UNBIASED - Unbiased University: Everything You Need to Know About the United States Constitution

Episode Date: February 23, 2026

UNBIASED University is officially in session! While Jordan is on maternity leave, she’s breaking down the most critical aspects of the United States government — the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, the three branches of the federal government, presidential elections, the evolution of political parties, and more. In this episode of UNBIASED Politics, we take a deep dive into the foundation of the United States: the Constitution. What exactly does the Constitution do, why was it written, and how has its meaning evolved over time? We break down the core principles that shape the American system of government, including federalism, separation of powers, checks and balances, and individual rights, while also exploring the historical debates that shaped the document. Whether you’re brushing up on the basics or looking for a clearer understanding of how constitutional law affects everyday life, this episode provides a clear, nonpartisan guide to the document that governs it all. SUBSCRIBE TO JORDAN'S ⁠FREE NEWSLETTER⁠. ⁠Watch⁠ this episode on YouTube. Follow Jordan on ⁠Instagram⁠ and ⁠TikTok⁠. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome back to Unbiased, your favorite source of unbiased news and legal analysis. Welcome back to Unbiased Politics and welcome to the official start of the seven-week unbiased education series. I am very, very excited about this series for a couple of reasons. Number one, we're switching things up a little bit. Obviously, I typically cover current events here in the United States, but because I have officially started maternity leave and won't have my eyes on the news as much as I usually do. I thought it would be really beneficial to put out these educational episodes. And in the past, you guys have loved these more educational episodes. So really excited about that. But also the second reason I'm excited to finally bring this

series to life is because I think it is so, so, so important for all of us to be really deeply educated on, you know, the concepts that are in the background of all of these current events that we're always talking about, the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, the three branches of government, how laws are made, how the election process works, the evolution of political parties in the United States. All of these concepts are critical to understand and to keep in the back of our minds so that the next time we talk about an executive order or free speech or a Supreme Court opinion, you have a really deep understanding of how all of these things work. So I want you to think of these next seven weeks as a condensed law school education. Imagine every time you're tuning into one of

these episodes, you are sitting down in a law school class and I am your professor. And each class will cover a different topic and talk about various cases and laws that have shaped those topics. So for those of you who have always dreamed of going to law school or considered going to law school, this series should be pretty cool for you because it's basically what it is. And by the end it, you will have obtained your imaginary degree from unbiased university, which means that you will be fully prepared for the show when I come back from maternity leave and start reporting on current events again. And you'll be more knowledgeable than the vast majority of the American population. So there's that too. That's always a good thing. By the way, if you are still interested in getting

an unbiased rundown of current events, I am still cranking out articles on sub-sac when I can. If you're interested in joining, it is free. You just have to click the link in the show notes for this episode and enter your email address. So now, without further ado, let's talk about the Constitution. Throughout this episode, I'll walk through the history of the Constitution, including the constitutional convention and the road to ratification, the seven basic principles that lie within the Constitution, the amendment process, a brief explanation of each amendment, and then we will finish. with some interesting facts about the Constitution and critical thinking. Before we talk about the Constitution itself, though, there are two very important documents that we have to at least acknowledge. And the first is the Declaration of Independence. So the Declaration of Independence is the founding document of our country. It was officially adopted by Congress on July 4th, 1776, which is why we celebrate the 4th of July on that day. It is what officially declared our

independence from Great Britain. And something that's interesting and something a lot of people don't know is that Congress actually voted for our independence on July 2nd, 1776. But it wasn't until July 4th that Congress officially adopted the declaration. So that's why some people think that Independence Day should really be celebrated on the 2nd of July and not the 4th. In fact, John Adams was one of those people. He wrote a letter to his wife on July 3rd, 1776, telling her that July 2nd would go down as one of the most memorable and celebrated dates in American history because in his eyes, it was the vote for

independence, not the actual adoption of the document that was the, you know, memorable moment. But all this to say, that is the Declaration of Independence. It is very, very, very important because it officially declared our independence from Great Britain. Until that document was adopted, we were under British rule here in the 13 colonies. The second document worth mentioning are the Articles of Confederation. The Articles of Confederation were what created the foundation for the United States Constitution. So the full name is actually Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union, but it is more popularly known as the Articles of Confederation. And the articles were created in 1777 following the Revolutionary War, just one year after we declared

