The Power

Glory: and the

The Power

Glory:

The Constitution The Constitution

Imagine that the year is 1787. You, your friends, and your neighbors in 13 states have decided that you want to live in a free country.

But you realize that freedom will work fairly for everyone only if there are clear rules and responsibilities.What do you do? If you want to live by a set of laws and rules, you’ll need to decide what those laws and

rules should be. You’ll need to write them down. You’ll need to agree about how things should work.You need a framework – that is, a set of rules to live by.

So you choose a group of people to write that framework. They are the framers, also called theFounding Fathers, and the document they write is the Constitution of the United States of America.

The Constitution is the highest law we have. Its words are what give America her power and her glory.It rules how our government works, starting with the President, the Supreme Court, and Congress. It is

an actual document and you can see it if you visit the National Archives in Washington, D.C.

This special newspaper section explains all about the Constitution. Once you understand it, you canbetter understand life in our free country and the rights and responsibilities we all share.

A Framework For Freedom

KNOW WANT TO KNOW LEARNED

Why Do We Need A Constitution?Imagine what school would be like if your class didn’t have any rules. How would you know what to do and what not

to do? What do you think might happen? How would you know when to learn and what to learn? How would thechildren behave? What would happen if they didn’t behave the right way?

Your class could benefit from a constitution – just as the young America absolutely needed one. As a group, worktogether to write a class constitution. Would your class be a good place with no rules? Would you be able to get

things done well? Talk about what might have happened to the young country in 1787 if the Founding Fathers had not written the Constitution.

Before you read the rest of this section, fill in this chart. In the first block, write what youknow about the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. In the second block, write what you want

to know about them. Then, after you’ve read this whole newspaper section, write some of what you’ve learned in the third block.

This Hot Topics/Hot Serials supplement was: Written by Deborah Carroll Edited by Ken Bookman Designed by Gilbert & Associates

Copyright 2005 Hot Topics/Hot Serials

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the king of England ruled the American colonies. Even though the Americans were all the way across the Atlantic Ocean from England, Americans still had to obey the king’s laws. They also had to pay the king’s taxes.

Have you heard the phrase “taxation without representation”? That explains what the colonists were angry about. They resented paying taxes to a government that did not represent them or help them. That anger led to the Boston Tea Party in 1773, when colonists threw 45 tons of tea from Britain into the Boston Harbor so they wouldn’t have to pay the tax on it. The Boston Tea Party led to the Revolutionary War.

The colonial government then was called the Continental Congress. At a meeting in June 1776, Richard Henry Lee from Virginia read a paper he had written about why he thought the colonies should break free from England. The scroll to the right shows part of what he read.

Read his sentence a few times and talk with your class about what it means. It was written more than 200 years ago so the words may not be easy to understand. But you can understand that he thought the colonies should be free states and not part of Great Britain (England).

Many people agreed with him. Others wanted to work things out with Great Britain. Congress was about to take a three-week break,and most participants believed that Congress would return from that recess ready to vote for independence from England. In orderto get ready for that, they chose a committee of five men to write a statement explaining their choice to the world.

That “Committee of Five,” as it was called, included three of America’s most famous historic figures –Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and John Adams. It also included Robert Livingston and RogerSherman. The four other members of the group asked Jefferson to write the first paper. They said that theywould read it and make any changes they needed. That is exactly what happened.

Congress came back from its break on July 1, 1776. Its members met in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.They voted to break free from England. They started to write the Declaration of Independence,

beginning with what Thomas Jefferson had written. They worked on it the rest of the day andfor a few days after. Late in the afternoon on July 4, 1776, church bells could be heard all aroundPhiladelphia. Those chimes of freedom announced that the Declaration of Independence was done.A new nation was born.

As you can imagine, the king ofEngland didn’t like that toomuch. He wanted to

keep control of thecolonies. He wasn’t going to justlet them go. He sent soldiers toAmerica to fight the colonists.A war would decide the future.For the next several years, theRevolutionary War raged. Thecolonists fought hardand won their freedom.

