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- We the People redirects here. For the Flipsyde album, see We the People (album).
The Preamble to the United States Constitution consists of a single sentence (a preamble) that introduces the document and its purpose. The preamble neither grants any powers nor inhibits any actions. It only explains the rationale behind the U.S. Constitution. It is generally believed to have been written by Gouverneur Morris.
Text
We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty, to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
Annotations
While the preamble technically does not assign any powers to any department of the national government, the Supreme Court has cited the preamble to consider the history, intent and meaning of various clauses elsewhere in the Constitution. As Joseph Story said in his Commentaries, "Its true office is to expound the nature and extent and application of the powers actually conferred by the Constitution, and not substantively to create them. For example, the preamble declares one object to be, 'to provide for the common defence.' No one can doubt that this does not enlarge the powers of Congress to pass any measures which they deem useful for the common defence. But suppose the terms of a given power admit of two constructions, the one more restrictive, the other more liberal, and each of them is consistent with the words, but is, and ought to be, governed by the intent of the power; if one could promote and the other defeat the common defence, ought not the former, upon the soundest principles of interpretation, to be adopted?"
Trivia
- The American Broadcasting Company television show, Schoolhouse Rock has a segment on the constitution, and puts this portion to song. However, the version sung in the show omits the words "of the United States," and adds an extra word, so that the sung version, which many people are more familiar with than the actual words of the provision, goes, We the People, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare and, secure the Blessings of Liberty, to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution, for the United States of America.
Notes
- In the hand-written engrossed copy of the Constitution maintained in the National Archives, the (British) spelling "defence" is used in the preamble (See the House of Representatives transcription and the Archives' image of the engrossed document). The National Archives transcription, however, uses the spelling "defense".
- Jacobson v. Massachusetts, 197 U.S. 11, 22 (1905).
- E.g., the Court has read the preamble as bearing witness to the fact that the Constitution emanated from the people and was not the act of sovereign and independent States, McCulloch v. Maryland, 4 Wheat. (17 U.S.) 316, 403 (1819) Chisholm v. Georgia, 2 Dall. (2 U.S.) 419, 471 (1793); Martin v. Hunter's Lessee, 1 Wheat. (14 U.S.) 304, 324 (1816), and that it was made for, and is binding only in, the United States of America. Downes v. Bidwell, 182 U.S. 244, 251 (1901); In re Ross, 140 U.S. 453, 464 (1891).
- J. Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (Boston: 1833), 462. For a lengthy exegesis of the preamble phrase by phrase, see M. Adler & W. Gorman, The American Testament (New York: 1975), 63-118.
External links
"Preamble to the United States Constitution"