UNBIASED - The United States Constitution: The History, Seven Basic Principles, Amendments, Fun Facts, and More.

Episode Date: August 22, 2023

With Constitution Day less than a month away, it's time we brush up on our knowledge of the document that our country is founded on. After all, most Americans don't know much about it. In fact, a 2019 study found that only 15% of respondents knew which year the Constitution was written and only 25% of Americans knew how many amendments the Constitution has. After listening to this episode, you won't be one of those people!1. Intro (0:19)2. The Articles of Confederation (1:45)3. The Constitutional Convention, Compromises, and Ratification (4:42)4. The Seven Principles of the Constitution (13:42)5. Amendments 11-15 (18:04)6. Fun Facts About the Constitution (22:54)If you enjoyed this episode, please leave me a review and share it with those you know that also appreciate unbiased news!Subscribe to Jordan's weekly free newsletter featuring hot topics in the news, trending lawsuits, and more.Follow Jordan on Instagram and TikTok.All sources for this episode can be found here.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Please gamble responsibly. Gambling problem? For free assistance, call the Connex Ontario Helpline at 1-866-531-2600. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. You are listening to the Jordan is my lawyer podcast, your favorite source of unbiased

news and legal analysis. Enjoy the show. Welcome back to the Jordan is my lawyer podcast. I hope you're having a great Tuesday. I have a special episode for you today. So you may remember I did that episode all about the Supreme Court, which you guys loved. And so I decided let's do another one. It's going to be very informative, but this time it's all about the Constitution. So specifically, I'm going to go through the history of the Constitution, including the Constitutional Convention and the road to ratification. I'm also going to talk about the seven basic principles that lie within the Constitution. We'll talk about the amendment process and then kind of a general explanation of the first 15 amendments. And then we'll finish with some interesting facts

about the Constitution that you may not know. So it's going to be a great episode. You are bound to learn at least one thing that you didn't already know, but I'm willing to guarantee you'll learn at least three things that you didn't know, possibly even more. And that's going to be the episode. So before we get into it, let me just remind you to please leave me a review on whatever platform you listen. It really helps support my show. And as always, yes, I am a lawyer. No, I am not your lawyer. Without further ado, let's get into the Constitution. Before we talk about the Constitution, there are two very important documents that we must at least acknowledge. The first is the Declaration of Independence, that is the founding document of our country.

It was adopted on July 4th, 1776, hence the holiday, the 4th of July, and it declared our independence from Great Britain. Now, that's all I'm going to say about the Declaration of Independence. I want to move into the Articles of Confederation because that's the next important document, and that is what created the foundation for the Constitution. So the Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union is the official name of the document, but it's more popularly known as the Articles of Confederation. It governed the country for the first 10 years. It was created in 1777 following the Revolutionary War, and it called for a government with a one-house body of delegates with each state having a single vote. The states acting together

could make decisions on certain issues that affected all states. The government was limited in what it could do at the time. The Articles of Confederation was intentionally drafted to create this weak government because we had just declared our independence from Great Britain. And that government that we experienced in Great Britain was exactly what we were trying to avoid here. So the government was very limited in what they could do. They could do things like declare war, conduct foreign affairs, make treaties, and coin money. But because the government was meant to have such limited powers, there were kind of inconsistencies and holes within this document. So as an example, the federal government could not collect taxes. So if they needed money to carry out some of their duties, like let's say

go to war, they had to ask the states. In order to amend the articles, what was required was a unanimous vote by the states. Now, what this means is that no amendments were ever passed. Getting 13 states to agree to amend is close to impossible, if not impossible. Now, keep in mind that, as I said, we had just gained our independence from Great Britain. So at the time, the intention was to keep the government weak. They didn't want those overbearing government capabilities that they had just escaped. However, this wasn't exactly sustainable. At this time, the United States was experiencing uprisings, boundary disputes, and really just a lack of this common vision. Some states were levying duties on

goods from neighboring states. Other states were minting their own currency. It was kind of, for lack of a better word, a mess. And there needed to be more structure without too much structure. And that's when the call for the Constitutional Convention was made. The first convention was supposed to happen in Annapolis, Maryland in 1786, but only five of the 13 states showed up. That's when Alexander Hamilton steps in and he calls upon Congress to summon all 13 states to appear at the convention the following year in Philadelphia. So the year is now 1787. Delegates meet in Philadelphia to what was supposed to be revise the Articles of Confederation. That was the intent going into

