1. The United States Constitution

2. The U.S. Constitution
The Articles of Confederation was replaced by the US. Constitution due to its weak federal (national) government.
The writers of the Constitution were also called the “framers” of the Constitution.
Constitution Day is Celebrate on Sept. 17th.
The Constitution is broken into three different parts: The Preamble (this starts with “We the People”), the articles, and the amendments.

3. Debates in Independence Hall
The first congress met in Independence Hall
There were many disagreements among the delegates. One of these key disagreements was slavery. Many smaller states felt as though states should count them when counting the population, but exclude them as people when it came to taxing them. The larger states felt the opposite.
Because there were disagreements, it was decided that it only took 3/4th’s of congress to vote in order to make a decision.

4. The Bill of Rights
The Bill of Rights is the first ten amendments of the constitution

5. Democracy vs. Republic. What Are we?
-America is not a direct democracy because we don’t have a large say in everything that happens. Americans get a smaller part in what happens in our country by voting on some local issues, but voting for representatives that we feel will best meet our needs in our federal and state government. This means we are a representative democracy or a republic.

6. Who’s got the power?
There are three types of powers: Shared, state, federal
If they are shared powers, the national government and the state share them. An example of these would be taxes, chartering banks, maintaining a healthcare system.
If the power is the states power, that means the state has the rights to control it. These include laws on marriage, school curriculums, trade among the states.
Finally, there are federal (national) powers. These powers are run by our national government. These can include creating an army, printing money and declare war and peace.