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“We the People”

    The Constitution of the United States - it defines our rights as citizens and sets down the rules that describe how our nation's government is to run. It provides the basic meaning of what it means to be an American. The men who wrote the constitution two centuries ago hoped it would solve the many problems faced by the new nation at that time. But they also wanted it to guide the nation in the centuries ahead. This is the story of how and why they created this amazing document.

    In the hot summer of 1787,a group of people met in Philadelphia to write a new set of rules for the government of the United States. Among them were some of the nation's most famous men - George Washington, James Madison, Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, and many others. The meetings these men held led to a new set of rules for the United States.

    This set of rules - the U.S. Constitution - has guided the nation for more than 200 years. The Constitution carefully describes the powers of congress, the president, and the nations courts. It creates what's called a "federal" system in which the national government shares power with the states. It gives a great deal of power to the national government. But it also makes sure that individual citizens keep many important rights and freedoms.

    Nations all over the world still imitate this document. For the past two centuries, millions of people have looked to this country for ideas about freedom, democracy, and a government based on strict but fair rules. Some other nations have even copied parts of the U.S. Constitution for their own use.

    The United States Constitution is as important to each American today as it was when it first went into effect. Every day, millions of Americans go to their jobs or to school. They take trips, spend money, read magazines and newspapers, visit friends. They attend places of worship, choose their leaders, and work on problems facing their communities. They may not ever think about the Constitution while they do these things. But almost every act is either regulated or protected by this unique document.

    In a way, it's surprising that the Constitution has lasted as long as it has. According to one expert, since 1970 alone more than 100 nations have adopted constitutions or changed them completely. But the U.S. Constitution has guided our nation for more than two centuries. 

    When our nation's founders gathered there in 1787, Philadelphia was one of the nation's largest cities, but it was small compared with cities today. In 1787, the new nation was a collection of farms and very small towns scattered across an unsettled wilderness. This collection of small communities was having a great deal of trouble just surviving as a single nation. The men who traveled to Philadelphia thought the most important thing they could do was find a way to keep the struggling young nation from falling apart. The founders feared that, without a new Constitution, the young nation's experiment in democracy would fail.

    John Adams, writing to Samuel Adams, spoke for many of America's leaders in 1785 when he expressed these doubts. Americans had hoped to create a democracy that would be admired by the whole world. Now, many of them believed their nation might not even survive.

    Only a few years earlier, the 13 colonies in North America had won a bitter war for independence from Great Britain. The war began after Great Britain tried to increase its control over the colonies. Many American leaders said the legislatures in these colonies should be free to make their own decisions. When Great Britain tried to weaken the power of these colonial legislatures, the colonists rebelled. In 1776,they signed the Declaration of Independence, breaking all ties with Great Britain. And in 1781, they won their revolution and founded a new nation.

    By 1787, these original 13 colonies had formed the United States. But they remained fiercely independent from each other. Even the flag they adopted, with 13 stars and 13 stripes, emphasized that the new nation was made up of these separate states. The leaders of the revolution had fought for liberty and independence. They feared the power of any government to take away the rights and freedoms of the individual. But they especially feared the power a strong central government might have over the states.

    So the national government these independent states created was very weak. Many leaders of the revolution felt that democracy could only survive if the state governments were stronger than the national government. They thought a strong central government could never rule an area as huge as the entire United States without destroying democracy. One leader put it this way: "so extensive a territory as that of the United States...cannot be governed in freedom.... Force then becomes necessary...to make the government feared and respected."

    The new country adopted a set of rules called the Articles of Confederation. The Articles made each state almost as powerful as an independent nation. "Each state retains its sovereignty, freedom, and independence, and every power, jurisdiction and right, which is not by this confederation expressly delegated to the United States, in Congress assembled." - Article 2, Articles of Confederation.

    The Articles went into effect in 1781. They set up a national Congress in which each state had one vote. But only the state governments - not the national Congress - could raise money by making their citizens pay taxes. Congress had to ask the states for any money it needed, and often the states ignored these requests. Congress had no way to make the states agree to any requests or laws it made.

    Under the Articles, each state had its own money, and each state made its own rules about trade. Many states set up special taxes, called tariffs, on goods from other states. This made it hard for each state to trade with others. Bitter arguments among the states became common.

    In the 1780s, farmers in many parts of the new nation were having a terrible time earning money. Many were sent to prison because they could not pay their debts. Others lost their farms. Some farmers in Massachusetts asked the state government for help, but the government turned them down. Then, about 1 000 farmers, led by Daniel Shays, a Revolutionary War soldier, took up weapons and forced many of the state's courts to close.

    The national government was too weak to stop the uprising. Eventually, the Massachusetts militia put an end to what is now called Shays's Rebellion. But the uprising had an electrifying effect on the young nation. It led the call to change the Articles of Confederation. People wanted a stronger central government. There was even talk that the Union couldn't be held together much longer if the Articles weren't changed. In a letter to James Madison, George Washington observed the following:

    "We are either a United people, or we are not. If the former, let us, in all matters of general concern, act as a nation, which have national objects to promote, and a national character to support. If we are not, let us no longer act a farce by pretending to it. For whilst we are playing a double game, or playing a game between the two we shall never be consistent or respectable, but may become the dupes of some powers and, most assuredly, the contempt of all."