In 1776, Resolved: That these United

Colonies are, and ofright ought to be, free

and independentStates, that they are

absolved from all alle-giance to the BritishCrown, and that allpolitical connection

between them and theState of Great Britain

is, and ought to be,totally dissolved.

Learning standard: understanding international issues

Nations are born in so many different ways.Some are born through war. Others are born

through politics. Some are discovered. Our countrywas born in all of those ways. Find a country, a city

or a town in the newspaper that is going throughsome kind of change. Write a paragraph

about what is making it change.

TheNews: Tomorrow’s History Today

Benjamin Franklin

Thomas Jefferson

John Adams

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In 1787, the United States of America was made up of 13 states.Folks in the new country were not happy with how the government was working. The rules of the government then werecalled The Articles of Confederation. Some of those rules were notclear. Others were not strong enough to give the government thepower it needed to make the states work well together. They neededto write a new set of rules that everyone would agree to follow.

Stop and think about that.Imagine that your class has just broken off from the school rules andthat you are going to rule yourselves. It’s hard to get a lot of peopleto agree on a set of rules. You might just choose a few of your class-mates to make decisions for everyone. Whom would you pick?

In 1787, Americans chose 55 men to represent them. It was theirjob to meet and write the country’s new rules. They were very smart.Some were well educated. Many were community leaders. Almost allhad fought in the Revolutionary War. Most were married and hadchildren. Some were businessmen, others held political office or werelawyers. There were scientists, there were rich men, and there weresome poor men.

They went to Philadelphiafor the ConstitutionalConvention in May 1787.That was the meetingwhere those men –called the framers or theFounding Fathers – wouldrewrite the rules for thenew country.

The Convention,

The Debates

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The first man to go toPhiladelphia was James Madison.He went early so he’d have extra time to think about this job. He didn’t think that the rulesshould be rewritten. He thought that the framers should start over and write a whole new set ofrules. He wanted America to have a government run by the people. Of course he knew that therewere too many people to do the job together. But he thought that we ought to have a new kindof government – called a republic. In a republic, the people elect a few others to run the govern-

ment for them. He also believed that the government should be broken into parts so that no onepart would have too much power. And he believed that the country’s government should have more

power than each of the state governments had.

Thus began the Constitutional Convention with GeorgeWashington chosen as the leader of the convention. Imagine the

55 men, each with his opinions about how government should work. Imagine thearguments and the debates that they had. Don’t you wonder how they everagreed on one plan?

There was much to decide. How would each state get its fair share of power?Some states were big while others were small. Should they have the same amountof power? Or should the bigger states be stronger? Would that be fair to thesmaller states?

The debates raged on. Alexander Hamilton said that we should have a govern-ment run the way England’s was. Not too many agreed. But everyone agreed onsome things and those were the points that led to the writing of the Constitution.

First, everyone agreed that Congress didn’t have enough power. They also agreedthat the government should be set up in three branches – one for the President, one for the lawmakers, and one for the judges.And they agreed that the states should have some power but that the national government should have power, too. They justcouldn’t quite decide which should have more. They all thought that weshould have some kind of leader. But since they hadn’t likedhaving a king, it was hard to decide what kind of leaderwe should have. They also had trouble decidinghow we should pick the leader. Some of theframers didn’t think that Americans woulddo a good job choosing a leader in anelection. They thought that theCongress should just pick a leader.

As you can see, writing theConstitution wasn’t easy. Theframers had much to talkabout. They hadimportantchoices tomake.

Learning standards: engaging in activities tosolve a problem, writing for fluency

1. Do you think it was easy for the 55 delegates toagree? Try this activity to see how hard it might be to get

lots of people to agree on something. Turn to the movie list-ings in the newspaper. Take a class vote of one movie to see tonight.

