The Constitution

In 1787 the United States of America was a very young country. The founding fathers had started the new government under a constitution called the Articles of Confederation. The Articles worked well for a little while but as the United States grew it was discovered that there were some problems. Each state worked on its own. There was no national army or navy. There was no national court system and there was no way to raise money to run the government. These problems brought people together to rewrite the rules that would run this country. 

On September 17, 1787 thirty-nine men signed one of the most important documents in the history of the United States of America. That day was the final day of the constitutional convention. The constitution is the foundation for the American government, it is the highest law or set of rules that we live by. The idea of government of the people is the most important idea behind this document. This is called popular sovereignty. 

The constitution said that there should be three different branches of government so that one group did not have too much power. The branches would be the Legislative, Judicial and Executive. The Legislative branch would make the laws. The Judicial branch would make sure the laws were being upheld and the Executive branch would be the president who would run the day to day business of the government.

The constitution also says which powers belong to the United States Government and the individual states. The members of the constitutional convention thought it was important to keep the national government from having too much power over the states.

The United States Government should have the power to:

Collect taxes

Regulate Trade

Declare War

Establish a Military

Make money

And make the laws that would help them

do those things

Each state government should have the power to make rules about:

Family life

Education

Elections

Business

The constitution protects the citizens through the bill of rights. Having rights means that something has been promised to you through the constitution. Most of those rights are described in the amendments.