馃摐 U.S. Constitution Training
Twelve core modules, a separate module for every article and amendment, and two series on the Declaration of Independence and the Articles of Confederation. Each one teaches the history behind the clauses, the text itself quoted from the National Archives transcription, and the court cases that decided what the words mean in practice. Written for county officials, reporters and citizens who want to read the document for themselves.
"We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."Preamble, Constitution of the United States
The Course
Start with Module 1 or go straight to the clause you need. Every module has footnotes, a sources list and a five-question quiz. For a lighter test of what you learned, try Constitution Trivia.
Founding
The Articles
Article I: CongressThe House and Senate, how a bill becomes law, the enumerated powers, the Commerce and Necessary and Proper Clauses, and the limits on Congress and the states.Article II: The PresidentThe single executive, the Electoral College, the oath, war powers, appointments and removal, pardons, privilege, immunity and impeachment.Article III: The CourtsJudicial power, life tenure, jurisdiction, standing and political questions, and how judicial review began with Marbury v. Madison.Federalism and the StatesArticle IV, the Supremacy Clause, the oath, the Tenth and Eleventh Amendments, preemption, and the anti-commandeering rule that matters to sheriffs.Amending the ConstitutionArticle V, all 27 amendments by year, failed proposals, time limits, rescission, the convention debate and Idaho v. Freeman.
The Bill of Rights
The First AmendmentReligion, speech, press, assembly and petition: prior restraint, libel, incitement, public comment at meetings, officials on social media and reporter's privilege.The Second AmendmentEnglish and colonial roots, the text, Heller, McDonald, Bruen and Rahimi, the Third Amendment, and Idaho's Article I, Section 11.Search, Due Process and Fair TrialsAmendments 4 to 8: warrants and digital privacy, self-incrimination, takings, counsel, confrontation, juries, bail, fines and punishment.
Later Amendments
The Civil War AmendmentsSlavery in the original text, Dred Scott, the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments, Reconstruction, segregation, incorporation and Section 3.Voting, Taxes and the Later AmendmentsHow the vote expanded, the income tax, Prohibition, term limits, succession, one person one vote, and Idaho's 1896 suffrage fight.
Putting It Together
Every Article and Amendment
Each article and each amendment has its own full module. Modules 1 to 12 above cover the main subjects; these go clause by clause.
The PreambleWe the People, the six purposes, and what the Preamble does and does not doArticle IV: The States and the UnionFull Faith and Credit, privileges and immunities, extradition, new states, territories and the Guarantee ClauseArticle VI: Debts, Supremacy and the OathPrior debts, the Supremacy Clause, the oath of office and the ban on religious testsArticle VII: RatificationNine states, the conventions, the Federalist and Anti-Federalist fight and how the Constitution took effectThe Third AmendmentQuartering of soldiers, from the Quartering Acts to Engblom v. CareyThe Fourth AmendmentSearches, seizures, warrants, probable cause and digital privacyThe Fifth AmendmentGrand juries, double jeopardy, self-incrimination, due process and takingsThe Sixth AmendmentSpeedy public trial, jury, confrontation, compulsory process and counselThe Seventh AmendmentCivil jury trial and the re-examination clauseThe Eighth AmendmentBail, excessive fines and cruel and unusual punishmentThe Ninth AmendmentRights retained by the people, from Madison's draft to GriswoldThe Tenth AmendmentReserved powers, anti-commandeering and state sovereigntyThe Eleventh AmendmentChisholm v. Georgia, state sovereign immunity and Ex parte YoungThe Twelfth AmendmentThe Electoral College after 1800, separate ballots and contingent electionsThe Thirteenth AmendmentAbolition of slavery, the punishment clause and the enforcement powerThe Fourteenth AmendmentCitizenship, privileges or immunities, due process, equal protection and Section 3The Fifteenth AmendmentThe vote and race, enforcement, and the Voting Rights ActThe Sixteenth AmendmentThe income tax, Pollock and the power to tax incomesThe Eighteenth AmendmentProhibition: the only amendment repealed, and how it happenedThe Nineteenth AmendmentWomen's suffrage, from Seneca Falls to ratificationThe Twentieth AmendmentLame duck, inauguration dates and presidential succession gapsThe Twenty-First AmendmentRepeal of Prohibition and state control of alcoholThe Twenty-Second AmendmentPresidential term limitsThe Twenty-Third AmendmentElectoral votes for the District of ColumbiaThe Twenty-Fourth AmendmentThe poll tax ban and Harper v. Virginia Board of ElectionsThe Twenty-Fifth AmendmentPresidential disability and successionThe Twenty-Sixth AmendmentThe 18-year-old vote and Oregon v. MitchellThe Twenty-Seventh AmendmentCongressional pay, from 1789 to 1992The 17th AmendmentDirect election of senators: the old state legislature method, the deadlocks and scandals, the 1913 ratification and what it changed.
The Declaration of Independence
Nine lessons on the Declaration: the road to independence, the drafts, the daily debates in Congress, the text clause by clause, and the colony and state constitutions written beside it.
The Road to Independence, 1763 to 1776From the Stamp Act to Common Sense: colonial grievances, the First and Second Continental Congresses and the turn from reconciliation to separationThe Lee Resolution and the Committee of FiveVirginia's instructions, Richard Henry Lee's June 7 motion, the committee, and who wrote whatThe Drafts: From Jefferson's Rough Draft to the Engrossed CopyThe surviving drafts, Adams and Franklin edits, the changes Congress made and what was cutThe Debates Day by Day: June 7 to August 2, 1776The votes and delegates, John Dickinson, the secret journal, the July 1, 2 and 4 sessions and the later signingThe Text, Clause by ClauseThe preamble, the self-evident truths, the list of grievances and the closing pledge, with the sources behind each phraseColony Charters and the First State ConstitutionsRoyal, proprietary and charter colonies, then Virginia, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Maryland, North Carolina, New York, Massachusetts and the othersState Declarations of Rights and the Road to the Bill of RightsVirginia's 1776 Declaration of Rights, George Mason, the state bills of rights and their echoes in the First CongressThe Declaration After 1776Publication and reading, Lincoln, Douglass, Seneca Falls, King, and how courts and citizens have used the documentThe Declaration and the ConstitutionHow the two founding documents fit, the natural rights and consent theory, and the debate over what the Declaration means
The Articles of Confederation
Six lessons on the first national government: how the Articles were drafted and ratified, the thirteen Articles, Congress at work, the western lands, the crisis years and the road to Philadelphia.
Drafting and Ratifying the Articles of Confederation, 1775 to 1781Franklin's 1775 plan, the Dickinson draft, the November 1777 text, the land-claims fight and Maryland's holdout until 1781The Thirteen Articles, Clause by ClauseThe text article by article: the name, state sovereignty, the one-vote rule, the Committee of the States and the amendment ruleCongress Under the Articles: Debates, Departments and PowerHow the Confederation Congress met, voted, borrowed, fought a war, ran foreign affairs and made policy, with the day-to-day recordsThe Land Ordinances and the Northwest Ordinance1784, 1785 and 1787: surveying, new states, the ban on slavery north of the Ohio and the lasting precedentThe Crisis Years: Money, Trade, Shays' RebellionDebt and paper money, trade wars, Spain and the Mississippi, the 1786 rebellion and the call for reformFrom Annapolis to PhiladelphiaThe Mount Vernon and Annapolis meetings, the February 1787 call, and how the Articles were replaced rather than amended