Can everyone agree on the same movie? Why do you think that is so?Take the vote again, but this time let a majority of the class choose the

movie. Without a unanimous agreement, one where every person hasto agree, is it easier to make a choice? The need for unanimous agree-ment was one of the problems that America had with the rules beforethe Constitution was written. Under the Articles of Confederation,

no rule could be changed unless all the politicians agreed. 2. Look on the front page of your newspaper to see

how important news stories are written. Then imagine that youare a reporter in 1787, just before the convention began.

Write a headline and first paragraph for a front-pagestory about the convention.

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When they wrote the Constitution, most of the black people in America were slaves.A slave is someone who is owned by another person. The slaves work for free and theywere worth a lot of money, too. So, as you can imagine, people who made a lot of moneyusing slaves might have been unwilling to give them up. And there were many people whojust didn’t think of blacks as equal to white people. Those people weren’t offended at theidea that slavery would continue.

Many of the framers of the Constitution were slave owners. Others, but not most, thoughtslavery was wrong. But the framers weren’t deciding whether to end slavery. They weredeciding how the slaves would count in figuring how much power the states would have.

If each state’s power depended on how many people lived in that state, would slaves countjust as others counted? That was the question. Some framers didn’t want slaves to count at all. Others, mostly from the South,wanted each slave to count as one person. If they were counted that way, then the slave states would get more power.

In the end, they reached a compromise. A compromise means that each side in an argument gives in just a little.That way, neither side gets everything it wants, but both sides get some of what they want.

That’s what happened with slavery. The compromise was that each slave would count as three-fifths of a person andthat slave trading could continue for another 20 years.

WomenBy now, you probably noticed that all the framers were men. What about women?Why didn’t they have a say in the new rules?

Back when the Constitution was written, women worked in their homes. They didn’t take jobs. Theydidn’t serve in Congress or in the military. They couldn’t be lawyers or doctors or pretty much anythingother than a housewife. Of course there was nothing wrong with being a housewife, but when it cametime to write the country’s rules, people believed that women did not have the experience in the worldthat they would need to write good rules. Today, many women are housewives – but that is a choice.Other women choose to be something else.

Not only did women not help write the Constitution, but after it was written, women weren’t given theright to vote. Why? Well, pretty much for the same reason they weren’t asked to help write the laws.Because they spent all their time at home, many people believed that they couldn’t make the importantdecisions that voting would require. And that didn’t change quickly, either.Women didn’t get the right to vote until 1920, more than 100 years afterthe Constitution was written. Now, things have changed, and it’s proba-bly only a matter of time until we elect the first woman president.

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TheIssues and ... The framers of the Constitution had to think about a lot of different issues in order towrite the rules. There was much to think about before they could finish writing theConstitution. Here are some of the topics they had to talk about.

Slavery

Rightto Vote!

PowerIt was agreed that Congress had to be stronger than it was. But no one wanted it to be too strong. That’s why theframers decided to divide up government power into three branches of government. That way, no one branch wouldbe too weak or too strong. And each could check on the other.

The Making of the PresidentSome of the framers did not want America to have a single leader. Others thought we shouldhave one. They decided that we would have a president, but then they had to decide how wewould choose one. Remember, this was before anyone knew about elections or political par-ties. Some of the framers were afraid that Americans wouldn’t be able to choose a good presi-dent. So they set up what is called The Electoral College. It meant that when Americansvoted, they didn’t actually vote for a president. Rather, they voted for electors. The electorsthen voted for the president. The reason it was called a college is because the word “college”

was used to refer to a groupof people with the same goal.So even today, when you votefor a president, you are really pick-ing an elector who wants the same president that you do.That elector is then supposed to vote for the president youboth want. Today, many people believe that Americans shouldvote directly for President and that we should not have theElectoral College.

The End, The BeginningAfter months of heated debate, on September 17, 1787, thefinal draft of the Constitution was ready for signing. Remember,55 men participated at the convention, but only 39 signed. Why do you think that was so?

