What Is the Constitution?

What Is the Constitution? — page 1 — WHAT IS THE CONSTITUTION Laws are the rules made by a government In the United States there are three levels of government local state and national Local governments make laws for cities towns and counties State governments make laws for a whole state The national government makes laws for the whole country You can view the United States Constitution at the National Archives in Washington D C 4

What Is the Constitution? — page 2 — The U S Constitution is the most basic law of the United States government All local state and national laws must agree with it The Constitution also established a federal system for the country This means that the national government has certain powers and the states have other powers The Magna Carta shown here was signed by England’s King John The writers of the Constitution drew their ideas from many sources One important one was England’s Magna Carta Signed in the year 1215 it guaranteed basic rights to English people THINK ABOUT IT 5

What Is the Constitution? — page 3 — BEFORE THE CONSTITUTION The first constitution of the United States was called the Articles of Confederation The document was written after the 13 North American colonies declared their independence from Great Britain It went into effect in 1781 The Articles of Confederation set up the government of the United States but its shortcomings soon became apparent to the nation’s leaders 6

What Is the Constitution? — page 4 — The Articles of Confederation did not work well It gave the United States a weak national government and strong state governments Congress had no way to enforce its power and so could not make states follow the laws After only a few years the nation’s leaders started talking about ways to improve the Articles of Confederation Under the Articles of Confederation Congress could not raise money through collecting taxes It could only ask the states for money Do you think states would be likely to give money if they did not have to THINK ABOUT IT The men who wrote the Articles of Confederation were members of the Second Continental Congress Members of the Congress also wrote the Declaration of Independence in 1776 7

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