1774 First Continental Congress--Complaint to King.(Stamp Act)

1776 Second Continental Congress--Declaration of Independence.

1776 Articles of Confederations.

1787 Constitutional Convention--Submits DOI for ratification.

1787-1788 The Federalist Papers

1791 Declaration of Independence, ratificated by the colonies.

Constitution of the United States of America, the fundamental law of the U.S. federal system of government and a landmark document of the Western world. It is the oldest written national constitution in operation. The Constitution defines the principal organs of government and their jurisdictions and the basic rights of citizens.

The Constitution was written during the summer of 1787 at a convention of 55 delegates who met in Philadelphia, ostensibly to amend the Articles of Confederation, the country's first written constitution. The new Constitution was submitted for ratification to the 13 states on Sept. 28, 1787, and after the ninth state had ratified it in June 1788, Congress set March 4, 1789, as the date for the new government to commence proceedings (the first elections under the Constitution were held late in 1788). Because ratification in many states hinged on the promised addition of a Bill of Rights, Congress proposed 12 amendments in September 1789; 10 were ratified by the states, and their adoption was certified on Dec. 15, 1791.

The authors of the Constitution were heavily influenced by the experience of the country under the Articles of Confederation, which dated from 1781. This document had attempted to retain as much of the independence and sovereignty of the states as possible while also establishing a central government to carry out important national functions that the states could not handle individually. But the experience of the years from 1781 to 1787 showed that this could not be done, for under this arrangement the national government lacked many essential powers and was thus weak and ineffective. The new Constitution would remedy this.

The framers of the Constitution were especially concerned with limiting the power of the government and securing the liberty of citizens. The separation of the legislative, executive, and judicial branches of government, the checks and balances of each against the others, and the explicit guarantees of individual liberty were all designed to strike a balance between authority and liberty--the central purpose of U.S. constitutional law.

ex post facto law, law that purports to retroactively make criminal a certain conduct that was not criminal when done, increases the punishment for crimes already committed, or changes the rules of procedure in force at the time an alleged crime was committed in a way substantially disadvantageous to the accused.

In the United States, the Constitution forbids Congress and the states to pass any ex post facto law.

electoral college, in the United States, a group of electors chosen within each state to elect the president and vice president. Each state has as many presidential electors as it has representatives in both houses of Congress.

As originally planned by the framers of the Constitution, the electors actually choose the president. The framers preferred this to a direct popular election because, at a time when travel was difficult and there were no national party organizations, they feared that many regional candidates would divide the vote. Requiring a candidate to win a majority in the electoral college was a way of obtaining a national consensus. (see also Index: Constitution of the United States of America )

Although the Constitution still allows electors to use their discretion, electors now are usually pledged to support a party's candidate. All the states, except Maine and Nebraska, hold a winner-take-all popular vote for electors. Whichever candidate wins a plurality in a state wins all the electoral votes in that state.

With the winner-take-all system, elected presidents receive a greater percentage of the electoral vote than of the popular vote.

Continental Congress (1774-89), in the period of the U.S. War of Independence, the body of delegates who spoke and acted collectively for the people of the colony-states that later became the United States of America. The term most specifically refers to the bodies that met in 1774 and 1775-81 and respectively designated as the First Continental Congress and the Second Continental Congress.

The Virginia Plan's proposal that representation be proportional to population in both houses was severely modified by the retention of equal representation for each state in the Senate. After some contention, antislavery forces gave way to a compromise by which three-fifths of the slaves would be counted as population for purposes of representation (and direct taxation).

Mason, George (b. 1725, Fairfax County, Va.--d. Oct. 7, 1792, Fairfax County, Va., U.S.), American patriot and statesman who insisted on the protection of individual liberties in the composition of both the Virginia and U.S. Constitutions (1776, 1787); he was ahead of his time in opposing slavery and in rejecting the constitutional compromise that perpetuated it.

