A New Constitution for a New Federal State

14.4.1 Approval and Ratification of the Constitution

Four months after the first meeting of the Constitutional Congress, on September 17, 1787, the delegates had completed the final draft of what would ultimately be the Constitution of the United States of America.

The final document contained only seven articles, a result of its authors’ deliberate intention to create a very flexible instrument, destined to last over time in spite of the changes, challenges, and ups and downs which would inevitably occur in the relations between the states and the new federal government. Articles 1, 2 and

3 dealt with the Legislative, Executive and Judicial branches, respectively. Article

4 regulated relations between the states. Article 5 covered constitutional reform, and Article 6 included a series of miscellaneous stipulations, like those relative to the signing and ratification of treaties with other nations, or the requirements to hold public office. The conciseness of the federal Constitution has been, without any doubt, the key to its success and its longevity. Today it continues to be the oldest functioning constitution in the western world.

The last article of the Constitution, no. 7, stated that the document would take effect upon ratification by at least nine states.^{^[739]} On September 28, 1787, the Constitution was submitted to the states for ratification. On June 21, 1788, New Hampshire became that ninth state (Maier 2010, 313) and the U.S. Constitution went into effect on March 4, 1789 (Schwartz 2013, 333). Across the Atlantic, 2 months later the Estates General was convened in France, setting in motion a process that would trigger the French Revolution.

14.4.2 A New Limit on Federal Power: The Bill of Rights

Virginia and New York ratified the federal Constitution just a few weeks after New Hampshire, but North Carolina and Rhode Island were still hesitant to sign it.

To overcome their reluctance, James Madison suggested the possibility of introducing a set of changes that would be incorporated into the Constitution. The House of Representatives and the Senate ultimately approved 12 amendments that were to be appended to the Constitution rather than incorporated into the original document. The 12 amendments were sent to the states for ratification, but only 10 were ratified (Hickok 1991,5). Their final ratification by Congress took place on December 15, 1791, by which time the last of the 13 states, Rhode Island, had endorsed them (May 29, 1790). These ten amendments to the U.S. Constitution would go down in history as the “Bill of Rights”.

The procedure that made possible the adoption of amendments represented an instrument through which the founding document could be adapted to address new circumstances. Over time, a series of legal and governmental questions have been resolved through the incorporation of new amendments, yielding the 27 today.^{^[740]}

14.4.3 The Principle of Term Limits

On March 4, 1789, the federal Constitution took effect, and on April 30, George Washington was elected the first president of the fledgling United States, going on to be reelected in 1793. At the close of his second term, however, he refused to stand for re-election (McDonald 1988, 177-186). Since then nearly every president followed his example and only stood for re-election once, the notable exception being Franklin Delano Roosevelt, elected for the first time in 1932 and reelected in 1936, 1940 and 1944—though his fourth term was cut short by his death on April 12, 1945. To prevent this from happening again, the 22nd Amendment to the Constitution was added (ratified on February 27, 1951), limiting presidents to only two terms in office: “No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice” (McDonald 1994, 166-171).

14.4.4 The Constitution as the New Nation's

Birth Certificate

With the ratification of the Constitution in 1789 the United States saw the culmination of a revolutionary process which had begun 11 years prior.

Since 1783 there had been 13 states with 13 constitutions directly inspired by their respective colonial charters. In contrast, the federal government was something totally new, created ex novo, arising directly from the Constitution, a pact which has survived through the years, unscathed and in good health, though altered and refined through a series of amendments and Supreme Court decisions. It was the first new nation in the sense that it broke sharply with traditional sources of legitimacy (Lipset 2003, 11). The U.S. Constitution stands above any and all subsequent legislation, and judges can raise the question of a law’s constitutionality. It is largely for this reason that the United States of America continues to maintain the very same Constitution which established the new nation, a document representing a shining example of legal and constitutional longevity.

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Source: Aguilera-Barchet Bruno. A History of Western Public Law. Between Nation and State. Springer,2015. — 788 p.. 2015

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