The Structure of the Constitution

I'm Woody Holton and I teach at the University of South Carolina,

and I'm going to talk today about the ratification

of the US Constitution about the Federalist Papers,

which forwarded that movement and the Bill of Rights.

And the first module before I get into the ratification

campaign is just to look at the completed Constitution and,

specifically, its structure.

Got to begin with the preamble.

Many of you may have been forced to memorise that we, the people of the United States,

in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic circle.

It sounds like glittering generalities,

just vague phrases that boilerplate it's not.

Those clauses in the preamble have very specific meanings.

For instance, establish justice. What could be more vague and general than that,

But it has a specific meaning.

The authors of the Constitution

and the people who supported ratifying the Constitution believed that two

groups were victims of terrible injustice under the Articles of Confederation,

and those two groups were creditors.

Like, if you've got a credit card debt, American Express or Visa is your creditor,

you owe money to the bank and credit card, uh, company.

If you if you have a loan on your car.

If you have a house mortgage, that's your creditor.

And the framers of the Constitution thought that creditors were really getting

defrauded on the articles of confederation and the Constitution would fix that.

I'll give you the details in a minute, so that's what that you see,

how they use that phrase established justice.

That's who they wanted to do Justice to was creditors.

They also wanted to do justice to public creditors with just

a fancy word of saying people that the government owed money to

the government owed money to a lot of people.

In 17 87 both the 13 state governments and

Congress that is the federal government owed money.

Initially,

they owed money to the soldiers who fought in

the war because they couldn't give them actual money.

They had to give them. Basically I O U s.

But then those i O u s have been bought up by speculators, bondholders, we call them,

and so they had to be paid.

At least the framers of the Constitution thought so, and they weren't getting paid.

They were victims of real injustice.

And so one of the things the Constitution does

give the federal government the power to levy taxes,

uh, and pay off the federal government debt.

And actually,

it ended up paying off most of the state debts as well established justice.

It's not just a glittering generality. I'll give you two more examples.

Uh, we need to

ensure domestic tranquillity.

A lot of people, Oh, domestic tranquillity.

They kind of imagine a family by the fireside.

There's no place like home and our home sweet home.

Uh, that's not what they mean by domestic tranquillity,

huh?

Domestic tranquillity means there's no rebellion,

and and the federal government by giving the the Constitution

by giving the federal government the ability to levy taxes,

is giving the federal government the ability to levy in Army to

be used to put down rebellions like Shay's rebellion in Massachusetts,

which most textbooks talk about.

But what the textbooks don't tell you is that there

were rebellions like Shay's rebellion in all 13 states,

and so we're now going to have a federal army.

Of course, we had one during the war, but during the Revolutionary War,

but whittled down to nothing afterwards because Congress had no money.

Now Congress is going to have money because it can tax you and me.

And it's going to have the money to put down rebellions

both by farmers under tenants and various people

that rebelled.

Maybe you have people from one state trying to take land from other states,

but let's also remember enslaved people

and their rebellions.

That's what the Constitution means by ensure domestic tranquillity,

Um,

and then the easiest of the three that I'll mention provide for the common defence.

If the government can levy taxes,

it can feel the army to be used not

only against internal rebellions and thereby preserving domestic tranquillity,

but also against external threats,

whether its pirates in the Mediterranean or the British

or possibly the Spanish or most of all,

Native Americans.

So as we kind of walked through the structure of the Constitution,

uh,

it's important to realise that the preamble is

not just a bunch of glittering generalities.

Now, the only three there's seven clauses. I'm sorry.

Seven articles in the Constitution and only three that

are really well organised are the first three.

But that's good for you because that means you've only got to

nail those three and they are starting with the people's branch.

That is, the Congress, both the House and the Senate,

Their powers and the limits on their powers are discussed in Article one, Uh,

and then Article two is about the executive.

The prez

and Article three is about the courts,

especially the

Supreme Court. So there's your first three articles were almost halfway home.

But as I say that the rest of our

little more a little less organised article for is about

three things that Congress is going to do for

the state's one relates to something I just said.

And that is Congress is going to ensure

the states have Republican governments.

