A Look at the Constitution - Lesson 1

• Gives the goals of the constitution

• Pre means before

• Preamble video - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mKPmobWNJaU

• 2 part legislature (Senate and House of Representatives)

• Powers include - make laws, declare war, collect taxes/borrow money, regulate trade, rules for citizenship, set up courts

• Also called Congress

• President leads executive branch

• Powers include - carrying out laws, making treaties, appointing officials, commander-in-chief (head of military)

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• The Court system

• Only the Supreme Court was created by the Constitution, the other levels of the federal courts were set up later

• Powers include - deciding whether laws follow the Constitution, deciding appeals from lower courts

• States must recognize rights granted by other states

• The rights a citizen has in one state must be respected in other states

• All states must have a republican form of government

• Amendments or changes can be added to the Constitution

• 2/3 of both parts of Congress or a special convention must approve an amendment then it 3/4 of the states must approve it (there are 2 ways for states to approve amendments)

• 27 Amendments have been added

Article V (5): Amending the Constitution

"If in the opinion of the people, the distribution or modification of the constitutional powers be in any particular wrong, let it be corrected by an amendment in the way which the Constitution designates."

George Washington

On the 15th amendment:
"In addition to the justice of the measure, it was soon commended by events, as a political necessity."

Frederick Douglass

"That useful alterations will be suggested by experience, could not but be foreseen. It was requisite therefore that a mode for introducing them should be provided. The mode preferred by the Convention seems to be stamped with every mark of propriety. It guards equally against that extreme facility which would render the Constitution too mutable; and that extreme difficulty which might perpetuate its discovered faults."

James Madison

• The Constitution is the supreme, or highest law

• All state and national officials must swear an oath to support the Constitution

Article VI (6): Law of the Land

• Ratification means approval

• Once 9/13 states approved the Constitution it became the new national government

Article VII (7): Ratification