our independence. And that's actually what governed our country for the first 10 years of its existence. So this is before the Constitution. And some of the more notable aspects of the articles were that they called for a government with one house body of delegates, with each state having a single vote. And that's what we call a unicameral legislature. The states acting together could make decisions on certain issues that affected all states, but the federal government was was very limited in what it could do at the time. So the articles of Confederation were intentionally drafted to create this weak federal government because we had just declared our independence from Great Britain where we were subject to the king's power. The type of government

that we experienced in Great Britain was exactly what we were trying to avoid when we declared our independence. So the federal government was intentionally very limited in power. Now, that's not to say the federal government didn't have any power. It could still do things in the beginning like, you know, declare war, conduct foreign affairs, make treaties, coin money. But because the government was meant to have such limited powers, there were these kind of inconsistencies and holes within the articles of confederation. So as an example, the federal government could not collect taxes. So if it needed money to carry out some of their duties, like let's say go to war, it had to ask the states for money. And the states didn't have to give it money. They could,

but they didn't have to. On top of that, if Congress wanted to fix that problem by amending the articles, it needed a unanimous vote from all 13 states, which meant that no amendments were ever passed because it was virtually impossible. And this is why the federal government was pretty weak and underfunded in the early days. Now, keep in mind, we're a newborn country. Okay, we're just getting our bearings. Things are messy. So at this time, the United States is experiencing uprisings, boundary disputes,

really just a lack of common vision. Some states were levying duties on goods from neighboring states. Other states were minting their own currency. It was just, it was a mess. And there needed to be more structure without too much. structure. We needed to have a functioning, you know, federal government without giving the federal government too much power. And that is 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. So that's when Alexander Hamilton steps in. And he calls upon Congress to summon all 13 states to appear at a convention the following year in Philadelphia. So the year is now 1787. It's been 10 years since the Declaration of Independence was signed. And the delegates meet in Philadelphia for what was supposed to be a revision of the Articles of Confederation. That was the intent going into the convention. However, the convention ended up resulting in a new document entirely. And that new document is what we now know as the United States Constitution. So it's 1787 in Philadelphia. All states show up to the Constitutional Convention except Rhode Island. There were 55 men in attendance and they were all in charge of

drafting the Constitution. They were a group of wealthy and prominent men for the time. Half of them even had college degrees, which was rare. Roughly 40 percent of them had served in the Army during the war. So it was a group of established successful guys. Now, the idea to kind of move away from revising the articles of Confederation and create this entirely new document really stemmed from the fact that these delegates from the states agreed on two general goals. The first thing they agreed on is they wanted to create a Republican form of government. And it's not Republican, as you think of today, when you think of, you know, Republican and Democrat. political parties. We'll get into what a republic is, but don't think of it like political parties. So their first goal was to create this Republican form of government, and they wanted a new

constitutional form of government. They were all pretty much an agreement that the government should have three branches, and it should be a republic with representatives rather than a democracy. But they didn't agree on everything because no one ever does, right? The biggest disagreements were between the small and large states, the northern and southern states, and the slave states, and the free states. So as an example, James Madison proposed the Virginia plan. The Virginia plan called for a two-house legislature, otherwise known as a bicameral legislature, with representation in both houses proportional to a state's population. So that would be equivalent to what we see in the House of Representatives today, right? You wanted that in both houses.

William Patterson from New Jersey instead proposed the New Jersey plan. New Jersey is obviously a smaller state than Virginia. So the New Jersey plan called for a single legislative house with equal representation for each state, similar to what we see in the Senate today. Because he didn't want his state to have less representation than Virginia or any of the other bigger states. And another thing, that's just kind of an example of how these disagreements went, Alexander Hamilton wanted the president and Senate to serve life terms. But most of the delegates did not agree with this because, again, they were trying to get away from this tyranny or possibility of tyranny that they had experienced in Great Britain.

