jefferson (though Washington freed his slaves in his will). These men disliked slavery, as did many of the other founders. Even in the southern states, many wanted to bring slavery to an end soon.
The Constitutional Convention, however, was unable to end slavery, for to do so immediately would bring poverty to the South, much of which depended on slave labor. The Constitution, however, did attack the practice of importing slaves from Africa to the United States. It said that, in 1808, no more slaves could be imported into the United States from Africa or other countries. Many of those who opposed the new Constitution were worried that the new government would be too powerful and would violate the rights of citizens. Though the Constitution went into effect in June 1788 and shortly after George Washington was elected president, many Americans did not like the new government. To please these opponents, Congress, the president, and the state governments approved ten amendments to the Constitution. These amendments are called the Bill of Rights.
The Bill of Rights was meant to protect individual citizens and the states from the power of the new federal government. The Bill of Rights, for instance, keeps the government from persecuting people on account of their religious beliefs or forcing them to practice a particular religion. It grants people the right to speak their ideas freely, to gather in peaceful assemblies, and to own and bear arms. The Tenth Amendment says that the powers the Constitution does not give to the federal government belong to the states and the people.