this convention. However, that revision, so to speak, really turned into a new document entirely, and that is what we know as the Constitution. All 13 states show up to the Constitutional Convention except Rhode Island. The men that were in charge of drafting the Constitution, there were 55 in total. They were a group of wealthy, prominent men for the time. Half of them even had college degrees, which was extremely rare. 40% of them had served in the army during the war. So they were this group of men that was established, successful, wealthy, intelligent for the most part for the time. And that's who drafted the Constitution. The idea to kind of move away from revisions of the Articles of Confederation and create an entirely new document really stemmed

from the fact that these delegates from the states agreed on two general goals. One, they wanted to create a Republican form of government. And it's not Republican as you think of today, as far as Republican and Democrat. We'll get into what the Republic is, but don't think of it like that. So one, they had a goal that they wanted to create this Republican form of government, We'll get into what the republic is, but don't think of it like that. So when they had a goal that they wanted to create this republican form of government and they wanted a new constitutional form of government and they were all pretty much in agreement that the government should have three branches and it should be republican with representatives rather than a democracy. However, they didn't agree on everything

because no one ever does, right? The biggest disagreements were between small and large states, northern and southern states, and slave states and free states. This is where the bulk of the disagreements took place. So as an example, James Madison proposed the Virginia Plan. The Virginia Plan called for a two-house legislature with representation in both houses proportional to a state's population. However, William Patterson from New Jersey created the New Jersey Plan. New Jersey is obviously a smaller state, and what his plan called for was a single legislative house with equal representation for each state. He didn't plan called for was a single legislative house with equal representation for each state. He didn't want his state to have less representation than Virginia or other bigger

states. Another thing that's just kind of an example of how the disagreements went, Alexander Hamilton wanted the president and Senate to serve life terms. But most didn't agree with this, because as I've said, you know, these at the time, they were trying to get away from this tyranny or the possibility of tyranny that they had experienced in Great Britain. So most of the men were like, no, the last thing we want is, you know, someone serving an entire life term and us having no way to get someone else to take that person's place if they happen to be a tyrant of sorts. So that didn't go over well. But anyway, you have this Virginia plan and New Jersey plan. And what was landed on was called the Great Compromise. Pretty fitting name, right? So

this compromise, the Great Compromise, it was also known as the Connecticut Compromise because it was brokered by Roger Sherman of Connecticut. And it gave us this two-chamber system that we know today. So it took the two-house legislature from the Virginia plan, but then kind of a mix of both the Virginia plan and New Jersey plan as two representations. So basically what it said was we would have this two-chamber system. The House of Representatives would have representation election in every two year cycle. And the Great Compromise also established the three branches of government, as well as the concept of checks and balances. So the Constitution starts evolving, right? And it comes to have this strong, independent executive branch. The president would have a four year term with the opportunity to be reelected

if his performance had sufficient support. He would be the commander-in-chief of the military, and he had the power to appoint individuals in domestic offices like the Supreme Court of the United States. But now that you have this two-chamber legislature, the question becomes who counts in terms of representation? So basically at the time, slave-owning states wanted slaves to be included, even though they couldn't vote at the time, because it meant if slaves were included, then their population was bigger, right? And states with few slaves didn't want slaves to be included, because they didn't want slaves to add to other states' populations. This issue was solved with the three-fifths compromise. And what that compromise said is that the calculation for representation would be the total number of white people plus three-fifths the population of other persons. And other persons is the term used in the compromise, which of course meant

slaves, but the term slave was never used. So we have the legislature figured out, we have, you know, who counts as far as representation, and the constitution is really evolving at this point. The constitution comes to have a strong independent executive branch, so the president will have a four-year term with the opportunity to be re-elected if his performance had sufficient support for a re-election. He would be the commander-in-chief of the military, and the president would have the power to appoint individuals in domestic offices, like the Supreme Court. When it came to electing the president, what the Constitutional Convention did was they adopted the idea of the Electoral College.

So what they said was citizens of each state will vote for electors who in turn will elect the president. And obviously that is the Electoral College we know today. So the Constitution in total was argued for a total of 17 weeks. It was first ratified by Delaware in late 1787, and Delaware was followed by Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Georgia, and Connecticut. However, not all states were keen on ratification. And what Article 7 said is that the Constitution would not be binding until it was ratified by two-thirds of the state. In other words, nine of the 13 states. Some states were hesitant to ratify the Constitution because the Constitution didn't set forth rights such as

freedom of speech. So the Constitution had this principle of individual rights, but didn't specify what those rights were. And that's when the Massachusetts Compromise was reached. In February 1788, the Massachusetts Compromise stipulated that amendments to that effect, so freedom of speech, religion, press, things like that, which later became known as the Bill of Rights, would immediately be proposed upon ratification. Following the Massachusetts Compromise, more states felt a bit more comfortable ratifying the Constitution. So that's when Massachusetts, Maryland, South Carolina, and finally New Hampshire, the ninth state, voted to ratify the Constitution. New Hampshire's vote to ratify came on June 21st,