So most of the men were like, no, no, no, no, no. The last thing we want is someone serving an entire life term and us having no way of getting someone else to take that person's place if they happen to be a tyrant. So Hamilton's proposal did not go over well. But anyway, let's get back to the Virginia and New Jersey plans because those actually played a huge role in shaping the country as we know it today. Because of the disagreement between Madison and Patterson, the delegates landed on what is called the Great Compromise. The Great Compromise is also known as the Connecticut compromise because it was brokered by Roger Sherman of Connecticut, but it gave us this two-chamber system that we know today. So it took

the two-house legislature concept from the Virginia plan, but then kind of a mix of both the Virginia plan and the New Jersey plan as far as representation goes. It said, we would have this two-chamber system inclusive of the House of Representatives and the Senate. The House of Representatives would have representation proportional to each state's population, and the Senate would have two members from each state regardless of the state's population. House members were to serve two-year terms, senators serve six-year terms, with one-third of them being up for election in every two-year cycle. And that's exactly the system that we have in place today. But with the creation of the two-chamber legislature, the next question the delegates had to answer was, who counts?

in terms of representation, right? Because at the time, slave-owning states wanted slaves to be included in their population, even though slaves didn't even have the right to vote at the time, because if slaves were included, this meant their state population was bigger and they'd have more representation in the House of Representatives. But the states with less states didn't want slaves to be included because they didn't want slaves to add to the other state populations that had more slaves. So this disagreement resolved with the three-fifths compromise. And what that compromise said is that the calculation for representation in the house would be the total number of white people plus three-fifths. So basically every white person in a state plus three out of every five

slaves would be counted for purposes of representation in the house. And with that three-fifths compromise, we pretty much have the legislature figured out. Not entirely, but the delegates were definitely getting somewhere. So the great compromise, as we know, established the legislature as we know it today, but it also established the three branches of government and the concept of checks and balances. So the Constitution really starts taking shape and it comes to have this strong, independent executive branch. Under the Constitution, the president would serve a four-year term with the opportunity to be re-elected and serve as the commander-in-chief of the military. The president was also given the power to appoint people to domestic offices, like the Supreme

Court. And when it came time to electing the president, the delegates adopted the idea of the electoral college, which meant that the citizens of each state would vote for electors, who in turn would elect the president. And obviously, that's the same electoral college we know today. So as you can see, you know, the framers are making significant progress at this convention. But let's take our first break here. When we come back, we'll talk about the ratification of the Constitution and what that looked like and why it was so important. Welcome back. Before the break, we talked about the evolution of the Constitution and how the framers came up with many of the concepts and mechanisms that shape our federal government today. In total, the framers argued over the

Constitution for about four months, but it still wasn't even close to being adopted. So once the Constitution was actually drafted, it needed to be ratified by the states. And Article 7, which was written into the Constitution itself, laid out the ratification process. It said that the Constitution wouldn't take effect until it was ratified by nine of the 13 states. So it needed at least nine votes to take effect. But even then, only the states that ratified would be bound by it. So if it was ratified by eight states, no states were bound by it. It wouldn't meet that nine state threshold. But if it were ratified by nine states, those nine states were bound. If it were ratified by 11 states, those 11 states were bound. It wouldn't be until the 13th state ratified it that all 13

states were bound by this Constitution. In the beginning, the Constitution got almost immediate ratification from Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Georgia, and Connecticut. But it still needed four more states. And some of the states were hesitant to ratify because the Constitution didn't set forth individual rights and freedoms that these states felt were important, things like freedom of speech, freedom of religion, et cetera. The Constitution, you know, had a had this principle of individual rights, but it didn't specify what those rights were. And that's when the Massachusetts compromise was reached. So in February 1788, the Massachusetts compromise stipulated amendments to that effect. So freedom of speech, religion, press, things like that would

immediately be proposed as amendments upon ratification. And following the Massachusetts compromise, Massachusetts ratified the constitution, Maryland ratified. a few months later in April, South Carolina followed in May. New Hampshire then became the ninth state to ratify in June 1788, which meant that the Constitution officially took effect and the new federal government could begin functioning, though it did take another nine months for that to happen, but it was now officially, you know, adopted. Virginia ratified four days after New Hampshire, New York ratified a few weeks after that. So by the end of July 1788, we have 11 states that are bound by the Constitution.

The two holdouts were North Carolina and Rhode Island. It would take another 15 months for North Carolina to ratify and almost two years for Rhode Island to ratify. And you might be sitting here wondering, how in the world was the United States supposed to function properly if only some of the states were bound by this Constitution? And the answer is that the new federal government would only have authority over the state. that joined. So non-ratifying states were not represented in Congress. They didn't participate in presidential elections. They weren't subject to federal law. They were essentially outside the system. And if you're thinking to yourself, well, that sounds like a mess. It was a mess. But despite the mess, there were a few reasons the framers did it this way. So for one, under the Articles of Confederation,

which was our original governing document, Congress couldn't tax, couldn't regulate commerce, had no way to actually enforce its own decisions. So the framers figured it's better to have things be a little messy in the short term and just at least get this new system going. You know, that's better than living by the Articles of Confederation Forever, which are really a mess. Now, they also only require nine states to sign on because they knew it would be close to impossible to get all 13 states to sign on at once. So the theory was, let's require partial adoption and work our way towards.

