A Walkthrough of the Constitution You Can Finish in One Evening

Let me tell you something about the document that every politician swears to defend: most of them have not read it since a civics class, and a surprising number of the people shouting about it on television have never read it at all. That is not a character flaw. It is a scheduling problem. The text is short enough to read between supper and the late news, and nobody ever told them it was that short.

Without its amendments the Constitution runs roughly 4,500 words. With all twenty-seven amendments it is still under 8,000. That is shorter than the terms-of-service agreement on your phone and a good deal more consequential. This post is a guided walk through it in order. Each step tells you what the section does in plain English, and gives you one question to ask of it. Keep the text open beside you. The National Archives website publishes a transcript, and Congress.gov has the Constitution Annotated, which explains how courts have read each clause. Read the words first. Read the commentary second, including mine.

Before you start: three habits

1. Read the actual words. A paraphrase, including this one, is a guide and not a substitute.
2. Notice what is listed. The Constitution is a document of enumerated powers: it names what the federal government may do. That idea is the key to most of the document.
3. Ask who has the power, who can check it, and how it can be taken away. Those three questions explain the design.

The Preamble and Article I: Congress

Step 1. The Preamble

What it does: One sentence of about fifty words that says who is speaking ("We the People of the United States") and why: 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 for ourselves and our posterity.

Ask: Does the Preamble give any power? It does not. It states purposes. The powers come later, in the articles. The Preamble is why the document exists, not an additional grant of authority.

Step 2. Article I, Sections 1 to 3: the two chambers

What it does: Section 1 puts "all legislative Powers herein granted" in a Congress of two houses. Section 2 sets up the House of Representatives: two-year terms, members at least 25 years old, citizens for at least seven years, and the House holds the sole power of impeachment. Section 3 sets up the Senate: six-year terms, members at least 30, citizens for at least nine years, with the Vice President presiding but voting only to break a tie. The Senate tries impeachments, and conviction takes two-thirds of the members present.

Ask: Why two chambers? The Founders wanted the House close to the voters and the Senate steadier and slower, so that a bill had to pass two bodies elected differently. Notice the word "herein": Congress holds the legislative powers granted in this document, not all conceivable ones. The argument is in Congress Should Write the Laws, and Other Radical Ideas From Article I.

Step 3. Article I, Section 7: how a bill becomes law

What it does: Revenue bills start in the House. A bill that passes both chambers goes to the President, who can sign it or veto it. Congress can override a veto by a two-thirds vote in each chamber. If the President does not act within ten days, Sundays excepted, the bill becomes law without a signature, unless Congress has adjourned in the meantime, in which case it dies by what is called a pocket veto.

Ask: Where is the choke point? There are several, and that is deliberate. Making a law is meant to be hard. See How a Bill Really Becomes Law, Including the Steps Schoolhouse Rock Skipped for the steps the cartoon skipped.

Step 4. Article I, Section 8: the list

What it does: This is the longest list in the document. Congress may lay and collect taxes, borrow money, regulate commerce with foreign nations, among the several states and with the Indian tribes, set rules for naturalization, coin money, establish post offices and post roads, grant patents and copyrights, declare war, raise and support armies, provide a navy, and make all laws "necessary and proper" for carrying those powers into execution.

Ask: Is the thing Congress wants to do on the list? Whole constitutional wars have been fought over the words "commerce" and "necessary and proper." The Founder who explained why the list matters was Madison, in Congress Can Only Do What the Constitution Lists and Madison Said So.

Step 5. Article I, Sections 9 and 10: the limits

What it does: Section 9 says what Congress may not do: suspend the writ of habeas corpus except in rebellion or invasion, pass a bill of attainder (a law that declares a person guilty without a trial) or an ex post facto law (one that makes something a crime after the fact), spend money without an appropriation made by law, or grant titles of nobility. Section 10 limits the states: no coining money, no treaties, no laws impairing the obligation of contracts.

Ask: Why are the limits in the original text, and not just in the Bill of Rights? Because the framers feared the legislature as much as they feared a king.

Article II: the President

Step 6. The executive power

What it does: Section 1 vests "the executive Power" in a President serving a four-year term, who must be a natural-born citizen, at least 35 years old, and a resident for fourteen years. Section 2 makes the President commander in chief of the armed forces, gives him the power to grant reprieves and pardons for offenses against the United States (except in cases of impeachment), and the power to make treaties with the advice and consent of two-thirds of the senators present. He appoints ambassadors, judges and other officers with the advice and consent of the Senate. Section 3 requires him to report on the State of the Union and to "take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed." Section 4 says the President, Vice President and civil officers can be removed on impeachment and conviction for treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.

Ask: Does a power come from the Constitution's text or from the President's own say-so? Commander in chief does not include declaring war, which Article I gives to Congress. The pardon power has its own explainer in Pardon Power Questions Answered, From Washington to Ex parte Garland, and the impeachment process in How Impeachment Works, Step by Step, From the House Floor to the Senate Trial.

Article III: the courts

Step 7. The judicial power

What it does: The judicial power sits in "one supreme Court" and in lower courts that Congress may create. Judges hold their offices "during good Behaviour," which in practice means for life unless impeached, and their pay cannot be reduced while they serve. Section 2 sets out what cases the courts can hear and says that criminal trials, except impeachments, must be by jury. Section 3 defines treason narrowly, as levying war against the United States or giving aid and comfort to its enemies, and requires two witnesses to the same overt act or a confession in open court.

