We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, ensure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America. Article. I. Section. 1.All legislative Powers herein granted…
On September 25, 1789, the First Congress of the United States proposed 12 amendments to the Constitution. The 1789 Joint Resolution of Congress proposing the amendments is on display in the Rotunda in the National Archives Museum. Ten of the proposed 12 amendments were ratified by three-fourths of the state legislatures on December 15, 1791. The ratified Articles (Articles 3–12)…
Three documents, the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights, known collectively as the Charters of Freedom, have secured the rights of the American people for 245 years and counting, and are considered instrumental to the founding and philosophy of the United States. Declaration of Independence The Declaration of Independence expresses the ideals on which the United…