1788, but despite ratification, it wasn't until 1790 that the last of the 13 states voted to ratify it, and of course that was Rhode Island, who did not show up to the Constitutional Convention. Following the ratification, James Madison introduced 17 amendments to the Constitutional Convention. Following the ratification, James Madison introduced 17 amendments to the Constitution, and this was due to the Massachusetts Compromise. Only 12 of these 17 amendments were adopted by Congress, and then those that were adopted were sent to the states for ratification. 10 of those 12 amendments were ratified by the states on December 15th, 1791, which became known as the Bill of Rights. And I do want to do another episode on the Bill of Rights because it's equally as important, but that's a whole episode in and of itself, so I want that to be its own individual episode. But the Bill of Rights is where we get most of our freedoms. The Constitution rests on seven basic principles. Popular sovereignty,

federalism, republicanism, limited government, individual rights, separation of powers, and checks and balances. And I want to run through each of these seven basic principles briefly and kind of talk about what they mean. Popular sovereignty translates literally to power of the people. Sovereign meaning power, popular meaning people, power of the people. Or it can be said as power of the government coming from the people, right? Same thing. The first line of the Constitution is we the people of the United States. So this idea that the power was to come from the people was one of the seven basic principles set forth in the Constitution. The next principle is republicanism. And remember,

I mentioned before that this isn't republican as we think of today. When the Constitution was drafted and they said they wanted a republican government, what that meant was a republic. And what a republic is, is a system of government where people elect representatives to represent their interests. So it's also known as a representative democracy, but this is what the idea or principle of republicanism is. The next basic principle is limited government. And this is exactly what it sounds like. The power of government officials is limited. This is enforced through elections and another principle called the separation of powers. The separation of powers refers to the power of the government being separated into three branches.

So we obviously know we have the legislative, executive, and judicial branches of government. The legislative branch is in charge of making the laws, the executive branch is in charge of enforcing the laws, and the judicial branch is in charge of interpreting the laws. Now each of these three branches has the ability to keep the other branches in check, and this is what we know as checks and balances. So if Congress makes a new law, the president can then either pass the law or veto the law. If the president vetoes the law, Congress can override that veto with a two-thirds vote. The Supreme Court has the power to declare a law unconstitutional if it violates the Constitution. Similarly, in executive order, the Supreme court can also check so all of these

branches of government can oversee one another to make sure there's not one branch overpowering the rest then we have the principle of federalism this is the idea that power is shared between the federal government and state governments as we know the founders of the nation were trying to avoid this government that Great Britain had. So they created federalism wherein the power would be shared. So some powers were given to the federal government, others were given to the states. These powers that are reserved for either the federal government or for the states are called enumerated powers. So as examples, only the federal government has the power to declare war, regulate trade between the states,

print money, maintain armed forces, establish federal courts, the list goes on, but that gives you an idea. States, on the other hand, carry the power to establish schools. They can make election rules. They can create local governments and many more things. But as you see, there are these powers that are divided between the two. Now, there's also shared powers called concurrent powers, and these include the power to establish courts, lay and collect taxes, borrow money, pass laws, things like that. So you have enumerated powers powers which are the powers that are divided between the federal government and the state governments and then you have concurrent

powers which are shared between the two moving on to the last of the seven basic principles is individual rights the constitution sets forth the idea that our government has an obligation to protect our individual rights now Now, many of these rights are set forth in the Bill of Rights, but to keep it simple, some of these rights include things like freedom of speech, right to bear arms, freedom of religion, trial by jury, the right to assemble, the right to a speedy trial, and the right against unreasonable searches and seizures from the government. In 1789 is when the Constitution became operational. That's when it became the governing document of our country.

Since then, it's been amended 27 times with the most recent amendment in 1992. That amendment in 1992, by the way, just as a fun fact, required any change to the rate of compensation or the pay rate for any members of Congress to take effect only after the subsequent election in the House. So there wasn't going to be any change to the pay of members of Congress while those Congress members were currently serving their term. An amendment can be passed one of two ways. Although all 27 amendments have been passed through the same process, the first process is two-thirds of both chambers of Congress vote to propose an amendment. That proposed amendment then gets sent to the states for ratification. Through either the state legislatures or through a special convention in each state,

three-fourths of the states must vote to ratify that proposed amendment, and only then can an amendment be ratified and be an amendment to the Constitution. The second process is the process that has never been used, and it's where two-thirds of state legislatures ask Congress to call a convention for the purpose of proposing an amendment. States then send their delegates to this convention, and that's where the amendment or maybe multiple amendments are proposed. Three-fourths of the states at that convention then must ratify the proposed amendment, and at that point it would become an amendment to the Constitution. As we know and as we briefly discussed, the first 10 amendments is what's

known as the Bill of Rights. So after those first 10 amendments, which came at the same time, the next amendment, being the 11th Amendment, was ratified in 1795. And what this amendment does is it prohibits federal courts from hearing lawsuits in which a state is being sued by someone from another state or country. This amendment came about after a Supreme Court case in 1793, where the Supreme Court ruled that two men from South Carolina could sue and collect debts from the state of Georgia. So this new sort of protection for the states that came in 1795 is what's called sovereign immunity.

