Article 1:
The first article sets up the national legislature and details its powers.
Section 1: The Legislative Branch
This section grants to the congress the power to make laws, and states that it will be made
up of two parts, the Senate and the House of Representatives.
Section 2: The House of Representatives
This section decides how often representatives are chosen, residency and citizenship rules to become a Representative, how long a representative can stay in office, how many representatives per state, what will happen if a representative vacates his/her post, how a speaker is chosen, and the house's ability to impeach.
Section 3: The Senate
This requires that each of the states has two senators in the Senate, there will be a new election for one-third of the Senate every 2 years, describes the age, residency and citizenship rules to become a Senator. The Vice President is designated the President of Senate and can vote in case of a tie. The Senate is given the power to choose its own officers and a temporary president in case the Vice President cannot fill his/her duties, and finally, it describes the Senate’s power to act as a jury during the impeachment of officials
of the executive or judicial branches of the national government.
Section 4: Organization of Congress
States that the method used to vote for U.S. Senators and Representatives is up to the states. Congress is required to assemble at least once a year.
Section 5: The House's Jobs
Each house will be the judge of their own elections and qualifications of it members. Each house may determine the rules of its proceedings, and punish it's members for disorderly behavior. Both houses of Congress must keep a journal of daily proceedings.
Section 6: Money and War-Time Jobs
States that each senator and representative will receive compensation for services to their country to be paid out by the U.S. treasury. They will also be immune from arrest, except for treason, felony, and breach of the peace, during an attendance to a session of their respective house, and traveling there and back. Last no senator or representative will be put into any civil office during the time of war.
Section 7: Bills
All bills for raising revenue (and the paychecks for members of Congress) shall originate in the House of Representatives, any bill passed in the two houses will go to the president and pending approval become a law. If the president disapproves of a bill then it goes back to the Congress and if two-thirds of the members of the House and Senate vote for it, it becomes a law.
Section 8: Powers Granted to Congress
Congress can:
1. Collects taxes, duties, imposts, and excises to pay debts and provide for defense.
2. Borrow money on the credit of the United States.
3. Regulate commerce with foreign nations.
4. Make laws regarding naturalization and bankruptcies.
5. Coin money and establish standards for weights and measurements.
6. Provide punishment for counterfeiting U.S. money
7. Establish post offices and roads.
8. Promote commerce and the arts by granting copyrights and patents.
9. Punish pirates out in international waters
10. Declare war.
11. Raise and support armed forces for national defense.
12. Call forth the militia (the National Guard, and any male over the age of 17 and under the age of 45 who is not part of the national Guard and has no intention of joining the Active Duty Military) when necessary in order to maintain order.
13. Exercise legal control over all places owned by the U.S. (territories such as Puerto Rico and Guam).
14. Make all laws that are necessary and proper to carry out their responsibilities under the Constitution.
Section 9: Powers Forbidden to Congress
1. Congress cannot prohibit the immigration of a person to the U.S. but can charge them money.
2. It cannot ban the process of habeas corpus* during times of peace.
3. It cannot pass a bill of attainder -- one that punishes a person without a trial.
4. It cannot pass a law that criminalizes an act that happened in the past (commonly referred to as the "Grandfather Clause".
5. It cannot pass any direct tax (tax collected directly from the people).
6. It cannot pass a law providing for a tax on items exported from any state (from one state to another).
7. It cannot treat states unequally, giving preferences to one state or another, in passing laws.
8. Money cannot be taken from the national treasury unless Congress votes to do so.
9. Titles of nobility may not be granted by the Congress to any citizen of the United States.
* The basic premise behind habeas corpus is that you cannot be held against your will
without just cause. To put it another way, you cannot be jailed if there are no charges
against you. If you are being held, and you demand it, the courts must issue a writ of
habeas corpus, which forces those holding you to answer as to why. If there is no good or
compelling reason, the court must set you free. It is important to note that of all the civil
liberties we taken for granted today as a part of the Bill of Rights, the importance of habeas
corpus is illustrated by the fact that it was the sole liberty thought important enough to be
included in the original text of the Constitution.
Section 10: Powers Forbidden to the States
1. No state shall enter treaties with any foreign nation,
2. Issue their own money
3. Grant any title of nobility
4. Lay duties on imports or exports without the consent of Congress
5. No state can raise and maintain a military force during time of peace without congressional consent.
Article 2: The Executive Branch
The second article sets up the executive branch of the national government and details its powers. This article includes rules to be followed by the executive branch. It includes the presidential term limit, requirements to become president, how elections of the president will be carried out, what to do if a president is removed from office (through death, impeachment or other reason). It states that the president will receive a salary for his service to the United States and as head of the military. The president is required, from time to time, to give information about the condition of the nation to Congress (this is usually referred to as the President’s State of the Union Address, an annual ritual that takes place in front of a joint meeting of the Congress, televised and watched closely by millions of peop around the world).
Article 3: The Judicial Branch
The third Article sets up the national judiciary and details its powers. Article Three states that the highest power in the federal court system is the supreme court and any other federal courts that Congress decides to create. Judges and justices will receive lifetime appointments to their positions “during good behavior.” Judges’ salaries cannot be lowered during the time they serve in office. In trials the person shall be tried in
the state in which the crime was committed. Treason is described as waging war against the nation and/or taking the side of an enemy or giving them aid and comfort. A conviction of treason can happen only if there are at least two eye witnesses to the crime. Treason is punishable by death but only the person guilty of treason shall lose his/her life.
Article 4: Relations of the States to Each Other
Article Four establishes relations among the states and with the federal government. Full faith and credit shall be given from one state to another in the public acts, records, and judicial proceedings of each state (each state must recognize other states’ legal documents, such as marriage certificates and drivers’ licenses). A criminal fleeing from one state to another after committing a crime, if apprehended, must be returned to the state from which he/she fled, at the request of the legal authorities in that state (a process called extradition).
New states shall be admitted by Congress, but no state can be formed under the control of another. Congress can dispose of or change any boundaries of one state whenever it is needed. Every state in the union is guaranteed (state constitutions are required to establish) a republican form of government (a representative democracy), and shall be protected by the national government against invasion and/or violence within the state.
Article 5: Amending the Constitution
The Fifth Article describes how the Constitution can be changed (amended). Whenever two-thirds of the members of both the House of Representatives and the Senate deem it necessary, they can propose amendments to the Constitution. To become part of the Constitution an amendment must be ratified by the legislatures of three-fourths of the states (often, in special ratifying conventions held within each state). Also, amendments must be ratified in a reasonable amount of time (in modern times, that means seven years).
Article 6: National Debts, Supremacy of the National Government National Debts
All of the debts made by the United States government before the ratification of the Constitution will be the responsibility of the national government, just as they were before that time. Supremacy of the National Government The federal government has supreme power over state governments. All federal laws, treaties agreed to by the national government with other nations, and the Constitution are supreme over state laws. For example, that means if the state of California passed a law that brought back slavery in some form, it would be void because it's against federal law (under the 13th Amendment, slavery is prohibited in the U.S., unless it comes “as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted”).
Article 7: Ratifying the Constitution:
The constitution had to be ratified by at least nine of the thirteen states present in 1787 to
become law.
Citations:
Debbie Twyman & Craig Whitney. Constitution in Plain English. Retrieved February 13, 2011 From the Debbie Twyman and Graig Whitney Film arts and Social Studies web site:
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