constitution

Examples of constitution in the following topics:

• Article VI

  • Article Six of the United States Constitution establishes the Constitution and the laws and treaties of the United States made in accordance with it as the supreme law of the land.
  • All debts contracted and engagements entered into, before the adoption of this Constitution, shall be as valid against the United States under this Constitution, as under the Confederation.
  • This Constitution, and the laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof; and all treaties made, or which shall be 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, anything in the Constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding.
  • The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the members of the several state legislatures, and all executive and judicial officers, both of the United States and of the several states, shall be bound by oath or affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.

• Amending the Constitution

  • To protect the Constitution from hasty alteration, the framers of the Constitution wrote Article V.
  • To protect the Constitution from hasty alteration, the framers wrote Article V .
  • This article specified how to amend the Constitution, showing that the Constitution could adapt to changing conditions with an understanding that such changes required deliberation.
  • This has never been used due to fears it would reopen the entire Constitution for revision.
  • Thus, Article V of the US Constitution, ratified in 1788, prohibited any constitutional amendments before 1808 which would affect the foreign slave trade, the tax on slave trade, or the direct taxation on provisions of the constitution.

• The 21st Amendment

  • The Twenty-first Amendment to the United States Constitution repealed the Eighteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which had mandated nationwide Prohibition on alcohol on January 17, 1920.
  • The eighteenth article of amendment to the Constitution of the United States is hereby repealed.
  • This article shall be inoperative unless it shall have been ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by conventions in the several States, as provided in the Constitution, within seven years from the date of the submission hereof to the States by the Congress.
  • Joint Resolution Proposing the Twenty-first Amendment to the United States Constitution.

• Article V

  • Article Five of the United States Constitution describes the process whereby the Constitution may be altered; altering the Constitution consists of proposing an amendment or amendments and subsequent ratification.
  • The Congress, whenever two thirds of both houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose amendments to this Constitution, or, on the application of the legislatures of two thirds of the several states, shall call a convention for proposing amendments, which, in either case, shall be valid to all intents and purposes, as part of this Constitution, when ratified by the legislatures of three fourths of the several states, or by conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other mode of ratification may be proposed by the Congress; provided that no amendment which may be made prior to the year one thousand eight hundred and eight shall in any manner affect the first and fourth clauses in the ninth section of the first article; and that no state, without its consent, shall be deprived of its equal suffrage in the Senate.

• [PF content: The Constitution of the United States]

• [PF content: Interpreting the Constitution]

• Ratification of the Constitution

  • Delaware was the first state to ratify the Constitution on December 7, 1787.
  • The Constitution went into effect by the summer of 1788 after the following states had ratified the Constitution: Georgia, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Maryland, South Carolina, New Hampshire, Virginia, and New York.
  • New York and Virginia ratified the Constitution under the condition that a Bill of Rights be added.
  • Vermont became the last state to ratify the Constitution on January 10, 1791.
  • Discuss differences among the states on the question of ratifying the Constitution

• Informal Methods of Amending the Constitution: Societal Change and Judicial Review

  • The formal amendment process is one of two major ways to amend the constitution.
  • The United States Constitution can be changed informally.
  • Informal amendments mean that the Constitution does not specifically list these processes as forms of amending the Constitution, but because of change in society or judicial review changed the rule of law de facto.
  • Sometimes society changes, leading to shifts in how constitutional rights are applied.
  • A number of other countries whose constitutions provide for such a review of constitutional compatibility of primary legislation have established special constitutional courts with authority to deal with this issue.

• Article VII

  • Article Seven of the United States Constitution provides how many state ratifications were necessary in order for the Constitution to take effect and how a state could ratify it.
  • The ratification of the conventions of nine states, shall be sufficient for the establishment of this Constitution between the states so ratifying the same.

• The Constitution

  • The Constitution was adopted on September 17, 1787 by the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
  • It is the oldest written national constitution in continuous use.
  • Several ideas found in the Constitution were new.
  • The Constitution has 27 amendments.
  • The United States Constitution has had a considerable influence worldwide on later constitutions.