Grommersoft

The U.S. Constitution is the world's oldest written governing instrument. It was meant initially to be a remodeled version of the weak and ineffective Articles of Confederation. Instead, the delegates to the Constitutional Convention overstepped their mandate to revise the Articles and created an enlightened and enduring blueprint for consensual government.

American independence from British rule was spurred by the desire to preserve liberties that the colonists had achieved. Restrictions on property inheritance, religious practices, and economic mobility were common in Europe but were minimal in America. The colonists were also determined to forestall taxation by a remote British government in which the colonists had no representation.

The Declaration of Independence was the colonists' response to punitive taxation and colonial restiveness. It was a justification for severing all political connections to the British Crown. The declaration was the work of Thomas Jefferson. He presented a clear and masterful argument for the inalienability of the people's rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness and the right to be governed by an authority of their choice. Jefferson based his argument on the ideas of the English philosopher John Locke, including the right of the people to revolt against the government's usurpation of legitimate rights.

The colonists declared their new government a republic, a government without a monarchy; it would be rooted in the consent of the governed and power would be exercised by representatives responsible to the governed. American colonial leaders were fearful of democracy, which was associated with mob rule and instability.

The first attempt at government was the Articles of Confederation. The Articles proved inadequate because they established a national government largely devoid of power. The Articles retained power in the states, pacifying those who feared the loss of liberty at the hands of a remote national government. Government under the Articles was unable to cope with economic problems and threatened insurrection.

Delegates to the Constitutional Convention realized the need for a stronger national government to preserve order. At the outset, the Virginia delegation proposed a long list of changes to strengthen the national government. This plan became the focus of debate and the basis for an entirely new government charter. An alternate plan, drafted by the delegates from New Jersey, appealed to the smaller states. A great compromise helped to resolve the stalemate between the two plans.

The Constitution articulates four significant political values. Republicanism is a form of government in which power resides in the people and is exercised by their elected representatives. Federalism is the division of sovereignty between the states and the national government. The Constitution created a national government. Separation of powers is the assignment of lawmaking power to a legislative branch, law-enforcing power to an executive branch, and law-interpreting power to a judicial branch. The constitutional system of checks and balances is a means of giving each branch of government some scrutiny over the other branches. The idea of dividing power was to prevent tyranny by a single person or group.

The first three articles of the Constitution establish the internal operation and powers of the separate branches of government. The remaining four define the relationships among the states, explain the process of amendment, declare the supremacy of national law, and explain the procedures for ratifying the Constitution.

The new Constitution lacked a bill of rights. This proved to be an impediment to the Constitution's ratification. Ratification proceeded only on the condition that a bill of rights would be added by amendment. By 1791, ten amendments embodying these rights and liberties were adopted by the states.

The Constitution is a simple structural framework for a government that balances freedom and order but pays virtually no attention to social equality. The framers of the Constitution intended to create a republic resting on majority consent, not majority rule. Contemporary American government conforms to a pluralist model of democracy, which may have been what the delegates to the Constitutional Convention had in mind when they fashioned their new government.

©1998 by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.