The Articles of the Constitution

The Preamble

"We the People of the United States, in Order 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, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."

Preamble

The Preamble states who creates the government (the people, an expression of popular sovereignty) and why. It lists six goals:

1. Form a more perfect Union. This was a deliberate improvement on the weak Articles of Confederation.
2. Establish Justice: fair laws and courts.
3. Insure domestic Tranquility: peace and order at home. Shays' Rebellion (1786–87) was fresh in the Framers' minds.
4. Provide for the common defence: protection from foreign threats.
5. Promote the general Welfare: the well-being of the people as a whole.
6. Secure the Blessings of Liberty: freedom for the present generation and future ones ("our Posterity").

The Preamble does not itself grant any power to government. Courts treat it as a statement of purpose.

Article I: The Legislative Branch

Article I is the longest article, which shows that the Framers saw Congress as the central branch of a republic. It creates a bicameral (two-house) Congress. That structure resulted from the Great Compromise.

Originally state legislatures chose senators. The Seventeenth Amendment (1913) changed that to direct election by the people.

Key sections

• Section 2: House apportionment by census (including the original Three-Fifths Clause, later superseded); impeachment power.
• Section 3: Senate composition and impeachment trials. The chief justice presides when the president is tried.
• Section 4: the Elections Clause (states set times, places, and manner; Congress may alter).
• Section 6: the Speech or Debate Clause protects legislators for statements made in Congress; members may not hold other federal offices.
• Section 7: how a bill becomes law. Both houses pass the identical bill, and the president signs or vetoes it. Two-thirds of each house can override a veto. If the president holds a bill for ten days (Sundays excepted) while Congress is in session, it becomes law without a signature. If Congress adjourns in that time, it dies (a "pocket veto").
• Section 8: the enumerated powers of Congress. They include the power to lay and collect taxes; borrow money; regulate commerce with foreign nations, among the states, and with the Indian tribes; establish naturalization and bankruptcy rules; coin money; establish post offices; grant patents and copyrights; create lower federal courts; declare war; raise and support armies and a navy; and make all laws "necessary and proper" for carrying out these powers.
• Section 9: limits on Congress. Habeas corpus may not be suspended except in rebellion or invasion. No bills of attainder or ex post facto laws, no titles of nobility, and no money spent except by law. The Foreign Emoluments Clause also appears here. Section 9 also barred Congress from banning the importation of enslaved people before 1808.
• Section 10: limits on states. States may not make treaties, coin money, pass ex post facto laws, impair contracts, or tax imports without Congress's consent.

Article II: The Executive Branch

Article II vests "the executive Power" in a single president. The Framers had rejected a plural executive.

• Term and election: four years, chosen by the Electoral College. The Twenty-Second Amendment (1951) limits a president to two elected terms.
• Qualifications: a natural-born citizen, at least 35 years old, and a U.S. resident for 14 years.
• Oath: to "preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."
• Powers (Section 2): commander in chief of the armed forces; may require written opinions from department heads (the root of the cabinet); may grant pardons and reprieves for federal offenses, except in impeachment cases; makes treaties with the advice and consent of two-thirds of the Senate; nominates ambassadors, federal judges, and other officers, with Senate confirmation; may make temporary "recess appointments."
• Duties (Section 3): give Congress information on the "State of the Union"; recommend legislation; receive ambassadors; "take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed"; commission officers; convene Congress in extraordinary situations.
• Removal (Section 4): the president, vice president, and all civil officers may be removed on impeachment for, and conviction of, "Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors."

Article II also contains a domestic emoluments clause: the president's salary may not change during the term, and the president may not receive any other "Emolument" from the United States or any state. Presidential powers have grown through practice: executive orders, executive agreements, and military action without declared war. See Chapter 17.

Article III: The Judicial Branch

• Creates "one supreme Court" and lets Congress create "inferior" (lower) courts. The Judiciary Act of 1789 set up the first federal court system. The number of Supreme Court justices is set by law; it has been nine since 1869.
• Judges serve "during good Behaviour" (effectively for life), and their pay cannot be reduced. Both rules protect judicial independence.
• Federal judicial power extends to cases arising under the Constitution, federal laws, and treaties; cases involving ambassadors; admiralty cases; controversies to which the U.S. is a party; disputes between states; and certain disputes between citizens of different states.
• The Supreme Court has original jurisdiction, meaning it hears the case first, in cases involving ambassadors and those in which a state is a party. In all other cases it has appellate jurisdiction.
• Federal criminal trials are by jury, held in the state where the crime was committed.
• Treason is the only crime defined in the Constitution: "levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort." Conviction requires two witnesses to the same overt act or a confession in open court.

Article III does not mention judicial review. The Court claimed that power in Marbury v. Madison (1803). Alexander Hamilton had defended it in Federalist No. 78, calling the judiciary the "least dangerous" branch.

Article IV: Relations Among the States

• Full Faith and Credit (Section 1): each state must respect the "public Acts, Records, and judicial Proceedings" of every other state. Examples include court judgments, birth certificates, marriages, and adoptions. See the clause in detail.
• Privileges and Immunities (Section 2): citizens of each state are entitled to the privileges and immunities of citizens in the several states. A state generally may not discriminate against visitors from other states.
• Extradition (Section 2): a person charged with a crime who flees to another state must be returned on demand. (Section 2 also contained the Fugitive Slave Clause, made void by the 13th Amendment.)
• New states (Section 3): Congress may admit new states, but no state may be formed within another state or by joining states without consent of the legislatures involved and Congress. Congress also governs federal territories. The Northwest Ordinance provided the model for admitting new states on equal terms.
• Guarantee Clause (Section 4): the United States guarantees every state "a Republican Form of Government" and protection against invasion and, on request, against domestic violence.

Article V: The Amendment Process

Article V provides two ways to propose amendments and two ways to ratify them:

The president plays no formal role in the amendment process. The high thresholds, two-thirds to propose and three-fourths (38 of 50 states) to ratify, mean an amendment needs broad national agreement. That protects fundamental principles from temporary majorities. Since 1789, thousands of amendments have been proposed in Congress, and only 27 have been ratified. Article V also guarantees that no state can be deprived of its equal vote in the Senate without its consent.

Article VI: Supremacy, Debts, and Oaths

• Debts: debts contracted under the Articles of Confederation remain valid under the Constitution.
• Supremacy Clause: "This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties 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." See the clause in detail.
• Oaths: federal and state officials, legislators, and judges must swear to support the Constitution.
• No religious test: "no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States." This was a striking protection of religious liberty for its time.

Article VII: Ratification

Article VII provided that the Constitution would take effect when conventions in nine of the thirteen states ratified it. Two choices stand out. Requiring nine instead of all thirteen avoided the unanimity rule that had crippled the Articles of Confederation. Using special conventions instead of state legislatures based the Constitution on the people's direct consent. Delaware ratified first (December 7, 1787). New Hampshire became the ninth state on June 21, 1788, and the new government began in 1789. Rhode Island was last, in May 1790. See the ratification fight.

Types of Powers: Expressed, Implied, Inherent, Reserved, Concurrent

The relationship between expressed and implied powers was the great question in McCulloch v. Maryland (1819). Chief Justice John Marshall reasoned that the Constitution grants broad ends and that the Necessary and Proper Clause lets Congress choose reasonable means to reach them. Congress has no express power to charter a bank, but a bank helps carry out the expressed powers to tax, borrow, and regulate commerce.