The Preamble to the Constitution of the United States of America
What the Preamble is and what it says
What the Preamble is and what it says
The dictionary defines a preamble as a preliminary or preparatory statement; an introduction. The Preamble to the Constitution, written in the summer of 1787, is exactly that: an introduction to the document that represents the highest law of this country. The preamble, which is a 52-word paragraph that lists five overall objectives, but is not the law itself, and does not define either the powers of the government or any individual rights. The actual Constitution document does that.
Of course, the Constitution and its original laws were intended to apply only to white, Christian Protestant, straight, property-owning men, but that is a conversation for another time and place.
When I was in the 5th grade, when I was only nine years old, the teacher gave our class an assignment: memorize and prepare to recite verbatim the entire Preamble to the Constitution of the United States. We were given one week to memorize it and prepare for our recitations.
“We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure 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.”
I so clearly remember coming home from school, looking up the Preamble in our encyclopedia, and bursting into tears. To a young child, that paragraph looked almost impossible to memorize. Such a long sentence! So many big words! I can’t do this! My father, however, took out a large yellow legal pad and hand-wrote the Preamble for me, breaking it down into just eight phrases. He assured me that I could memorize it, and I did! I practiced my recitation in front of my younger sisters, who quizzically looked at me like: “What did you say?”
Decades later, when I was a public school history and government teacher of an 8th-grade class of performing arts students, I assigned them to memorize the Preamble. The difference this time was in the recitation portion of the assignment. My students were allowed to be very creative and actually perform their recitation in whatever form they chose. Some students turned their recitation into a spoken word presentation. Others turned the words into a song One group of students debated the words between two teams. One student, an excellent artist, drew a copy of the famous painting of that historic occurrence on parchment paper that he “aged” himself. The students and I had a wonderful time with that assignment.
The point for both assignments was to learn exactly what was said and meant by the Framers when the preamble was published.
The purpose of this bi-weekly series on the Constitution is the same: to teach what was written by the Founders in the Articles and how the law has been updated over the centuries by the Amendments. It is the role of the Supreme Court of the United States to actually interpret the law.
What is the Constitution of the United States?
The Constitution is THE Law of the USAmedium.com
Who, Why, and What
The Preamble states who is adopting this Constitution: We the People.
The Preamble describes why the Constitution is being adopted: In Order to form a more perfect Union.
The Preamble expresses what is being adopted: This Constitution.
The Purposes for Adopting the Constitution of the United States
While the Preamble is not the “law” as the actual Constitution is, it does declare the enactment of the legal provisions that will follow in the complete document. The statements of purpose do not in and of themselves grants any powers or confer any rights. The Preamble is often called “The Enacting Clause” of the Constitution precisely because of the carefully selected words.
The Founders were divesting the new country from the restraints of a monarchy, so the stated goal of the Preamble was to create a government that will meet the needs of the people. The new Constitution needed only nine of the original thirteen states to ratify it; in fact, North Carolina and Rhode Island did not ratify until after George Washington was inaugurated as the first President of the United States of America.
The six purposes listed in the Preamble were meant to enumerate the aspirations that the We the People had for the Constitution and for the country.
Establish Justice. The former colonists staged a revolution against England, so they wanted to make sure that the people would have justice under the new Constitution.
Insure Domestic Tranquility. Shay’s Rebellion, an uprising of farmers in Massachusetts protesting the forced payment of war debts, was the catalyst for this statement. The Framers wanted to keep the peace within the borders of the country.
Provide for the Common Defense. In the failed Articles of Confederation, the individual states had no power to defend themselves. So the Framers wanted to ensure that the States could jointly defend themselves against attacks from other countries.
Promote the General Welfare. This phrase was intended to ensure that the Federal government would take care of the citizens as much as possible.
Secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our posterity. The overall purpose of the entire Constitution was to protect the rights of liberty, remove unjust laws, and ensure freedom for which the Revolutionary War was fought.
Ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America. This final phrase makes it clear that We the People wrote this document (the Constitution), and We the People gave the country and the government their power.
Approximately every two weeks throughout 2021, I will publish an article here on Medium that details and explains each of the seven Articles and twenty-seven Amendments in the Constitution.
I look forward to your positive and factual comments.
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