The Constitution: A Nation of States

How did thirteen separate nests become the United States of America? The response is found in the second half of the American Constitution– Articles IV through VII. Kurt Lash, Professor of Law at the University of Richmond, discusses.

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Script:

The very first half of the Constitution– Articles I, II and III– go over the powers of the 3 branches of the nationwide government. The 2nd half of the Constitution– Articles IV through VII– go over the relationship in between the nationwide federal government and the states.

These 4 short articles do not get the attention of the very first 3, but that does not mean they’re any lesser.

Let’s take a more detailed look.

First, Article IV.

The former English colonies ended up being complimentary and independent states– nearly as if they were separate countries when America won the Revolutionary War. When those states later on voted to ratify the federal Constitution, they ended up being part of an unbreakable union of states under a common nationwide federal government, one in which all people were granted the exact same rights.

This appears obvious to us now, but it was new then. As Article IV verifies, “The Citizens of each State shall be entitled to all Privileges and Immunities of Citizens in the several States.”

This gets complicated– as everything did at the time– when the concern of slavery is raised.

Section Two of Article IV declares that” [N] o Person held to … Labour in one State … leaving into another, will … be discharged from such … Labour, however will be delivered up [to] the Party to whom such … Labour may be due.” This is called the Fugitive Slave Clause, though the term “servant” is not utilized. You can’t find the word “slave” anywhere in the initial Constitution. The Framers were wary about backing slavery although, for political factors– to keep the Southern states in the Union– they permitted it.

As James Madison described, it would be “wrong to confess in the Constitution the concept that there could be home in men.”

Short article V describes how the Constitution can be changed.

Altering a federal law is easy: it just takes a majority vote in Congress. This happens all the time. Changing the Constitution, nevertheless, is a lot more challenging. It takes a two-thirds majority vote in both your house and the Senate, or an unique convention required by two-thirds of the states.

The proposed change needs to then be validated by three-quarters of the states.

This deliberately tough two-stage process guarantees that just those changes with prevalent support get to enter into the Constitution.

Short article VI ensures that the Constitution is the “supreme Law of the Land.” To put it simply, every state needs to obey the Constitution and the laws of the federal government.

Before the Constitution was ratified in 1788, the brand-new nation was arranged under what were called the Articles of Confederation. However this governing document showed woefully inadequate. It had no chief executive, no federal court system, and no ability to collect taxes to support the national defense.

The brand-new Constitution attended to all these problems. However it did so in such a way that maintained the power of the states to manage matters of regional concern.

This department of power in between the nationwide federal government and the states is called federalism. Prior to the adoption of the American Constitution, absolutely nothing like it had actually existed in the history of the world. No country had actually ever attempted to place these kinds of limitations on a central federal government.

For this new federalist system to work, nevertheless, states had to agree to be bound by the new Constitution and federal law. Of course, federalism is a two-way street: Federal authorities also needed to accept the fact that their powers were limited and that individuals in the states kept all powers and rights not constitutionally delegated to the federal government.

That’s why Article VI needs every official in the nationwide federal government and in the states to take an oath “to support this Constitution.” The Constitution these officials swear to support is a federal Constitution of limited and divided power.

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The response is discovered in the second half of the American Constitution– Articles IV through VII. You can’t discover the word “slave” anywhere in the original Constitution. Changing the Constitution, nevertheless, is much more tough. Before the Constitution was ratified in 1788, the brand-new nation was organized under what were called the Articles of Confederation. Prior to the adoption of the American Constitution, absolutely nothing like it had actually existed in the history of the world.