Skip to Main Content

United States Constitution: Articles

The Constitution Explained

What does the Constitution do?

It created a national government with:

  • a separation of powers (a government divided between three branches: legislative, executive and judicial)
  • with checks and balances (each branch of government checks the other two branches and shares its power with those branches)
  • in a federalist system (power is shared by the national and state governments)
  • that was a republic (a democratic system where the people elect representatives to make the laws)
  • not a democracy.(the people directly make the laws)

Source: The Words We Live By (pp.25, 113, 121.)

The Original Constitution

The United States Constitution was only seven Articles long when it was written in 1787 and ratified (formal approval) by Americans in the original thirteen states shortly thereafter. These Articles contained:

  1. the powers of the three separate co-equal branches of the national government;
  2. the relationship of the states to each other and to the national government;
  3. how to add Amendments;
  4. the authority of the Constitution;
  5. and the process to ratify the Constitution.

Additional References

Barnett, R. E., Blackman, J., and Chemerinsky, E. (2020). An introduction to constitutional law: 100 Supreme Court cases everyone should know. Wolters Kluwer. 
Beeman, R. R. (2010). The Penguin guide to the United States Constitution: a fully annotated Declaration of Independence, U.S. Constitution and amendments, and selections from The Federalist Papers. Penguin Books. 
Hennessey, J. and McConnell, A. (2009). The United States Constitution: a graphic adaptation. Hill and Wang. 
Harper, T. (2016). The complete idiot's guide to the U.S. Constitution. Alpha Books, a member of Penguin Random House LLC. 
Kennedy, K., Kirchner, B., and Roosevelt, K. (2020). The Constitution decoded: a guide to the document that shapes our nation. Workman Publishing Company. 
Monk, L. R. and Ginsburg, R. B. (2018). The Bill of Rights: a user's guide. Hachette Books. 
Monk, L. R. (2015). The words we live by: your annotated guide to the Constitution. Hachette Books. 
No Fear (2006). No Fear: U.S. Constitution and other important American documents: the text plus a translation anyone can understand. Spark Publishing.