The two great points of difference between a democracy and a republic are: first, the delegation of the government, in the latter, to a small number of citizens elected by the rest; secondly, the greater number of citizens, and greater sphere of country, over which the latter may be extended.James Madison

Of particular note is the 10th essay.(1787-1788) In it Madison rejected the then common belief that republican government was possible only for small states. He argued that stability, liberty, and justice were more likely to be achieved in a large area with a numerous and heterogeneous population. Though frequently interpreted as an attack on majority rule, the essay is in reality a defense of social, economic, and cultural pluralism and a defense of a composite majority formed by compromise and conciliation.

Federalist Paper #39. Each State, in ratifying the Constitution, is considered as a sovereign body, independent of all others, and only to be bound by its own voluntary act. In this relation, then, the new Constitution will, if established, be a FEDERAL, and not a NATIONAL constitution.

The proposed Constitution, therefore, is, in strictness, neither a national nor a federal Constitution, but a composition of both. In its foundation it is federal, not national; in the sources from which the ordinary powers of the government are drawn, it is partly federal and partly national; in the operation of these powers, it is national, not federal; in the extent of them, again, it is federal, not national; and, finally, in the authoritative mode of introducing amendments, it is neither wholly federal nor wholly national.

FEDERALIST No. 51 The Structure of the Government Must Furnish the Proper Checks and Balances Between the Different Departments.Hamilton

Early in U.S. history, competing concepts of federal "supremacy clause" and states' rights were brought into sharp focus in questions about commercial regulation. The commerce clause (Article I, section 8) simply authorizes Congress "To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes." From Gibbons v. Ogden (1824) on, the Supreme Court has broadly interpreted Congress' regulatory power under the commerce clause as new methods of interstate transportation and communication have come into use. States may not regulate any aspect of interstate commerce that Congress has preempted.

Marbury v. Madison (1803) Background and Explanation Just as George Washington helped shape the actual form that the executive branch would take, so the third chief justice, John Marshall, shaped the role that the courts would play.

Under the administrations of Washington and his successor, John Adams, only members of the ruling Federalist Party were appointed to the bench, and under the terms of the Constitution, they held office for life during "good behavior." Thus, when the opposing Republicans¹ won the election of 1800, the Jeffersonians¹ found that while they controlled the presidency and Congress, the Federalists¹ still dominated the judiciary. One of the first acts of the new administration was to repeal the Judiciary Act of 1800, which had created a number of new judgeships. Although President Adams had attempted to fill the vacancies prior to the end of his term, a number of commissions had not been delivered, and one of the appointees, William Marbury, sued Secretary of State James Madison to force him to deliver his commission as a justice of the peace.

The new chief justice, John Marshall, understood that if the Court awarded Marbury a writ of mandamus (an order to force Madison to deliver the commission) the Jefferson administration would ignore it, and thus significantly weaken the authority of the courts. On the other hand, if the Court denied the writ, it might well appear that the justices had acted out of fear. Either case would be a denial of the basic principle of the supremacy of the law.

Marshall's decision in this case has been hailed as a judicial tour de force. In essence, he declared that Madison should have delivered the commission to Marbury, but then held that the section of the Judiciary Act of 1789 that gave the Supreme Court the power to issue writs of mandamus exceeded the authority allotted the Court under Article III of the Constitution, and was therefore null and void. Thus he was able to chastise the Jeffersonians and yet not create a situation in which a court order would be flouted.

The critical importance of Marbury is the assumption of several powers by the Supreme Court. One was the authority to declare acts of Congress, and by implication acts of the president, unconstitutional if they exceeded the powers granted by the Constitution. But even more important, the Court became the arbiter of the Constitution, the final authority on what the document meant. As such, the Supreme Court became in fact as well as in theory an equal partner in government, and it has played that role ever since.

The Court would not declare another act of Congress unconstitutional until 1857, and it has used that power sparingly. But through its role as arbiter of the Constitution, it has, especially in the twentieth century, been the chief agency for the expansion of individual rights.