full adoption down the road rather than requiring unanimity now and essentially guaranteeing failure. Because the other thing is that they knew once they had the signatures of nine states, the last four states would be under pressure to ratify and they would eventually do it. The states that didn't ratify were at a huge economic and political disadvantage because they had no say in trade policy. They had no say in who was leading our country. They had no representation in Congress. And that's why the last two holdouts, North Carolina and Rhode Island, eventually ratified in 1789 and 1790 because they knew they would be worse off if they didn't. So finally, May 29th, 1790, Rhode Island became the last state to ratify the Constitution.

And if you remember, it was Rhode Island who chose not to show up to the Constitutional convention. So it's not entirely surprising that they were the last state to get on board. But let's go back to 1788 when the Constitution officially took effect. At this point, Congress started drafting the Bill of Rights pretty immediately. Because remember, per the Massachusetts compromise, once the Constitution was ratified, the framers were under this obligation to solidify those individual rights that they had promised to the states. So in June 1789, James Madison proposes amendments in the House. In September, Congress sends 12 of those proposed amendments to the states for ratification,

and two years later in December 1791, 10 of those amendments are ratified and become the Bill of Rights. And the Bill of Rights is where we get most of our freedoms. So let's do a quick refresher on those. The next three episodes in this Unbiased University series will go into a ton of detail on all of the first 10 amendments, but we're just going to do a quick refresher on what those first 10 amendments consist of. So the First Amendment protects freedoms of religion, speech, press, assembly, and petition. Basically, the government can't tell you what to believe, say, publish, or protest. The second amendment protects the right to keep and bear arms.

The third amendment prohibits the government from forcing people to house soldiers in their homes during peacetime. This isn't so relevant today, obviously, but this was a direct response to what was happening prior to the revolution. And then the Fourth Amendment protects against unreasonable searches and seizures. The Fifth Amendment provides multiple protections, things like the right to remain silent, protection against double jeopardy, protection against self-incrimination, which is where we get that phrase, plead the fifth. And then the requirement of due process before the government can take life, liberty, or property. The sixth amendment guarantees the rights of the accused in criminal cases, so things like speedy and public trial, an impartial jury, the right to an attorney, the right to confront witnesses. The Seventh Amendment preserves the right to a jury trial in certain civil cases,

which are obviously different than criminal cases. The Eighth Amendment prohibits excessive bail, excessive fines, and cruel and unusual punishment. The Ninth Amendment says that people have rights beyond those explicitly listed in the Constitution. And then finally, the 10th Amendment reserves powers not given to the federal government, to the states, or to the people. And that's a big part of federalism right there, which we'll talk about more in a little bit. So the Bill of Rights was and is a critically important document. So much so that, like I said, over the next three episodes, we will be breaking down. those amendments even further. But outside of the Bill of Rights, there are 17 other amendments that

exist, because in total, the Constitution has been amended 27 times, most recently in 1992. So in the last 235 years, there have only been 17 amendments to the Constitution. And there's a reason there's only been 17. Amending the Constitution is incredibly difficult. And the framers designed it this way on on purpose. But an amendment can be passed one of two ways, although all 27 amendments so far have used the same process. The first method, which has been used every single time, starts in Congress. So two-thirds of both the House and the Senate, vote to propose an amendment. That proposed amendment is then sent to the states for ratification, either through state legislatures or through state ratifying conventions depending on which method Congress chooses. But three-fourths of the states have to ratify the

amendment before it comes part, before it becomes part of the Constitution. The second method has never been used. So under the second method, two-thirds of state legislatures will ask Congress to call a convention for the purpose of proposing amendments. Delegates from the states would then meet at this convention and propose an amendment or amendments. And the proposed. proposed amendments would then have to be sent back to the states and three-fourths of the states would have to ratify them, again, either through their legislatures or through state conventions before they could become amendments to the Constitution. So no matter which way an amendment is proposed, it always takes three-fourths of the states to ratify it. Now, knowing that and knowing every time

