There are four founding documents of the United States of America. The Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights, which is attached to the Constitution. Each document establishes the principles and framework of American democracy and details the rights of its citizens. Each was bought at the very high price of patriots' and civilians' lives during and after the American Revolution.
The Declaration of Independence is 1,320 words long; including the title and the signers’ names, the total rises to 1,458 words. Fifty-six men signed the Declaration of Independence, including John Hancock’s extra-large signature, knowing they had just signed away their freedom. All 56 men were considered traitors to the British crown the moment the quill pen came off the parchment. Can you imagine doing something that bold? Can you imagine King George III’s face when he read the Declaration?
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Five of the signers were captured during the Revolutionary War, one brutalized so terribly he never quite recovered. What was the radical idea stated in the Declaration of Independence that led to years of bloodshed and fighting? That the colonies were independent states. That Virginia, South Carolina, and New York were on the same level as France and Spain, and that only the British Parliament or the colonial legislatures could tax them.
Parliament rejected that idea, stating that it alone had the power to tax. This is where “No taxation without representation” begins. The colonies saw themselves as defending their traditional English rights. In order to keep Parliament from getting too powerful, the colonies had to declare themselves free and independent states. You cannot tax that which does not belong to you. Had Parliament taken a step back and not been so eager to force compliance on the colonies, there might not have been an American Revolution.
The Articles created a weak central government without the power to tax or enforce any laws. It took almost four years just to ratify the document. In creating a new constitution, the Founding Fathers went 180 degrees away from a monarchy and created a confederation. The states did not have to help each other and did not have to pay any bills sent to them from the central government. Each state could do what it wanted. Can you imagine how well that worked? It didn’t, at all.
The Articles lasted until 1788 when the Constitution was ratified. The objective of the Articles was not to create a government in general but to protect the rights of the states who joined together to defeat the British and win independence for themselves. Once that independence was won, the states were on their own to figure out what to do next. The British surrendered in 1783. The creation of the Constitution began in 1787, with ratification the following year. That’s five years between the end of the fighting and the creation of the federal government we know now.
Shays' Rebellion, an armed uprising led by Revolutionary War veteran Daniel Shay, in 1786, began because there was no leadership from the central government on how the states should collect taxes to pay for the war effort. It took five months, the Massachusetts state militia, and a privately funded local militia to end the rebellion. Shay’s Rebellion showed the weakness of the Articles in a major way. They were a good idea, but they weren’t enough. The Founding Fathers needed to try again.
In May 1787, 55 men gathered in Philadelphia at Independence Hall with the express purpose of revising the Articles of Confederation. The men at the Constitutional Convention were supposed to “…render the federal constitution adequate to the exigencies of government and the preservation of the Union.” It did not take long for the attendees to realize that the Articles were unworkable, and a new constitution was started. The biggest question of all was how to represent all the states fairly, to have New Jersey on the same footing as New York State. Delaware wanted to have the same rights as Pennsylvania. Several different plans were suggested.
The Virginia Plan favored the large states with a two-house Congress elected on a proportional ratio based on population, an elected chief executive, and an appointed judicial branch. The smaller states were against this for several reasons. The New Jersey Plan favored the smaller states with a legislative structure like the Articles of Confederation with one house of Congress, where each state had one vote, along with an elected chief executive. Neither side liked the other’s plan.
Both sides were looking to answer two questions. First, how would the votes be allocated in the new Congress, and second, how would people be elected to the new Congress? Enter Connecticut and the Connecticut Compromise, also known as the Great Compromise. It combined the Virginia Plan and the New Jersey Plan and solved the problem of how to count slaves for purposes of representation. The Three-Fifths Compromise stated that three-fifths of the slave population would be counted for representation. Not three-fifths of each state's slave population, but the entire slave population of each state. Until the end of the Civil War, the Three-Fifths Compromise gave the Southern States more representation than they deserved, but without it, I’m not sure a solution would have been reached.
