The Constitution of a country is the highest law which everybody must obey. It also explains the rights of the people and how the government must work. Lets have a look at the US constitution.
In 1787 a group of men got together to write the constitution. They were called the Framers and they felt the country needed some rules in order to govern it correctly and let people know exactly what they may and may not do.
Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, George Washington and James Madison were some of the more well-known framers of the Constitution. The Framers (members of Congress) met in Independence Hall in Philadelphia. After much debate and a great deal of hard work, they finally agreed to the words in the Constitution.
After they were done writing, the different states had to agree with it and approve it. It took a while for everybody to go through the constitution and not all were happy with it right away, but at the end all the states agreed on accepting it as their constitution.
According to the constitution, the government is divided into three branches and each of them have the same amount of power.
The branches are the Executive Branch (the President), the Legislative Branch (Congress), and the Judicial Branch (Courts).
The people of the country vote and elect the president, and the president's job is to enforce the law.
The people also decide who are the members of Congress and they will make the laws.
The President appoints the members that he wants in the Supreme court (the highest court) and if the Senate is happy with his choice they will approve it. The court will make sure that people who do not follow the law get punished and also decide what the law means.
The Constitution describes the different powers given to each of these branches of government and talks about how they are supposed to function and work together. The Constitution made sure that no single branch of the government could have too much power. This is called a system of “Checks and Balances”.
Another thing that the Constitution gives information on, is going to war. It says that if there is a war, the President becomes the commander-in-chief of the armies during the time of war, which means he must decide if they will fight, where they will go and what they will do.
When the Framers wrote the constitution, they knew that the people from the future generations would want to change some of the laws. They wanted to make it possible so that nobody had to start a war or revolution to change anything and that is why they started the 'amendment process'.
This process is not too difficult, so that it is possible, but also not so easy that anybody can just change whatever they want.
An amendment to the Constitution is a change that can add to the Constitution or change an older part of it. An amendment can even overturn a previous amendment, as the 21st did to the 18th. There are a few methods to amend the Constitution, but the most common is to pass an amendment through Congress on a two-thirds vote. After that, the amendment goes to the states and if three-quarters of the states pass the amendment, it is considered a part of the Constitution and has been ratified.
Watch the video for more information on the constitution.
So far there have been 27 amendments to the constitution and next time we will have a look at it.