Brown vs. Board of Education, Topeka(1954) It was not until 1954 that the doctrine of "seperate but equal" was challenged. _In attempt to gain equal education opportunities for their children that were not provided for under the Plessy v. Fergusen decision, African-American community leaders took action against the segregation in America's schools. _Aided by the local chapter of the NAACP, a group of thirteen parents filed a class action suit against the Board of Education of Topeka Schools.

Governor of Alabama George Wallace, one of the chief spokesmen for school segregation: "I draw the line in the dust and toss the gauntlet before the feet of tyranny and I say segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever." (Inaugural address, Jan. 14, 1963)

____On May 17, 1954, the Supreme Court ruled in a unaminous decision that the "separate but equal" clause was unconsitutional because it violated the children's 14 amendment rights by separating them solely on the classification of the color of their skin. _Chief Justice Warren delivered the court's opinion, stating that "segregated schools are not equal and cannot be made equal, and hence they are deprived of the equal protection of the laws."_ This ruling in favor of integration was one of the most significant strides America has taken in favor of civil liberties.

Gitlow vs. New York(1925) Benjamin Gitlow had been a prominent member of the Socialist party during the 1920s. He was arrested and convicted for violating the New York Criminal Anarchy Law of 1902, which made it a crime to attempt to foster the violent overthrow of government. Gitlow's publication and circulation of sixteen thousand copies of the Left-Wing Manifesto violated this Criminal Anarchy Act. The pamphlet went on to advocate the creation of a socialist system through the use of massive strikes and "class action...in any form." Gitlow was tried and convicted. He appealed the decision, arguing that his First Amendment right to freedoms of speech and press was violated. Although the New York courts held that the Communists must be held accountable for the results of their propaganda, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of Gitlow.

It stated in its decision that "for present purposes, we may assume that freedom of speech and of press...are among the fundamental personal rights and liberties protected by the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment from impairment by the State."

McCulloch v. Maryland (1819) In many ways, the opinion in this case represents a final step in the creation of the federal government. The issue involved, the power of Congress to charter a bank, seems insignificant, but the larger questions go to the very heart of constitutional interpretation, and are still debated today.

In 1791, as part of his financial plan, Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton proposed that Congress charter a Bank of the United States, to serve as a central bank for the country. Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson opposed the notion, on the grounds that the Constitution did not specifically give Congress such a power, and that under a limited government, Congress had no powers other than those explicitly given to it. Hamilton responded by arguing that Congress had all powers except those specifically denied to it in the Constitution, and that moreover, the "necessary and proper" clause of Article I required a broad reading of the designated powers. President Washington backed Hamilton, and the bank was given a twenty-year charter. The charter expired in 1811, and the Jeffersonians had not renewed it.

Then came the War of 1812, and President Madison realized that the government needed the services of a central bank. In 1816, at his recommendation, Congress chartered a second Bank of the United States (BUS), which quickly established branches throughout the Union. Many local, state-chartered banks, eager to follow speculative policies, resented the cautious fiscal policy of the BUS, and looked to state legislatures to restrict the BUS operations. Maryland imposed a tax on the bank's operations, and when James McCulloch, the cashier of the Baltimore branch of the BUS, refused to pay the tax, the issue went to Court.

Few people expected the Court to hold the charter establishing the bank unconstitutional; what was at issue was the extent of state power vis-ą-vis federal authority. In what has justly been termed a state paper, Chief Justice Marshall not only endorsed the constitutionality of the bank, but went on to uphold a broad interpretation of the federal government's powers under the Constitution, and thus pave the way for the modern national state that would emerge after the Civil War. Although there have been some people who have disagreed and continue to disagree with the Marshall opinion, it has for the most part won the approval not only of subsequent courts but of the American people as well.

Reynolds vs. Sims ---"This Court has reached the conclusion that neither the 67-Senator Amendment,' nor the `Crawford-Webb Act' meets the necessary constitutional requirements. We find that each of the legislative acts, when considered as a whole, is so obviously discriminatory, arbitrary and irrational that it becomes unnecessary to pursue a detailed development of each of the relevant factors of the [federal constitutional] test."1

University of California vs. Bakke(1978)The court ruled in favor of Bakke say that the University was reverse discrimating.

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