CIVILISATION AMERICAINE The American Constitution 1) Some Historical Remarks
There were 13 English colonies: The Colony of Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, South Carolina, Rhode Island, Virginia, and Pennsylvania.
In 1776, those colonies declared their independence with a Declaration of Independence written by Thomas Jefferson. The British didn’t agree and started a war. 1783: End of the War: 13 independent states. The flag with 13 stripes was created. They also created a Government that had a lot of responsibilities but almost no power. Power of Congress: Responsibility of the Foreign Relations (Question of War & Peace) Responsibility of the Postal Service Responsibility of the Coinage $ Responsibility of Indian Affairs Responsibility for the Western Territories

But there was a huge problem: Very little authority to carry those responsibilities out. (No power to force the citizens or the states to respect its resolutions. No power to raise money. [Money came from voluntary contributions from the States] Congress was poor) There was no executive branch. No presidential power. No federal Court of Justice. Why?! The colonies had wanted to create something new but they had not wanted to create a new despotic power over themselves. However it soon became obvious that the system called “The Articles of the Confederation”, that had been created in 1781, didn’t work because the Congress of the Confederation, in which each state had one vote, didn’t work. In 1787, a convention was created to improve the “Articles of the Confederation”, to save the Union. However, they saw it was too complicated and so they created completely new system. It took them 4 months and to be effective, the new constitution had to be ratified by 9 states. It happened on the 21st of June 1788. It could become effective and the Constitution became valid on the 2nd of July 1788.