The 12th Amendment, which was ratified in 1804, so nine years after the 11th Amendment, did a few things. For one, it modified the way that the Electoral College chooses the president and vice president. It specified how the president and vice president are to be selected if neither candidate gets the votes of a majority of electors. And it extended the eligibility requirements for the president to the vice president. So with the 12th Amendment, the vice president was subject to the same eligibility requirements as the president. The 13th Amendment was ratified in 1865, and it abolished slavery. And this was the first of three what we know as the Reconstruction Era Amendments. So the 14th Amendment was ratified in 1868. The second

of the Reconstruction Era Amendments did multiple things. For one, it granted citizenship to former slaves. It also changed the rule in Article 1 of the Constitution that said slaves would only be counted as three-fifths of a person. The 14th Amendment also stated that a state cannot violate a citizen's privileges or immunities and cannot deprive the citizens of life, liberty, or property without due process of law. Of course, we know this as the due process clause. The 14th Amendment also guaranteed all persons equal protection of the laws. And of course, we know that as the equal protection clause. The 15th Amendment was the third of the three Reconstruction era amendments. It was ratified in 1870, two years after the 14th Amendment, and it gave voting

rights to all Americans. Now, it has to be noted that this amendment actually didn't do much. Following its passage, states implemented things like poll taxes and literacy tests, and what this did was it kept blacks from voting because they either couldn't pass the literacy test or they couldn't afford the poll taxes. And it wasn't until the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 that all Americans truly had full voting rights. Now let's finish off with some interesting facts, because as I was doing my research, there were some things that I was quite surprised by that I think the majority of people don't know. So let's go through these. Only one

amendment to the Constitution has ever been repealed, and that is the 18th Amendment, which prohibited the manufacturing, transporting, and sale of alcohol. And this is kind of two facts in one, because the second fact is that the 18th Amendment was repealed by the ratification of the 21st Amendment. So the 18th Amendment was ratified in 1919. As I said, it prohibited the making, transporting, and selling of alcohol. But the 21st Amendment, which was ratified in 1933, repealed the 18th Amendment and left the liquor control laws to be decided by the states. The second fact pertains to where you can find the Constitution and how it's preserved. So the Constitution can be found on the upper level of the National Archives Museum

in Washington, D.C., along with the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights. However, the pages, so the Constitution is four pages, which is another fact that I'm going to talk about, but the pages are displayed behind this protective glass framed with titanium. In order to preserve the parchment paper's quality, the cases actually contain argon gas and are kept at 67 degrees Fahrenheit with a relative humidity of 40%. The third fact is that the Constitution doesn't require that the Speaker of the House be a member of the House. Now, with that said, a non-member has never been chosen as a Speaker, but membership is not required by the Constitution. Number four,

two of the country's founding fathers and future presidents did not attend the Constitutional Convention. I'll give you three seconds to figure out who it is. Did you get it? The answer is John Adams, who was ambassador to Great Britain at the time, and Thomas Jefferson, who was ambassador to France. Fact number five, Pennsylvania is misspelled in the Constitution. So the word Pennsylvania is written above the signers' names, and it's

spelled with only one N. Fact number six is that the Constitution was actually penned by a man named Jacob Chalice. So he did the actual writing of the Constitution. He was a Pennsylvania General Assembly clerk, and he was paid $30 to write the Constitution, which is equivalent to about just under $1,000 today. The Constitution contains 4,543 words, including the signatures, not including the amendments, and is written on only four pages. Each page is about 29 by 24 inches. And the final fact I have for you is that President George Washington's first presidential proclamation recognized a Thanksgiving holiday to be celebrated on November 26th, 178989 for the purpose of expressing gratitude for the

opportunity to establish the Constitution. So I have this website linked for you in the sources called constitutionfacts.com, and you can tell it's kind of a pretty outdated site, but it has some fun quizzes where you can test your constitution IQ. You can actually see which founding father you are and you can see which founding father you would vote for. So feel free to check that out if you're so inclined. But that concludes this episode. Let me know if you enjoyed it. Let me know how much you learned in this episode. Don't forget to leave me a review and I will talk to you on Friday. Have a great week.