Anatomy of the Constitution Name:

How Do They Govern?

The U.S. Constitution is the document that creates our nation’s
government. The contents of the Constitution create the three
branches of our government and give directions for how the federal
government works. (It does this with a little over 4,500 words
covering only four sheets of paper!) Although the Constitution was
written in 1787, over 220 years ago, it still guides our officials in
The Constitution on display at the
running our country today. It is the oldest written constitution in the National Archives in Washington, DC.
world that is still in use.
Introducing… The Preamble
Our Constitution is divided into nine parts. The first paragraph is
called the Preamble. Its job is to introduce the Constitution, explain
what the Constitution is meant to do, and describe the purpose of
the new government. The first three words of the Constitution—
”We the People”—contain the important idea of self-government.
Creating Congress: Article I
Article I is the first and longest part of the Constitution. It creates the legislative
branch of our government. Legislative means law-making. This section is the
longest because the people who wrote the Constitution believed that a
legislative branch is very important in a government that represents the
citizens. Members of the legislature, or law-making body, are responsible for
turning citizens’ wants and needs into laws.
Represent Me!
The legislative branch makes our government a representative democracy. In
a representative democracy, citizens elect people to represent their needs and
concerns in government. Article I creates a legislature called Congress and
divides it into two parts: the Senate and the House of Representatives. Article
I describes how Congress should be organized, tells what qualifications
legislators must have, and says how often Congress should hold elections and
meet as a group. It also describes other details of operation that each house
of Congress gets to decide for itself.

You must be at least 30 years old, been You must be at least 25 years old, been a
a U.S. citizen for at least 9 years, and U.S. citizen for at least 7 years, and live
live in the state you represent in the state you represent.
Number per state depends on population
2 senators per state = 100 total
= 435 total (in 2011)
the interests of the citizens who live in
the interests of the citizens in the entire
the district they represent within the
state for 6 years per term.
state for 2 years per term.
The Senate acts as a court during All bills that raise money must start in the
impeachments. House of Representatives.
A bill must be approved by BOTH houses of Congress
before it can go to the President to become a law.

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Anatomy of the Constitution Name:

The Powers of Congress

Article I lists the powers Congress has. Even though Congress is a law-making body, it is not allowed to
make laws about anything that’s not on this list:

 Collect taxes  Give patents to new inventions

 Borrow money and pay debts  Create the lower federal courts
 Make rules for how to become a citizen  Punish pirates
 Regulate commerce (trade) with other nations,  Declare war and support an army and navy
between the states, and with Indian tribes  Make any other laws that are “necessary and
 Coin money and punish counterfeiters proper” to carry out the powers in this list.
 Establish post offices

Creating the President: Article II

Article II of the Constitution describes the job of the executive branch.
This branch executes, or carries out, laws. The president heads this
branch, which also includes the vice president and many departments in
charge of carrying out the government’s day-to-day business. Article II
describes who qualifies to be the president, what powers the office has,
and what happens if a president misbehaves! It also explains the Electoral
College, which is the process of how the president is selected.
Presidential Powers
The overall job of the executive branch is to carry out and enforce laws, but Article II gives the president
a list of specific duties:

 Act as the commander-in-chief of the armed  Negotiate treaties with other countries
forces
 Appoint ambassadors, Supreme Court Justices
 Maintain a cabinet of advisors who run the 15 and federal court judges, and Cabinet members
executive departments like the State
 Make a State of the Union address to Congress
Department and the Treasury
 Represent the United States when dealing with
 Grant pardons in all federal criminal offenses,
foreign countries
and reprieves (postpone punishments like
executions)  Make sure that laws are carried out (executed)

Creating the Courts: Article III

Here come the judges! Article III creates the judicial branch. The judicial branch
interprets laws to decide what they mean and whether they have been followed in
specific cases.
Article III creates the Supreme Court and authorizes Congress to create federal
courts below the Supreme Court. These are courts that deal with United States
laws, not state laws. Article III also gives directions about what kinds of cases the
Supreme Court and federal courts can hear. Under Article III, federal judges are
appointed, not elected. They stay on the bench until they retire, die, or are
The U.S. Supreme Court
removed for bad behavior. Article III also guarantees trial by jury for criminal
in Washington, DC
cases and explains the crime of treason.
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The States: Article IV

States have the power to create and enforce their own laws.
Article Four of the Constitution describes how the states should
interact with each other.
 Each state has to respect the laws and court decisions of the
other states.
 If a criminal flees from one state to another, the state where
the crime was committed can request that the criminal be
returned to face charges. This is called extradition.
 New states can be admitted to the Union with the
authorization of Congress and the president.
 All states must have a republican, or representative, type of
government. (Sorry, states can’t have kings.)

Amending the Constitution: Article V

The Constitution is not set in stone, and Article Five describes how
it can be changed! A change or addition to the Constitution is
called an amendment. Given what you’ve learned so far, do you
think the Founding Fathers made it easy or difficult to amend the
Constitution? If you guessed difficult, you’re right. You’ll read all
about it on the next page.

Supreme Law of the Land: Article VI

Federalism is the idea that the national government shares
power with the state governments. But what happens if a state
law disagrees with a national or federal law? Article Six states that
the laws and treaties of the U.S. government are “the supreme
law of the land.” If a state law disagrees with a federal law,
federal law wins. This article also requires officials working in the
state and federal governments to take an oath to support the
Constitution no matter what.
George Washington taking the oath
of office for President of the U.S.

Ratification: Article VII

Article Seven says the Constitution could not take effect until at

least nine out of the thirteen states approved it. (Back then, there
 were only thirteen states.) Each state held its own convention to
 discuss and vote on the Constitution’s plan for government. But
 Massachusetts
getting approval wasn’t easy. Some people thought the seven
articles weren’t enough. After much debate, it was agreed that ten
 Maryland
amendments would be added to the Constitution. These
 South Carolina amendments, called the Bill of Rights, would list specific rights not
 New Hampshire already mentioned in the Constitution. This put people’s minds at
ease, and the Constitution became the law of the land in March
The list of states in order of ratification 1789. The Bill of Rights was added in 1791.
of the Constitution.
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The Amendment Process
The Constitution has only been amended 27 times in all these years. Does
that tell you anything about how easy it is to change? Believe it or not,
there are only two steps to the amendment process: approval in the U.S.
Congress and approval by the states. But these steps are hugely difficult
(especially the second one). Getting members of Congress to agree on
something is hard enough… but getting states to agree?? That’s an awful
lot of agreement! With so much approval required, changing the
Constitution can take years.
Here are the ways it can be done:

 




So Few Amendments, So Much Time

Hundreds of amendment proposals are introduced in Congress each year.
Only 33 have ever received enough votes to actually be proposed. Of
those, 27 were ratified and are now part of our Constitution. The first
twelve amendments were proposed only a year after the Constitution took
effect! Only ten of these were ratified by the states. They became the first
ten amendments to the Constitution, and we call them the Bill of Rights
because they define many of the rights guaranteed to U.S. citizens. The
27th Amendment was actually one of those original twelve… but it wasn’t
ratified until 1992! The 21st Amendment, which repealed the prohibition
against alcohol in 1933, was the only amendment where states held This postage stamp commemorated
the 19th Amendment, which gave
special conventions to ratify the proposal.
women the right to vote in 1920.
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