Glossary on the Republic

Constitution

Founding

It is the oldest written national constitution still in force, and at four pages it is one of the shortest. Other countries average four times its length.

A constitution is the founding legal document that creates a government, defines its parts, and fixes the limits it cannot cross. It is higher law: ordinary statutes that conflict with it must give way. The word comes from the Latin constituere, to establish.

The United States Constitution was written in 1787 and took effect in 1788. It is the oldest written national constitution still operating anywhere in the world, and remarkably brief, around 4,500 words in its original form, a fraction of the length of most modern constitutions.

Its brevity is a strength and a battleground. Because it says so little in so few words, almost every great American argument, over speech, guns, privacy, power, becomes a fight over what those spare phrases mean and how to read them.

It was built to last but also to change, through the difficult amendment process. In more than two centuries it has been amended just 27 times, the first ten of those, the Bill of Rights, arriving almost immediately as the price of ratification.

Origin

From the Latin constituere, to establish; the United States Constitution took effect in 1788.

Why it matters

The Constitution is the rulebook every American law and leader is measured against, which is why what it says, and what its handful of words are taken to mean, still settles the country's biggest fights centuries later. It is short enough to read in an afternoon, and deep enough to argue about forever.