US Constitution

The written constitution of 1787, the oldest national constitution still in force

Overview

Drafted in Philadelphia in 1787 and ratified by the states, the Constitution creates three branches with checks and balances, divides power between federation and states, and claims supremacy over contrary law. It has been amended only twenty seven times in over two centuries, with the Bill of Rights and the Reconstruction amendments the pivot points. Its endurance through civil war, industrialization, and superpower status made it the model, and the foil, for the world's written constitutions. Interpretation of its spare text fuels American legal life.