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

212 Pages·2010·0.94 MB·English

by  Richard Beeman

Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page

CHAPTER ONE - THE REVOLUTIONARY ORIGINS OF THE AMERICAN
CONSTITUTION
CHAPTER TWO - AMERICA STRUGGLES TO ACHIEVE
INDEPENDENCE, LIBERTY, AND UNION
CHAPTER THREE - THE CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION OF 1787
CHAPTER FOUR - THE CONTEST OVER RATIFICATION
CHAPTER FIVE - ESTABLISHING GOVERNMENT UNDER THE
CONSTITUTION, 1789-1801
CHAPTER SIX - SUPREME COURT DECISIONS THAT HAVE SHAPED
AMERICA’S CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY

SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER READING
PENGUIN BOOKS
THE PENGUIN GUIDE TO THE UNITED STATES
CONSTITUTION

RICHARD BEEMAN, currently a professor of history at the University of
Pennsylvania, has previously served as the chair of the Department of History,
associate dean in Penn’s School of Arts and Sciences, and dean of the College of
Arts and Sciences. He serves as a trustee of the National Constitution Center and
is chair of the Constitution Center’s Committee on Programs, Exhibits, and
Education. Author of six previous books, Professor Beeman has received
numerous grants and awards, including fellowships from the National
Endowment for the Humanities, the Rockefeller Foundation, the Institute for
Advanced Study at Princeton, and the Huntington Library. His biography of
Patrick Henry was a finalist for the National Book Award. He is, most recently,
the author of Plain, Honest Men: The Making of the American Constitution.

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First published in Penguin Books 2010

Copyright © Richard Beeman, 2010
All rights reserved

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING IN PUBLICATION DATA
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 / Richard Beeman. p. cm.
eISBN : 978-1-10145900-3
1. Constitutional history—United States. 2. Constitutional history—United States—Sources. I. Beeman,
Richard R. II. Penguin Books USA, Inc. III. Title: Guide to the United States Constitution. IV. Title: United
States Constitution.
KF4541.P46 2010
342.7302’9—dc22 2010015820

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A NOTE ON THE TEXT

THE TEXTS IN THIS EDITION ARE BASED on the transcriptions of the
Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution in the National Archives
and Records Administration and on Jacob E. Cooke’s edition of The Federalist
Papers. In some cases the punctuation in the documents reprinted in this edition
has been altered for purposes of consistency and clarity; the eighteenth-century
spelling in the original documents has been retained. Following the practice in
Jacob E. Cooke’s The Federalist, the Penguin edition omits the original titles in
each of the three essays reproduced from The Federalist Papers.
THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE

WHEN IN THE COURSE OF HUMAN EVENTS, it becomes necessary for one
people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another,
and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to
which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to
the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which
impel them to the separation.
This single opening sentence of the preamble to the
Declaration of Independence displays brilliantly the ability of the
document’s principal author, Thomas Jefferson, to convey a
wealth of meaning in just a few elegant words. It announces the
Americans’ intention of declaring their independence, of
dissolving “the political bands” that had connected them to
England. The justification for this extraordinary act was to be
found in “the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God.” Jefferson, a
deist who did not believe that God played an active hand in the
affairs of mankind, nevertheless did believe that certain natural
laws were God-given. This first sentence also signals Jefferson’s
awareness that a compelling public statement of the reasons for
the decision to seek independence from England was necessary if
America’s political leaders were going to earn the support not
only of the people of their own colonies but, equally important, of
foreign nations like France, whose support for the American
military effort against England was considered crucial. Before
declaring those “causes which impel them to separation,”
however, Jefferson lays out the general philosophy on which
America’s quest for independence was founded.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that
they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among
these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.—That to secure these rights
Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the
consent of the governed.—That whenever any Form of Government becomes
destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and
to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and
organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect
their Safety and Happiness.
The ideas embodied in the powerful opening lines of the
second paragraph of the Declaration were not Jefferson’s alone.
The late seventeenth-century English political philosopher John
Locke had written in his Second Treatise of Civil Government that
“life, liberty, and estate” were among the “natural rights” of
mankind; they were rights that existed even before governments
were created, at a time when mankind was living in a “state of
nature.” Jefferson’s fellow Virginian George Mason, again
following Locke, had included in the preamble of the Virginia
Declaration of Rights, penned just a few weeks before Jefferson
wrote the Declaration of Independence, “That all men are by
nature equally free and independent and have certain inherent
rights,” which he described as “the enjoyment of life and liberty,
with the means of acquiring and possessing property, and
pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety.” But Jefferson’s
language has more forceful simplicity. The assertion that “all men
are created equal” was in 1776 more an as-yet-unfulfilled promise
than a statement of political fact, but it has helped to define some
of the highest aspirations of the American nation throughout its
history.
The opening lines of the second paragraph were, in fact, merely
a preface to the real punch line of that paragraph: the assertion of
the right to rebel against the government of England. Jefferson
reminds his audience that the very purpose of government is to
protect the natural rights of mankind. Since governments, at the
time of their creation, base their authority on the consent of the
people whom they are governing, then it is also the right of the
people “to alter or to abolish” that government if its actions
threaten the very liberties it was created to protect. Realizing the
dangers of living in a society without government, Jefferson was
quick to add that once the people had severed their connection
with their government, they must move to form new governments
whose principles and powers would be supportive of the people’s
“Safety and Happiness.”