Some left before the convention was over. Others refused to signbecause they didn’t agree with everything in the Constitution.Benjamin Franklin said that he didn’t think it was perfect buthe thought it was as good as it could possibly be. He wassmart enough to know that no group of 55 men couldever agree on every point. He felt that the fact that theyhad created such a good set of laws and put it togetherthe way they did was a very good thing.

So the Constitution was signed. Each state stillhad to accept or ratify it, and the signers agreedthat the Constitution would pass if 9 of the 13 states accepted it.

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the Wrap-Up

Learning standard: understanding thecore democratic values of the Constitution

The framers went to a lot of trouble to makesure we had a good way to choose a president.

Where is our President today? See if you can find anynews about the President in the newspaper. Find one

story and summarize it. What is the first thingyou’d do if you were elected President? Is

that a job you would want?

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Here are the nine rights listed in the Bill of Rights: 1st Amendment: Freedom of (or from) religion. Freedom ofspeech. Freedom to assemble. Freedom of the press. Freedom topetition the government.

2nd Amendment: Right to bear arms. (That means weapons,such as guns.)

3rd Amendment: Freedom from quartering soldiers.

4th Amendment: Freedom from unreasonable searches andseizures. Warrants must be issued only for probable cause, andshall be specific.

5th Amendment: Criminal indictments must be by grand jury.Freedom from double jeopardy. Freedom from testifying againstoneself. Right to face accusers. Right to due process. Right of justcompensation for property seizures.

6th Amendment: Right to speedy trial. Right to impartial jury.Right to be informed of the charges upon which the accused isheld. Right to face accusers. Right to produce witnesses for theaccused. Right to legal counsel.

7th Amendment: Right to jury trial in civil cases. Facts found bya jury cannot be reexamined by another court.

8th Amendment: Freedom from excessive bail or fines. Freedomfrom cruel or unusual punishment.

9th Amendment: The listing of a right in any other part of theConstitution does not imply that other unlisted rights do notexist.

Since the Constitution was written, more than 10,000 amend-ments have been suggested. But only 27 amendments havepassed. Women were given the right to vote in the 19thAmendment in 1920. Slavery was outlawed in the 13thAmendment in 1865. The 26th Amendment in1971 lowered the voting age to 18. And, by the time youread this there may be a new amendment as Congress isconsidering one about flag desecration.

The BillofRights

Take YourCorner

At the end of the Constitutional Convention,many of the framers thought that there was onebig problem with the Constitution: It didn’t listthe peoples’ rights. This started an argumentamong the framers. Some thought a list, or bill,of rights was absolutely needed. Others weretired and wanted to go home. They were wor-ried that if they had to write a bill of rights, itmight stop the whole convention. Then theConstitution wouldn’t be finished. Still othersthought that such a bill just wasn’t needed.

More debate took place until the framers finallymade a choice. No bill of rights was written.But when the Constitution was sent to eachstate to be voted on and accepted, many statesinsisted that a list of rights be added. So beforeall the states voted on the Constitution, the Billof Rights was added on. There were 10changes, or amendments, to the Constitution.The 10 were ratified, or accepted, at the sametime. They came to be known as the Bill ofRights. Only nine of them are actually rights.

Since then, there have been other amendments,or changes, to the Constitution, but only thefirst 10 are part of what’s known as the Bill ofRights.

Why so much fuss about rights? Americans havealways been fighting for their rights. The firstpeople who came to this country from Englandcame because they wanted the right to choosetheir religion. They didn’t want the governmentto choose for them. They fought theRevolutionary War for the right to rule them-selves. Later they fought the Civil War for theright for all people to live free. Americansbelieve in protecting their rights.

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Takinga corner

is a greatway to show

what you thinkabout something.

Try this fun activity,which assumes that

your classroom has four corners. Place a sign in each

corner, and place the number ofone of these amendments on each

sign – No. 1, No. 2, No. 5, and No.9. Then answer each of these questions

by moving to the corner of your choice.1. Which amendment is most important

to you personally?2. If you had to get rid of one of these,

which would it be?Once you get into your corner, talk about why you chose it and then go back to your seat and discuss

it with your class.