we've adopted an amendment, it has started in Congress and subsequently been ratified by the states, let's talk about what each of those amendments are. As we know, the first 10 amendments make up the Bill of Rights. We already went over those. So we'll pick up with the 11th amendment. The 11th Amendment was ratified in 1795 and it limits the ability of individuals to sue states in federal court. And this was a response to an early Supreme Court case where the Supreme Court allowed, it says, allowed citizens of South Carolina to sue the state of Georgia. for unpaid debts. So the 11th Amendment effectively reinforced what we call state sovereign immunity, which essentially means that citizens generally cannot sue states in federal court unless an exception applies. And one major exception is suing a state official in their official capacity to stop a violation of federal law. And we see this all the time. So instead of suing the state itself, a citizen might sue the state's attorney general or another state official. And that's kind of a workaround or an exception, if you will, to the 11th Amendment. The 12th Amendment, which was ratified in 1804,

reworked the electoral college process. So it clarified how presidents and vice presidents are elected. What happens if no candidate receives a majority of the electoral votes? It made clear that the vice president has to meet the same constitutional eligibility requirements of the president. those being 35 years of age at the time of enhavuration, a natural-born citizen of the United States, and having lived in the United States for at least 14 years. The 13th Amendment abolished slavery and marked the beginning of what are known as the Reconstruction-era amendments. The Reconstruction-era amendments refer to the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments, which were all adopted in the years immediately after the Civil War.

They were designed to reshape the Constitution in response to the abolition of slavery and the reintegration of southern states into the unions. So the 13th Amendment abolished slavery, the 14th Amendment granted citizenship to formerly enslaved people. It also eliminated that three-fifths compromise we talked about earlier. It prohibited states from depriving any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law. and a guaranteed equal protection of the laws. And then finally, the 15th Amendment, the last Reconstruction era amendment, prohibited states from denying the right to vote based on race. Now, it's worth noting that the 15th Amendment did establish the very important

constitutional principle of people being able to vote regardless of race. But even still, a lot of the states were still using other tools like poll taxes, and literacy tests to suppress black voters despite the 15th Amendment. It wasn't until the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 that those barriers were really removed and black voters actually had an unhindered right to vote. So those were the Reconstruction era amendments. Then the 16th Amendment, which was ratified in 1913, allowed Congress to impose a federal income tax. And this was a big one because it established the federal tax system we know today, but also because it allowed the federal government to create a source of revenue outside of tariffs because pre-1913,

the federal government's revenue relied on tariffs. That was their income source. So now with this amendment, they could impose federal income tax on citizens. The 17th Amendment established the direct election of U.S. senators, because prior to this, senators were actually chosen by state legislatures and not directly by the people. The 18th Amendment prohibited the manufacture and sale of alcohol, but this was later repealed by the 21st Amendment. The 19th Amendment gave women the right to vote by prohibiting the denial of the right to vote based on sex. That was in 1920. And the 20th amendment changed the timing of presidential and congressional terms. So before the 20th Amendment, there was a bigger gap between when an election happened and when the newly elected officials actually took office, which meant that the outgoing officials who had just lost re-election could still make major decisions for the country for months.

So the 20th Amendment shortened that transition period and moved the start of presidential terms to January 20th and congressional terms to January 3rd. The 21st Amendment, as we just said a second ago, repealed the prohibition on alcohol. And then it wasn't for another 20-ish years that the next amendment was ratified, which was the 22nd amendment, that limited presidents to two terms. And this was in the wake of FDR who served four consecutive terms. The 23rd Amendment was ratified in 1961 and gave presidential electors to Washington, DC because DC as a territory did not have presidential electors up until this point. The 24th Amendment prohibited poll taxes in federal elections. The 25th Amendment deals with presidential succession and disability. So what happens if a president dies or resigns or can't

carry out the duties of office? The 25th Amendment answers that. The 26th Amendment lowered the voting age to 18. And then finally, the 27th amendment, which was ratified in 1992, says that any change to congressional pay cannot take effect until after the next election. So in other words, members of Congress can't give themselves a raise or a pay cut that applies to the term they're currently serving. So those are the 27 amendments to the Constitution. Let's take our second and final break here. When we come back, we'll cover the seven basic principles of the Constitution, and then we'll do some fun facts, which is my favorite part, and we will finish with a little critical thinking. Welcome back. We've covered almost everything.

