As America marks its 250th birthday this year, it's worth understanding the document that still runs the country: the Constitution. Most of us couldn't explain what it does, though. So let's walk through it like a history lesson.
After winning freedom from Britain in 1783, the new country had a problem. It needed a government, but nobody wanted a king. The first plan, the Articles of Confederation, was too weak; it couldn't even collect taxes or pay its debts. So in the summer of 1787, leaders met in Philadelphia and wrote a new plan instead. George Washington led the meeting while about 55 delegates argued through a hot Pennsylvania summer with the windows shut for secrecy, sweating in wool coats and powdered wigs.
What they built was bold. The Constitution splits the government into three parts: Congress, which writes the laws; the president, who carries them out; and the courts, which decide what the laws mean. Each part checks the others, so no one gets too powerful. This was rare for the time. Nearly every country was then ruled by kings, queens, and emperors who held power for life, while the Founders built a government with no throne and gave the power to the people.
They were shaped by many things, including the Bible. From scripture, they drew the belief that people are flawed and can't be trusted with too much power. As James Madison put it, "If men were angels, no government would be necessary."
That belief is a big reason they split the government and made each branch watch the others. Some even point to a verse in Isaiah that calls God a judge, a lawgiver, and a king, the same three roles our government was divided into. If you visit the U.S. House of Representatives, you'll see 23 great lawgivers carved into the walls. The one in the center, the only face looking straight out while the others turn toward him, is Moses, honored for carrying the Ten Commandments down from the mountain.
The Constitution also set up a republic rather than a pure democracy. Instead of voting on every law ourselves, we elect people to do it, in a chain from home to Washington. You vote for your school board and city council, your state representative and state senator in Columbus, and your U.S. representative and two senators in Washington. Every one of them answers to you — worth remembering the next time a local race feels too small to bother with.
Not everyone cheered at first. The country is split into two camps over one question: how much power the national government should have. The Federalists wanted a strong one and backed the Constitution as written, while the Anti-Federalists feared it would trample people's freedoms and wanted more power left to the states, plus a written list of rights. Hamilton, Madison, and Jay made the Federalist case in newspaper essays called the Federalist Papers. That fight is why we got a second document, the Bill of Rights, the subject of part three.
Here's a fact that stumps most adults: our Constitution is the oldest written national constitution still in use anywhere on Earth, yet the word "democracy" never appears in it. For something so old, it still decides how power is shared in this country every day.