We the People of the United States, in Order toform a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domesticTranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the

general Welfare, and secure theBlessings of Liberty to ourselvesand our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution

for the United States of America.

If the Constitution were music, it would begin with the grand sound of trumpets and drums andlots of violins playing beautiful, important sounds. But because it’s not music, the framers had tofind a way to use words to make that kind of terrific, lovely, and powerful beginning. So theywrote the Preamble. Those are the words that start the Constitution. Read it aloud with your class. It’s a beautiful thing.

What Does the Constitution Say?

These poetic words were designed to tell everyone of America’shopes and dreams. She was a young country, dreaming of power and glory.

Taken bit by bit, the Preamble is quite simple. It says that the framers were talking for everyone – “We the People of the UnitedStates.” It says that they loved their country and just wanted it towork better, “In Order to form a more perfect Union.” It said that it was important to keep the country safe, to “promote the commondefence” (note that “defense” was spelled differently back then). And it said that they would be free, to “secure the blessings ofLiberty,” which was very important since they had broken fromEngland in order to be free.

The Constitution goes on to describe how the government will be set up. It describes the three branches of government – the Legislative, the Judicial, and the Executive.

Legislative BranchThis branch of government is the Congress. Congress ismade up of two groups, the Senate and the House ofRepresentatives. The Constitution spells out how these people get elected and what their jobs will be.

Judicial BranchThe Constitution set up the Supreme Courtand all the courts below it. It also states thatjuries would decide guilt or innocence at trials.

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Learning standards: writing editorials,evaluating the practices of government

Write a letter to the editor giving your opin-ion about what the framers of the Constitutionmight think if they read today’s newspaper. Would

they think they had written a good plan? Wouldthey think their plan was being followed?

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Executive BranchThe Constitution explains how we choose a president and vice-president, how long they will serve, and what the powers of those offices are.

The StatesThe Constitution goes on to set rules for the states. It says thateach state would respect the rules and laws of every other state.It also gave the power to Congress to accept new states into theUnion.

AmendmentsThe Constitution also gave Congress the power to change oramend the Constitution as needed. That way, as times changed,the rules could change to meet the needs of the people.

The first part talks about religion. It says that people can choose their religion. Congress cannot choose forthem. Other countries may have a religion for all the people, but here in America, we are free to choose.

The next part is about freedom of speech. That means that people can say what they choose without fear that they will bepunished for it. If you don’t like the President, you can say so and you won’t be breaking any laws. If you have a problem withone of our laws, you can’t break it but you can talk about it. Can you say absolutely anything you want? Nope. It’s against the

law to say things that might truly hurt people. For example, you cannot yell “Fire” in a crowded place when there isno fire. People might panic and get hurt because of what you said. You can’t say things about other people that arenot true and that might hurt them. For example, if you say that someone stole something from you and that isn’ttrue, you are hurting that person. That is against the law.

Press PassWhat is freedom of the press? It’s very much like freedom of speech. It allows news organizations, such as newspapers, magazines, the

Internet, television, radio, etc. to say what they want withoutbeing punished for it. The government can’t tell news organiza-

tions what to report. But, just as with your own freedom ofspeech, the news people also can’t say things that aren’t true.

One of the important things about freedom of the press is that itmakes it easy for news organizations to protect people. It is said that the press, thenews organizations, are like watchdogs for people. The news people watch what thegovernment is doing and they make sure it is honest. What do you think might happenif the government didn’t allow for a free press? What if the government ran thenewspapers and the other news organizations?

These freedoms of speech and press are really both about the same thing. In America, we have the freedom to express ourselveswithout fear. This doesn’t mean that everyone agrees, though. Sometimes people want to make laws about free expression. Forexample, have you read any of the Harry Potter books? If you have, maybe you’ll understand the constitutional debate aboutthem. Some people think those books should not be read in public schools. They don’t like the sorcery in the books because their

religion says that sorcery is a bad thing. They don’t want children in public schools reading booksthat say that sorcery is okay. They want these books to be outlawed. The First Amendment says thatwe have freedom of speech. That counts for books, too. That means that if a school district sayscertain books are not allowed, a person in thatcommunity can take the school to court.