The only big thing left to talk about is the seven basic principles of the Constitution, which are popular sovereignty, federalism, republicanism, limited government, individual rights, separation of powers, and checks and balances. And by the way, just to be clear, these principles are not explicitly written out in the Constitution. They're more so, they're more so used as a teaching framework. So they exist in the sense that they illustrate how the Constitution is structured, but the framework's ever formally like voted on a list of seven or anything like that. So let's start with the first principle, which is popular sovereignty. Popular sovereignty translates literally to power of the people, sovereign meaning ultimate authority, popular meaning people.

And you can really see this idea right away in the very first words of the Constitution, which are we the people of the United States. So that's popular sovereignty. The second basic principle is federalism. Federalism is this idea that power is shared between the federal government and state governments. Again, a very intentional choice by the framers because under federalism, you know, some powers are given to the federal government, others are reserved to the states. Powers that are specifically granted to the government are known as enumerated powers. So only the federal government can do things like declare war, regulate interstate commerce, print money, maintain armed forces, establish federal courts. All these things are enumerated powers that are explicitly reserved for the federal government. States, on the other hand, have powers over things like establishing schools, running elections, creating local governments, handling issues related to public safety and local policy, things like that. Then there's this third category called concurrent powers. And as you might imagine, these are powers that are shared by both the federal and state governments. And these include things like

establishing courts, laying in collecting taxes, borrowing money, passing laws, right? All these things are things that both the federal government and state governments do. So under the principle of federalism, power isn't, it's not concentrated in one place. Then the third principle is republicanism. So we talked about this one earlier, I told you don't think about it in the sense of Republicans versus Democrats. It's not like that. When the Constitution was drafted, the framers said that they wanted a Republican form of government. And in simple terms, that means a republic, not a direct democracy. And we'll walk through the difference. In a republic, people don't vote on every law themselves. Instead, what they do is they elect representatives to make decisions on their behalf. And that's why it's

often described as a representative democracy. The framers were cautious of a direct democracy, where the majority rules on everything directly, because in a direct democracy, the people vote directly on laws and policies themselves, rather than electing representatives to do it for them. So there's no legislature filtering those decisions. The majority's vote just kind of becomes law. And the framers were worried that this kind of system could allow majority rule to override the rights of minorities. So by forming a republic where voters elected representatives who debate and vote on their behalf, the framers were trying to kind of slow things down and, you know, filter public opinion and balance majority rule with protections for individual rights. In fact, Article 4 of the Constitution guarantees every state a quote, Republican form of government, which reinforces this idea that representation, not direct voting on

laws, is the foundation of our system. So when you hear someone say the United States is a republic, not a democracy, it's not really, it really isn't either. Or a republic is a type of democracy. It's just not a direct democracy. So the Constitution lets people have a voice, but it also builds in these speed bumps, if you will, so that laws don't change overnight based on whatever's popular at the moment. A republic is basically a democracy with speed limits. Okay, so that's the Republican form of government. Then the fourth basic principle is limited government, and this is pretty straightforward. It means the federal government only has the powers that are specifically given to it. If the Constitution doesn't explicitly grant a power to the federal government, the federal government

it doesn't have it. That was the framers original intent. Okay, so they were trying to avoid a system where government power was unlimited, so they wrote down exactly what the federal government could and couldn't do. As we know, that's not so much the case anymore in the sense of like over time, the way that those powers are interpreted has expanded. So a good example of this is federal labor laws. the Constitution doesn't explicitly say Congress can regulate things like wages or workplace safety, but over time, courts have interpreted Congress's explicit power to regulate interstate commerce broadly enough to cover economic activity that affects trade between states. So even if, you know, a business operates within one state, the federal government can still regulate it

if that activity has an impact on interstate commerce. and that's how we end up with national labor standards. So while the federal government is still considered a government with limited powers, courts have also recognized over time that some powers are implied in the Constitution and that certain constitutional provisions like Congress's power to regulate interstate commerce can be applied more broadly than maybe the framers intended. The fifth basic principle is a separation of powers. This means that government power is divided among three branches, the legislative, executive, and judicial branches.

Each branch has its own distinct role, right? The legislative branch makes the laws. The executive branch enforces the laws. And the judicial branch interprets the laws. But the system of separation of powers doesn't stop there because, as we know, each of these branches also has the ability to limit the power of the others, which is known as and balances. Checks and balances also happens to be the sixth basic principle. The idea of checks and balances is that even though power is divided among three branches, no branch is to operate alone or with too much power. So each branch has tools that allow it to limit the power of others.

