A Constitution is a set of rules and principles that defines the structure and limits of government. Most constitutions seek to regulate the relationships between institutions of government—in particular, the executive, legislative and judicial branches—and to establish broad constitutional rights of citizens.
The Constitution of the United States was written in 1787 by a convention convened in Philadelphia to amend the Articles of Confederation. The drafters sought to assign nationally important functions to the national government, while preserving state sovereignty for those matters that the nation could not handle individually.
This was a time of enormous political tension, particularly over slavery. The drafters bridged the widening divide by reaching a series of compromises. One of the most significant was the Great Compromise, which created a bicameral legislature with a Senate (which all states would be equally represented in) and a House of Representatives that apportioned representation on the basis of a state’s free population plus three-fifths of its enslaved people.
Another critical issue was how to count the population for purposes of determining congressional district boundaries and federal funding. The final solution—as contained in Article I, Section 2—was to require a census every 10 years that would include women, children and slaves, whose inclusion was an important political concession for southern slave-owners.
Other crucial issues addressed in the Constitution were how to conduct a presidential election, how to determine the judicial branch and what powers should be reserved for the states or the people. The final result was a Constitution that has been in force for over two centuries, and it has proven both stable and flexible enough to serve the needs of the American people in a world far different from the eighteenth century in which its framers lived.