The United States Constitution: summary in 30 seconds : Free Summarizer

The United States Constitution

United States · founding legal document, 1787·24 min in the original·original at gutenberg.org

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Bicameral legislature: Article 1 vests all federal lawmaking power in a Congress of two chambers, a House of Representatives apportioned by population and elected every two years, and a Senate of two members per state serving six-year terms, with the House holding the sole power of impeachment and the Senate the sole power to try impeachments.
Executive power and the presidency: Article 2 places executive authority in a President elected for four-year terms through an Electoral College, makes the President commander in chief of the armed forces, and grants powers to make treaties and appoint judges and officers with Senate consent, while making the President removable by impeachment for treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.
Independent federal judiciary: Article 3 establishes one Supreme Court and such inferior courts as Congress creates, grants judges lifetime tenure during good behavior, and extends federal judicial power to cases arising under the Constitution, federal law, treaties, and disputes between states or between states and foreign parties.
Federal supremacy and interstate obligations: Articles 4 and 6 require states to honor each other's laws and judicial proceedings, guarantee every state a republican form of government, and declare the Constitution and federal law the supreme law of the land binding on judges in every state regardless of contrary state law.
Amendment and ratification: Article 5 allows the Constitution to be amended when two-thirds of both houses of Congress propose changes ratified by three-fourths of the states, while Article 7 provided that ratification by nine states was sufficient to bring the new government into effect among those states.

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•Why it earns a slot

As the oldest written national constitution still in active use, this 1787 document created the specific institutional architecture of separated powers, checks and balances, and federal supremacy that has governed the United States for more than two centuries and influenced constitutions worldwide.

Drafted in 1787 and signed by delegates from twelve states, the Constitution establishes the framework of the federal government through seven articles covering the legislature, executive, judiciary, interstate relations, amendment procedures, federal supremacy, and ratification. It opens with a Preamble declaring that the people themselves ordain the document to form a more perfect union, establish justice, and secure liberty. This text presents the original unamended Constitution and does not include the Bill of Rights or later amendments.

This distillation is written from the freely available original, which is always the better read when you have the time: gutenberg.org.

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The United States Constitution

•Why it earns a slot

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