Constitutional Facts

(From Constitutional Facts.com)

When Jacob Shallus, a Pennsylvania General Assembly clerk penned the Constitution, and our Founding Fathers signed it, they believed in the concepts of the day, but took no account of the effectiveness of the document in the future years. For this reason, the Amendments to the Constitution were added at later periods.  Unfortunately, there are some major misconceptions, concerning this document, and many people are grossly misinformed when referring to their "constitutional rights". Some interesting facts about the Constitution are listed below. 

• When Jacob Shallus penned the Constitution (first called the Articles of Confederation) he was was paid a modest fee of $30 (or about $325.29 today) for his efforts. The Constitution, which contains but 4,400 words, is the oldest and shortest written Constitution of any major government in the world.

• It took one hundred days to actually “frame” (write) the Constitution and became "official" on 17 September 1787.

• No where in the Constitution is there set forth any requirements that the people have a right to vote for the President of the United States. Additionally, at the outset, only male property-owners had a right to vote on anything else. African Americans, Native Americans and Women, could not own property and were therefore excluded from all electoral processes. 

• The greatest compromise, that saved both the first Constitutional Convention, and, probably, the new nation, was authored by Connecticut delegate Roger Sherman. He proposed that the people, of the new nation, be represented by one representative in the Senate from each States (originally called Colonies under British control). This  "compromise" passed 5-to-4, with one state, Massachusetts, divided and this proposal was later changed to two representatives (Senators) per each State.

• The term "The United States of America” was not first used in the Constitution, but rather in the Declaration of Independence, which was penned 0n 4 July 1776.

• The oldest person to sign the Constitution was Benjamin Franklin (81). The youngest was Jonathan Dayton of New Jersey (26).

• The first Thanksgiving Day (A proclamation by President George Washington and by Congressional resolution) was established in 1789 for the express purpose of giving thanks for the new Constitution.

•  It was originally proposed that the President be chosen by popular vote, however this proposal failed and an Electoral College system was noted on and approved. Since then, over 500 amendments have been proposed to change this procedure and all have failed. This “indirect” electoral system still (in 2008) remains in effect.  

• When approached by the wife of  of the mayor of Philadelphia and asked what type of government would head up the new nation, Benjamin Franklin replied, “A republic, madam. If you can keep it.” Ironically, the word "democracy" does not appear, not even once, in the entire U. S. Constitution. 

• When it was proposed, at the Constitutional Convention, that the standing U. S. army be limited to only 5,000 men, George Washington sarcastically agreed with this proposal, provided that a stipulation be added that no invading U. S. army could number more than 3,000 troops!

The Amendments to the Constitutional 

The framers of the Constitution realized that no document could ever cover all of the changes that would take place and in order to ensure the longevity of the Constitution, Amendments to the original document could be proposed.  Since its adoption, the Constitution has changed only changed 27 times and only 16 (with the inclusion of the Bill of Rights) since 1791. However, there were far more efforts to ratify it then these relatively few times. A few "proposals", that obviously failed, are listed below.  All of these failed proposals were authored by some of our scholarly political forbearers and only goes to prove that inanity has not been solely reserved for our current flock of national leaders.

• A proposal to abolish the United States Senate (1876)

• A proposal that an Executive Council of Three replace the office of President (1878)

• A proposal to rename the United states of America to the “United States of the Earth” (1893)

• A proposal to abolish the United States Army and Navy (1893)

• A proposal that the Constitution recognizes God and Jesus Christ as the supreme authorities in human affairs (1894)

• A proposal making marriage between races illegal (1912)

• A proposal making divorce to be illegal (1914)

• A proposal limit the personal wealth of any citizen to $1 million (1933)

• A proposal to allow the American people to vote on whether or not the United States should go to war (1936)

• A proposal forbidding drunkenness in the United States and all of its territories (1938)

• A proposal to give citizens the right to segregate themselves from others (1948)

• A proposal to give American citizens the alienable right to an environment free of pollution (1971)