Whois & Analysis for constitutionfacts.com

The United States Constitution is the supreme law of the United States of America.

The Constitution, originally comprising seven articles, delineates the national frame of government.

Its first three articles entrench the doctrine of the separation of powers, whereby the federal government is divided into three branches: the legislative, consisting of the bicameral Congress; the executive, consisting of the President; and the judicial, consisting of the Supreme Court and other federal courts.

Articles Four, Five and Six entrench concepts of federalism, describing the rights and responsibilities of state governments and of the states in relationship to the federal government.

Article Seven establishes the procedure subsequently used by the thirteen States to ratify it.

The Bill of Rights is the first ten amendments to the United States Constitution.

Proposed following the oftentimes bitter 1787–88 battle over ratification of the U.S. Constitution, and crafted to address the objections raised by Anti-Federalists, the Bill of Rights amendments add to the Constitution specific guarantees of personal freedoms and rights, clear limitations on the government's power in judicial and other proceedings, and explicit declarations that all powers not specifically delegated to Congress by the Constitution are reserved for the states or the people.

The concepts codified in these amendments are built upon those found in several earlier documents, including the Virginia Declaration of Rights and the English Bill of Rights 1689, along with earlier documents such as Magna Carta (1215).

The Declaration of Independence is the statement adopted by the Second Continental Congress meeting at the Pennsylvania State House (Independence Hall) in Philadelphia on July 4, 1776, which announced that the thirteen American colonies, then at war with the Kingdom of Great Britain, regarded themselves as thirteen newly independent sovereign states, and no longer under British rule.

Instead they formed a new nation—the United States of America.

John Adams was a leader in pushing for independence, which was passed on July 2 with no opposing vote cast.

A committee of five had already drafted the formal declaration, to be ready when Congress voted on independence.

The term "Declaration of Independence" is not used in the document itself.

The United States of America (USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S) or America, is a constitutional federal republic composed of 50 states, a federal district, five major self-governing territories, and various possessions.

The Federal Government of the United States is the national government of the United States, a republic in North America, composed of 50 states, one district, Washington, D.C. (the nation's capital), and several territories.

The federal government is composed of three distinct branches: legislative, , and judicial, whose powers are vested by the U.S. Constitution in the Congress, the President, and the federal courts, including the Supreme Court, respectively.

The powers and duties of these branches are further defined by acts of Congress, including the creation of executive departments and courts inferior to the Supreme Court.