Happy Constitution Day! Here are 7 facts you (probably) don't know about the U.S. constitution.
1. The Constitution was not signed by Thomas Jefferson or John Adams. They were serving as U.S. ministers in France and Great Britain, respectively.
2. The Constitution has only been changed seventeen times since 1791 and only one amendment has been repealed (18th declaring prohibition repealed by the 21st ).
3. One of the founding fathers, Alexander Hamilton, actually played little role in writing the constitution. His views of government were considerably British and the others did not agree, so he focused on helping with the writing style of the document instead.
4. There was no Bill of Rights in the original Constitution. Two years later, it was added as the first ten amendments.
5. When the delegates gathered at the Constitutional Convention, they actually had no intention of writing the Constitution. Instead, they planned to edit the Articles of Confederation. However, James Madison, now known as father of the Constitution, thought it needed a lot of work and came up with the idea to create a new document.
6. The Constitution represents our Natural Rights, which differ from Human Rights. With the ongoing war for universal healthcare, this is an important distinction to make. Natural Rights are our right to those things found in nature. The founding fathers considered these to be “life, liberty, and property and the right to protect those rights.”
7. The U.S. Constitution was the first government document to protect its citizens Natural Rights just for being human.
Sources:
No comments:
Post a Comment