Sunday Was "Constitution Day"
By Robert Greenslade © Nitwit Press

QUESTIONS:

1) On June 7, 1776, a proposal was made in the Continental Congress proposing that the American people declare their independence from the State of Great Britain.

2) On June 7, 1776, it was also proposed that a plan of confederation (union) be prepared and submitted to the Colonies for their consideration.

3) The draft of the Declaration of Independence was adopted on July 4, 1776, and is subtitled as "The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America."

4) The thirteen united States agreed to a compact or union between themselves on March 1, 1781, called the Articles of Confederation.

5) The term United States, as used in the Articles of Confederation, referred to a geographical territory.

6) Under the Articles of Confederation, the States surrendered their powers to a central government and were consolidated into one nation.

7) The government created by the Articles of Confederation was the government of the American people, as comprising one nation.

8) The Articles of Confederation granted the newly created government unlimited legislative authority over the people of the several States.

9) On September 11, 1786, the States of New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware and Virginia met at Annapolis Maryland to discuss defects in the federal system of government created by the Articles of Confederation.

10) The members of this meeting recommended, in their report to Congress, that the States meet at Philadelphia the following May to "devise such further provisions as shall appear to them necessary to render the Federal Government adequate to the exigencies of the Union."

11) The States granted their delegates [to the Convention] the power to abolish the Articles of Confederation and design a totally new system of government.

12) During the debates in the Federal Convention, it was proposed that the federal system of government established by the Articles of Confederation be abolished and replaced with a national or centralized form of government.

13) The delegates to the Federal Convention wrote a totally new Constitution that abolished the system of government established by the Articles of Confederation.

14) On September 17, 1787, the delegates to the Convention signed the Constitution as representatives of the American people, as comprising one nation.

15) The word federal, as it relates to the government established by the Constitution and the Articles of Confederation, refers to a compact or contract between the individual States.

16) The federal government established by the Constitution is the government of the American people, as comprising one nation.

17) The federal government established by the Constitution is the general government of the several States.

18) The Constitution consolidated the individual States into one nation under the exclusive control of a central or national government.

19) When the States adopted the Constitution, they surrendered their powers to the federal government.

20) The Constitution established a system of government where the powers of government are divided as follows: the powers of the federal government relate, primarily, to external or foreign affairs and disputes between the States while the powers of the States pertain to internal or domestic affairs.

21) The Constitution established a government of "limited enumerated powers."

22) The Constitution established a government of "unlimited general powers."

23) The federal government has unlimited legislative authority throughout the United States unless the Constitution contains an express provision restricting its power.

24) Adoption of the Constitution established a democracy in the United States.

25) The Constitution established a republican form of government as opposed to a direct democracy.

26) The Constitution is a national Constitution rather than a federal Constitution.

27) The general provisions of the Constitution pertain to the States collectively as opposed to the American people generally.

28) Congress derives all of its legislative powers from the Constitution.

29) As each new State entered into the Union of States, it became one of the United States.

30) The federal government is not a party to the Constitution.

31) The American people, as comprising one nation, are not a party to the Constitution.

32) The preamble states the Constitution was being established for the people of the United States, as comprising one nation.

33) The Constitution grants the American people the power to propose amendments to the Constitution.

34) Any constitutional amendments proposed by Congress must be submitted directly to the American people for consideration.

35) The Constitution contains a provision that states the federal government is supreme and above the States.

36) The Constitution was "established between the States so ratifying the same" as opposed to the American people, as comprising one nation.