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Notice what was involved in the beginnings of the U.S. and the creation of the government that we don’t see very often today. COMPROMISE! Back then, people were more willing to compromise with each other to achieve a greater goal. This did not mean that everyone got along with everyone else and everyone was happy with the final result. There were plenty of debates over what should be in the Constitution and what should be left out. No one was entirely happy with the final results, but they were willing to accept the Constitution as it was. Benjamin Franklin is quoted as saying, “I confess that there are several parts of this Constitution which I do not at present approve, but I am not sure that I shall never approve them..”
In the end, of the fifty-five delegates at the convention, sixteen did not sign the Constitution. Some of the delegates had already left. Rhode Island never sent a single delegate to the Second Constitutional Convention, earning itself the nickname “Rogue Island.” Those who were still in attendance and chose not to sign did so because there was no protection of states’ rights. There was nothing in the Constitution that protected the individual states from federal government overreach. While supporters of the Constitution declared that the state constitutions protected the states from the federal government, the critics did not think that was enough. This lack of protection would be brought up during the ratification process, culminating in the creation of the Bill of Rights, written in 1789 and ratified in 1791, a full four years after the Constitution itself was ratified.
A majority of people in the U.S. today believe that the Bill of Rights was created at the same time as the Constitution and are surprised to learn that it was written later. People are so quick to expound on their First Amendment rights that they completely miss the point of those rights being there in the first place. Recently, we’ve been witnesses to the legacy media (CNN, MS NOW, and Politico) wailing about their First Amendment rights being trampled on because President Trump threw them out of the White House and the press briefing room. Their First Amendment rights haven’t been violated, and they know it, but it makes good copy. The First Amendment says, “freedom of the press,” but it does NOT say “freedom of the press inside the White House.” While I was writing this, a leftist judge ordered President Trump to let the whiners back into the press briefing room.
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There are 27 amendments to the Constitution. Only the first 10 are considered the Bill of Rights. Every one of those ten amendments came about because of some depredation by the British. The Second Amendment: defend yourself against the government. If the citizenry isn’t armed, the federal government can do whatever it wants. The Third Amendment: Quartering soldiers in private houses during peacetime. If the British government ran out of places for its soldiers to sleep, it would house them in the homes of the citizens, whether or not the citizens wanted them.
Look at each individual amendment. Each one has become the standard on American law and jurisprudence is built. From protection against unlawful search and seizure, to a fair trial, to a jury of your peers, to protection against self-incrimination, and to protection against cruel and unusual punishment. As I would tell my students, these amendments are the standards. I cannot and will not say that they are never violated or abused because they are, on a regular basis in some cases. However, they are written down and enumerated, which is far more than one gets in other countries. As much as the Left would love to lock up those on the Right for Facebook postings they don’t like, as has been done in England, they can’t.
My two personal favorites are the Ninth and Tenth Amendments. The Ninth states that simply because it’s not mentioned in the Constitution or the Bill of Rights doesn’t mean it’s not covered. The Founding Fathers knew that they could never cover every last occurrence of governmental power, so they added an amendment that dealt with that. The Tenth Amendment, also known as the states' rights amendment, is what puts the states on the same footing as the federal government. Utah is equal to the federal government. New Mexico, Idaho, and Wisconsin have the same power as the U.S. government. All 50 states do. Such an idea was unheard of in 1789 and almost as unheard of today. As I explained to a friend of mine who lives in Australia, “The U.S. has fifty state governments and one federal government over everything. It’s like having fifty-one governments in one place.” She told me that sounded terribly confusing. I told her it is at times.
The entire form and structure of the United States of America is based on four documents: the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights. Each document is needed for the running of the country. Yes, even the Articles are needed to run the country. The Articles are a lesson in caution about what happens when people get carried away with the idea of self-governance.
The majority of U.S. citizens have no clue what is in each document. They certainly can’t tell anyone the names of their federal representatives. That’s really sad. As I have mentioned in other columns, we have a lazy electorate in the U.S. that’s too busy doom-scrolling through X, Facebook or some form of social media. What they should be doing is getting to know the documents that make their lives possible.
