Constitution, U.S.

The U.S. Constitution provides the basic structure of the federal government. It separates the legislative (congressional), executive (presidential), and judicial (court) powers. It corrects the major flaw of the previous basic law, found in the Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union (1781–89), primarily by asserting the fundamental supremacy of federal over state law in places where they conflict.

The Constitution originally consisted of only seven articles, formally defining the scope and means of federal powers. By its own text, the Constitution can be amended by congressional action, with consent of three-fourths of state legislatures, or by national convention. Hence, some provisions in the original articles have since been struck down by the 27 constitutional amendments. The first 10 of these amendments were promised from the time of the convention as a way to induce the states to ratification. They were passed by the first Congress and are collectively known as the Bill of Rights.

Fifty-five delegates from 12 colonies (the 13th, Rhode Island, declined to participate) negotiated and drafted the Constitution over the course of four months in Philadelphia in the summer of 1787. The majority of the delegates were prominent politicians who had served in the recent Revolutionary War, commanding Continental army forces, or in the Continental Congress. Nearly all members were wealthy; all were white males; and all but two identified themselves as Protestant Christians, from seven denominations (the other two described themselves as Catholic). Twenty-five of these delegates owned enslaved workers.

The U.S. Constitution has a mixed record with regard to pluralism and minority rights. Constitutionally, the federal government has the right to delimit citizenship, mandate federal voting eligibility, define religious freedom, and count ethnic and religious populations in the mandated decennial census. All of these provisions ensured a central role for the Constitution in forging as well as bridging political cleavages based on race and culture. The original Constitution also included provisions that upheld the institution of race-based chattel slavery in the United States. Slavery, the status of Native Americans, the evolving constitutional idea of citizenship, the religion clauses of the First Amendment, and contemporary debates over hate speech comprise the most prominent examples of the Constitution's longstanding role in regulating American pluralism.