For example, Congress can pass a law, but the president can veto it. If the president vetoes it, Congress can override that veto with a two-thirds vote. The courts, including the Supreme Court, can review laws and executive actions and declare them unconstitutional if they violate the Constitution. So each branch is constantly checking on each other and together those two principles, separation of powers and checks and balances, ensure that no single branch of government becomes too powerful. Because again, the framers didn't want a single branch of government to ever have too much power. So by separating power and building in these checks, the Constitution created a system where the branches oversee one another and keep any branch from dominating the rest.

And finally, the last of these seven basic principles is individual rights. This principle means that every person has certain fundamental rights that the government cannot take away. And not only that, but the government has an obligation to respect and protect those rights. Many of these rights are written directly into the Bill of Rights, which we know, but the principle of individual rights actually goes beyond what's written down. So the Constitution is built on this idea that rights don't come from the government, okay? Instead, the government exists to protect rights people already have. And this principle, of course, works alongside all the others.

So limited government restricts what the government can do, separation of powers and checks and balances, prevent power from concentrating in one place. Federalism divides authority between levels of government, and together those systems exist to protect our individual liberties and freedoms. So those are the seven basic principles of the Constitution. At this point in the episode, we've really covered just about everything. Now it's time for my favorite part, which is the fun facts, and I'm just going to kind of rattle these off. Only one amendment to the Constitution has ever been repealed. and I'll give you a second to yell out the answer since we did go over it in this episode. For those of you that said the 18th Amendment, you are correct. And for those of you wondering

what it takes to repeal a constitutional amendment, you essentially just have to follow the process for passing a new constitutional amendment that repeals the old one. So just like any amendment, a repeal amendment can be proposed one of two ways, either two-thirds of the House and Senate vote to propose the repeal amendment and then three-fourths of the state's ratified. it, which is what happened with the 21st Amendment, or two-thirds of state legislatures request a convention to propose a repeal amendment, and then three-fourths of the states ratify it. The second fun fact is that the original United States Constitution can be found in the upper-level rotunda of the National Archives Museum in Washington, D.C., along with the Declaration of Independence

and the Bill of Rights. The actual pages of these documents are displayed behind protective glass, that is framed with titanium to preserve the parchment paper's quality and prevent erosion. And the cases are filled with oregon gas kept at about 67 degrees Fahrenheit with roughly 40% humidity. So they've definitely got it down to a science when it comes to protecting those pages. The third fact is that the Constitution does not require that the Speaker of the House be a member of the House. With that said, a non-member has never been chosen as speaker, but membership is actually not required in the Constitution. Fact number four, two of the country's founding fathers slash presidents did not attend the constitutional convention. And I'll give you three seconds to guess who they are.

That would be John Adams, who was ambassador to Great Britain at the time, so he couldn't be there. and Thomas Jefferson, who is ambassador to France. Fact number five, Pennsylvania is misspelled in the Constitution. The word Pennsylvania can be found above the signer's names, and it's spelled with only one N instead of two. Fact number six is that the Constitution was actually penned by a man named Jacob Shalas. Shalas was a Pennsylvania general assembly clerk. He was paid $30 to write the Constitution, which is equivalent to about $1,000 today. Fact number seven, the Constitution contains 4,543 words, including the signatures,

not including the amendments. And it's written on only four pages. The Constitution is only four pages long. But each of those four pages is about 29 by 24 inches. So if the Constitution were written, you know, at the same text density on standard eight and a half by 11 pages, it would take up closer to 30. pages. Still not much, considering we have laws in this country that take up thousands of pages. And the eighth and final fun fact I have for you is that President George Washington's first presidential proclamation recognized a Thanksgiving holiday to be celebrated on November 26th, 1789, for the purpose of expressing gratitude for the opportunity to establish the Constitution. So those are the fun facts. Now it's time to finish this episode with some critical thinking.

We talked about how the framers were hesitant to give the government too much power because of what they experienced under British rule. But they also clearly understood the importance of having a centralized government. So my first question is this. Would you say the Constitution was designed more to empower government or restrain it? And what supports your answer? second, do you feel as if the amendment process is too difficult or do you think that's the point? And then here's a fun question. If you were to be granted the power to draft and ratify one amendment to the Constitution and it would make it in, what would it be? That is what I have for you today. I hope you thoroughly enjoyed this episode and enjoyed your first class at Unbiased University.

I hope to see you back in the next class where we'll cover the first, second, and third amendments to the Constitution, which are pretty important amendments if you ask me.