That is, that some states,

it doesn't have a coup where somebody established himself or

herself as the king or queen of that state.

Uh, if that happens, the feds are going to send in the U. S.

Army to prevent that from happening. Um, and that was a big concern.

Not that anybody is going to choose a king or queen,

but the thing was going to get messed up by a rebellion like Shay's rebellion.

So under article for the Congress has the power and the duty to go in and and,

as they put it, ensure Republican government.

Um,

the also related to that The federal government has the, uh,

duty to protect each state against insurrection,

as I've been discussing but also against invasion.

Article for is how Congress will, and I might put this in.

Quote marks help the States. Article five is how to amend. The Constitution,

as you know,

takes two thirds of both houses and then three

quarters of the states to amendment to amend it.

Or there's a procedure to have a second constitutional convention.

But that's never happened. That was Article four article. I'm sorry.

That was Article five, Uh, and then Article six is miscellaneous.

But the big takeaway from Article six of the Constitution

is that the federal government's going to have a lot of power over the states.

Um,

the one little miscellaneous thing it does is it gives the federal government the

same power to pay off debts that it had before seven powered obligation.

But here's how the states are really kind of going to

be subsumed under the federal government no longer sovereign states,

as they had been under the articles of

Confederation One is that every office holder,

Uh, you could be the Iowa State dog catcher.

You have to take an oath to the US Constitution.

Most states also require you to take an oath to their constitution.

But you gotta, uh you know, it's not just for the president, as we all know, uh,

you know, an inauguration day puts a hand on the Bible, and, uh, and then, uh,

raise the other hand and swears an oath to protect and defend, protect,

defend and protect the U.

S. Constitution.

The president's got to do it House and Senate and all the federal judges have to do.

But even state officials have to swear to the Constitution.

Now there's a really positive piece of that, which is, uh,

nobody can require anyone to swear that they're gonna be

a member of any particular religion or protect any religion.

There's no religious test as part of that oath that every

that every federal and even state official has to take.

And the other thing that Article six does on

behalf of the federal government and it's kind of

continuing battles with the States is that it makes

the federal government the supreme law of the land.

So, uh, if, um, say, Virginia wants to pass a law, uh,

passing paper money adopting paper money,

which the Constitution prohibits the states from doing.

Uh, then, uh, if you don't like being forced to take paper money,

you just suing the federal government, uh,

will overturn that law because the federal

constitution takes precedence over the states.

That's article six.

And then finally, Article seven is how do you ratify the constitution? Um

and, uh, the answer is nine out of the 13 states have to approve the idea,

and once none have ratified, it becomes the law of the land.

For those nine states,

it was theoretically possible that exactly nine states would ratify it.

The other four would refuse.

And in fact, some of the later states did delay for a while.

But the Constitution says

that not once nine states ratified it governs those nine states,

not the other four until they until they also ratify it.

And this is why I say, on the one hand,

the constitution really was unconstitutional.

Um, the constitution,

in operation at the time that our constitution was adopted,

was the articles of Confederation,

and they just threw it out instead of the hell with that.

We don't care what the law says. We're gonna do what we want to do.

We're gonna propose this new Constitution,

so that's pretty sketchy.

But on the other hand,

it was a people's coup in the sense that what

the framers of the Constitution had done in Philadelphia,

concluding on September 17th, 17 87 what they had done was proposed a constitution.

It would have zero effect.

It would be toilet paper until nine out of 13 states

ratified it and made it the law of the land.

Um, and and they provided a procedure.

They were afraid the state legislatures wouldn't approve it.

And they also, uh, state legislatures were not that democratic.

Anyway, uh, they had a point there,

and so they set up their own procedure where there would be special.

Uh, and this is good too, you know, because when you elected for a state,

let's let you might have voted for your brother in law.

But now you're doing something serious.

You're deciding on a national constitution.

So it was a very good idea, in my opinion,

to have these new state ratifying conventions for one

purpose to vote yes or no on the Constitution.

So Article seven of the Constitution does all of that.

It sets up this procedure of ratifying conventions, too.

Vote up or down on the Constitution. And once nine do, it covers those nine states.