Ask: Where does it say how many justices there are? It does not. Congress sets the number by statute, and the Judiciary Act of 1869 fixed it at nine. Where does it say courts can strike down laws? Not in so many words, and that is the story of Marbury v. Madison (1803), told in Marbury v. Madison and the Power the Supreme Court Gave Itself in 1803.

Articles IV to VII: the glue

Step 8. Article IV: the states and the Union

What it does: Each state must give "full Faith and Credit" to the public acts and court judgments of the others. Citizens of each state are entitled to the privileges and immunities of citizens in the several states. New states can be admitted. Section 4 guarantees every state a republican form of government and promises protection against invasion. (The Fugitive Slave Clause in Section 2 was made void by the 13th Amendment.)

Ask: What holds fifty different legal systems together? This article, plus the Supremacy Clause that comes next.

Step 9. Article V: how to amend

What it does: An amendment can be proposed in two ways: by two-thirds of both houses of Congress, or by a convention called on the application of two-thirds of the state legislatures. It is ratified when three-fourths of the states approve, by legislatures or by state conventions, as Congress chooses. With 50 states, two-thirds means 34 (33.3 rounded up), and three-fourths means 38 (37.5 rounded up). Every one of the twenty-seven amendments came through Congress, and none through a convention. The 21st was the only one ratified by state conventions.

Ask: If something is wrong with the Constitution, what is the legitimate way to fix it? This one. See Article V Explained, and the Amendment That Took More Than 200 Years.

Step 10. Article VI: the Supremacy Clause

What it does: The Constitution, the laws of the United States made "in Pursuance thereof," and treaties are "the supreme Law of the Land," and state judges are bound by them. All federal and state officers swear an oath to support the Constitution. And "no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States."

Ask: Notice the words "in Pursuance thereof." A federal law is supreme only if it is made under the Constitution's authority. A law outside the list is not.

Step 11. Article VII: ratification

What it does: The Constitution would take effect among the states that ratified it once nine of the thirteen had done so. New Hampshire became the ninth on June 21, 1788. Virginia and New York followed, and the new government began in 1789.

Ask: Why nine and not thirteen? Because the Articles of Confederation required unanimity for amendment, and had stalled for that reason. The framers chose a lower threshold.

The Bill of Rights

Step 12. Amendments 1 to 10, ratified December 15, 1791

What they do:

1. First: religion (no establishment, free exercise), speech, press, assembly, petition.
2. Second: the right to keep and bear arms.
3. Third: no quartering of soldiers in homes in peacetime without the owner's consent.
4. Fourth: no unreasonable searches and seizures; warrants require probable cause.
5. Fifth: grand jury for serious federal crimes, no double jeopardy, no compelled self-incrimination, no deprivation of life, liberty or property without due process, no taking of property without just compensation.
6. Sixth: speedy and public trial, an impartial jury, the right to know the charges, to confront witnesses and to have a lawyer.
7. Seventh: jury trial in civil cases above a small amount.
8. Eighth: no excessive bail or fines and no cruel and unusual punishments.
9. Ninth: listing some rights does not cancel others retained by the people.
10. Tenth: powers not delegated to the United States, nor prohibited to the states, are reserved to the states or to the people.

Ask: The Bill of Rights was written as a limit on the federal government. How did it come to apply to the states? Through the 14th Amendment, case by case. And the Tenth Amendment is the shortest summary of the whole design.

The later amendments worth knowing

Step 13. Ten you should be able to name

• 12th (1804): electors vote separately for President and Vice President, after the tie in the election of 1800.
• 13th (1865): abolishes slavery and involuntary servitude, except as punishment for crime.
• 14th (1868): birthright citizenship, due process and equal protection against the states.
• 15th (1870): the vote cannot be denied on account of race.
• 16th (1913): Congress may tax incomes without apportioning among the states.
• 17th (1913): senators elected by the people of each state.
• 19th (1920): the vote cannot be denied on account of sex.
• 22nd (1951): President limited to two elected terms.
• 25th (1967): rules for presidential disability and vacancies in the vice presidency.
• 26th (1971): voting age of 18.

Ask: Which of these fixed a defect, and which changed the design? The 13th through 15th completed what the Civil War began; see Citizenship, Equal Protection and the Ballot in the 14th and 15th Amendments. The 16th and 17th altered the balance between Washington and the states. A conservative can respect all of them as lawfully adopted while debating whether each was wise.

Your one-evening plan

Here is how I would use the evening. Read the Preamble and Article I, Sections 1 to 8, which takes about twenty minutes. Read Articles II through VII, about twenty more. Read the Bill of Rights slowly, because every phrase there has a case behind it. Then skim the later amendments. Finish by looking at one landmark case on the National Archives or Congress.gov, and read how a judge applied one clause. If you want a companion on the ideas behind the text, Six Myths About the Founders and the Constitution You Can Correct Today corrects the common errors, and The Founding Ideas in Order, From Magna Carta to the Bill of Rights traces where the ideas came from.

The bottom line

• The Constitution is short: about 4,500 words in the original and under 8,000 with the amendments. You can read it in one evening and you should.
• It is a list of powers. Whenever someone claims the government may do something, ask where on the list it is, and where the limit is.
• Each branch has its own article and its own checks: Congress writes laws, the President executes them, courts decide cases, and each can stop the others.
• The way to change it is Article V: two-thirds to propose, three-fourths to ratify. Anything else is a shortcut.
• Teach someone else. Hand a copy to a teenager, a neighbor or a coworker, and ask them what they think Article I, Section 8 means. You will have a better conversation than you expected.