The court can decide whether the FirstAmendment right is being denied.

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The First AmendmentBy far, the best known of the amendments is the First Amendment. It says:

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech,

or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.”

Learning standard: interpreting specificrights in the Bill of Rights

1. Look carefully at the newspaper to see whetheryou can find any stories that might not be there if we

didn’t have freedom of the press. Write about one that youfind. If you want to see an interesting movie about freedom of

the press, rent “All the President’s Men.” This movie from yearsago illustrates freedom of the press in a timely fashion. It’s thetrue story of two newspaper reporters who wrote about a crimein the administration of President Richard Nixon. As part oftheir freedom, they kept secret for more than 30 years theidentity of the person who gave them the information. It

wasn’t until 2005 that the person’s name was made public. 2. In small groups, you can read and cut out

stories related to the Bill of Rights. Explain the ways in which the news items connect to

the Bill of Rights.

TheNews: Tomorrow’s History Today

Write An “I Believe” PaperWhich of our rights do you think is most important? Write a paper giving your opinion aboutthis. Use this form to help you organize your paper. You may want to skim your newspaper tohelp you think of ideas.

Title:

I believe: (State your opinion about the issue clearly.)

Reasons: You can give as many reasons as you would like to support yourthoughts but there must be at least three.

Conclusion: Repeat and summarize what you believe.

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Constitutional Controversies TodayThe Constitution, although more than 200 years old, is as important and vital today as it was whenit was written. And it’s still changing.

We hear news stories all the time about issues that may be constitutional or unconstitutional.

For example, there is much in the news about the ties between religion and government. The FirstAmendment says that the government cannot tell people what their religion must be. The originalConstitution hardly mentioned religion at all. It had only one sentence, that no religious test wouldbe needed for someone to hold a public office.

Keep in mind that the framers of the Constitution were all Christian. There were no Muslims,Hindus, Buddhists, or Jews. Even so, religious freedom was important to them and they wanted toprotect it. They didn’t want the government telling them how to practice their religion. That’s whyit is unconstitutional today for the government to tell anyone what religion they must follow.

But religion is still an issue of much debate. In recent years, there was a court case aboutthe Pledge of Allegiance. The question was whether the words, “under God” in thePledge were unconstitutional. The Pledge is a promise that we make to our government.

Because government is not supposed to be tied to religion, the words “underGod” were challenged. It went all the way to the Supreme Court. TheSupreme Court never ruled on whether it was unconstitutional. The divorced

father of a little girl brought the case to court. But a court decided that hecouldn’t bring that case because he did not have custody of the child. Keep

your eyes open for other cases concerning religion and government.

Another hot constitutional issue is the issue of marriage. The question is whether the governmentshould decide who can be married and who cannot. Is marriage only for one man and one woman,or is it for any two people who want to be married? This issue is still up for debate.Some people want a new amendment added to the Constitution to permit mar-riage only between one man and one woman. Other people don’t believe this issomething that belongs in the Constitution. The debate goes on.

ResourcesMany of our country’s important documents can be found at:www.archives.gov/index.html

Check out www.usconstitution.net for lots of information and interesting facts.

The Constitution Society can be found online at www.constitution.org

The Constitution Center is at: www.constitutioncenter.org

Hakim, Joy. (1993). A History of US: From Colonies to Country; Book Three. New York: Oxford University Press.

Goldman, Mike. (1995) Bill of Rights. [Online]. Available: http://www.lm.com/~cjp/whig/BillOfRights.html

Murphy, Gerald. (1993) More about the Bill of Rights and Constitution. [Online]. Available: http://www.supranet.com/idealogo/bor-const.html