Constitution of the United States

The United States Constitution is the highest law of the United States of America. It was signed on September 17, 1787 by the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Later, it was put into effect, or ratified, by representatives of the people of the first 13 states.[1] When nine of the states ratified the document, they created a union of sovereign states, and a federal government for that union. That government started on March 4, 1789, which took the place of the Articles of Confederation.

The Constitution of the United States is the oldest federal constitution now in use.[2] Of all the countries in the world, only San Marino's constitution is in part older, from 1600. Some countries also have an "uncodified" constitution containing older documents, such as the United Kingdom, and also Saudi Arabia, which claims the Quran as its constitution.

Since 1787, changes have been made to the United States Constitution 27 times by amendments (changes). The first ten of these amendments are together called the Bill of Rights and came into effect in 1791. The most recent, the 27th amendment, came into effect in 1992, although it was proposed already in 1789. Making an amendment is very difficult, and demands a two-thirds majority vote in US Congress and ratification (agreement) by three-fourths of all 50 states. However, the Supreme Court has changed its interpretation of the constitution, which in effect changes what the text means and how it effects other laws, more often than actual amendments.

  1. Library of Congress
  2. "US Government Printing Office". Archived from the original on 2006-12-06. Retrieved 2006-09-25.

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