Prologue: Pieces of History

Today’s post was written by National Archives volunteer Paul Richter. It is part of a series tracing the development of the Constitution in honor of the 225th anniversary of this document on September 17, 2012. In the earliest days of the Constitutional Convention, the delegates agreed their proceedings would be secret. As the convention drew [...]

In honor of the 225th anniversary of the Constitution, we challenged citizens on Twitter to take the Preamble of the Constitution and distill its meaning into a twitter-sized bite. The Archivist of the United States chose the winner on the Constitution Day. Congratulations to Jean Huets, who will receive a pocket-sized Constitution from the Foundation [...]

Imagine a time before computers and the safety net of spellcheck and auto-correct. Imagine you are about to write by hand (or “engross”) the document that will set out the fundamentals of governing a new nation. And you have less than 48 hours to do it. The Constitution (plus its “fifth page” were written by [...]

    Today’s Constitution 225 post was written by Jim Zeender,  senior registrar in Exhibits at the National Archives. Imagine George Washington’s first day on the job as President of the United States on April 30, 1789. What what his role? How was he to act? What were his duties and powers? Who should advise [...]

Five people worked together as the Committee of Style to polish and refine the 52-word Preamble, a paragraph that provided the reasons and purposes behind the creation of the Constitution. In fact, one of the greatest phrases of the Constitution comes from the Preamble: “We the People.” Could any other wording express the emotions and [...]