I’m pleased to share the eighth part of a special series on American Law by Kelley Keller. I encourage you to read each part as it will help you better understand the government you cover.
Mark McGee
By Kelley Keller
Welcome to Introduction to American Law (Part 8). If you missed Parts 1 through 7, you can find them here , here , here , here , here , here, and here. This is a building series, so be sure to read these parts before proceeding to this Part 8.
As previously explained, the U.S. Constitution and its amendments include 287 unique provisions, each of which was researched, debated, and carefully considered during the Constitutional Convention. Together, these provisions painstakingly outline a government designed to promote and protect the principles of freedom, peace, and prosperity, each of which enriches the whole of mankind. Our exploration of these provisions will demystify the goals of the founders and help us analyze whether our current government honors or ignores them.
Always bear in mind that the U.S. Constitution is the Supreme Law of the Land, and will remain so unless and until it is discarded. As such, any journalist covering legal issues should be well-versed in the content, structure, and meaning of the Constitution in order to provide fair, balanced, and insightful commentary on topics related to or influenced by the law. At the end of the day, the only question that matters when it comes to questions of American law is: Is it Constitutional? We’ve been asking and answering this question for 250 years, and I trust we’ll do so for another 250 years.
Let’s get started.
The Constitution Includes 287 Provisions for American Freedom
During the Constitutional Convention, the founders formed the Committee of Detail and tasked it with drafting the text of the Constitution, including an introductory paragraph, or preamble. They also formed the Committee of Style and Arrangement and charged it with arranging the various articles and approving the prose throughout the document.
Gouverneur Morris, a 36 year old bachelor from Pennsylvania who served as the Committee of Style’s chair, believed that few Americans would actually read the text of the Constitution (he was wrong about this) so the introductory preamble needed to pack a powerful punch. It would need to summarize the Constitution’s primary objectives cogently and effectively. Think of the preamble as the TL;DR (too long, didn’t read), or BLUF (bottom line up front).
The original preamble produced by the Committee of Detail didn’t accomplish Morris’ mission, so he and fellow committee members rejected it and prepared a new draft which identified six overarching Constitutional objectives. Morris’ draft was adopted in the final version of the Constitution, which we read today. Curiously, this was the first time these objectives were memorialized on parchment. Over time, Morris’ poetic pen and political insight have been praised by historians. As they say, he included everything that needed to be there, and nothing more.
Promises of the Preamble to the United States Constitution
Let’s review the preamble in full, then broadly review the objectives it explains.
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.
The First Seven (of 287) Provisions of the Constitution Establishes Its Authority, Identifies Its Objectives, and Declares Its Permanence
The preamble is prefatory text in that it functions as an introduction to the Constitution. As such, it alone doesn’t have any legal effect as it doesn’t grant powers or confer or confirm rights. However, it sets the foundation for everything that comes after and orients the reader to the Founders’ intentions.
The Preamble Establishes the Source of the Federal Government’s Authority
Provision 1: The Constitution is ordained and established by “We the People.”
The first draft of the preamble contained the language, We, the States. The final version was amended to read, We, the People of the United States. Why was the change to We, the People significant? Think on that one!
The Preamble Identifies Six Overarching Objectives of the Constitution
Provision 2: Form a more perfect union. The experience of being governed under the Articles of Confederation revealed its weaknesses in binding the states together in any meaningful way.
Provision 3: Establish Justice. The Constitution is designed to provide equal justice for all, not just some. Equal justice is attained when the government properly protects the rights of all the people from whom its power is derived and provides them with a fair process and appropriate remedy for violations.
Provision 4: [E]nsure domestic tranquility. The Constitution is designed to ensure that the people are able to live securely and peacefully by creating a political framework that supports and maintains law and order.
Provision 5: Provide for the Common Defense. The Constitution shall provide for a common defense against all enemies, foreign and domestic, who may seek to conquer or destroy the United States. This may come externally through invasion, or internally through subversion.
Provision 6: Promote the general Welfare. The Constitution is designed to promote those practices and policies which shall be for the general welfare of the whole nation, not the special welfare of certain groups. This provision guards against the government administering its power in a discriminatory or prejudicial way, favoring some people or groups of people over others.
Provision 7: Secure the Blessings of Liberty The Founders stated that the purpose of the Constitution would be to secure the blessings of liberty not just for themselves and their posterity, but for each successive generation. Creating a limited government with a division of powers would keep things from veering toward tyranny on the one hand and anarchy on the other.
The Preamble Underscores the Permanency of the Constitution
As indicated in Provision 7, the Founders make it clear that the written Constitution is to endure. This was completely unheard of at the time. Indeed, Britain’s constitution wasn’t codified (it still isn’t) which makes it extremely easy to change. The founders specifically rejected this by adopting a written constitution with a strict process for its amendment. Frustration with the difficulty of amending the Constitution has led to an ever-growing debate on the correctness of interpretive review (sticking to the text and original meaning) and noninterpretive review (using external sources including foreign laws and legal systems) of the Constitution, but it’s still a key provision in the document. We’ll explore these dueling concepts in a future article.
[1 The 287 provisions draw from W. Cleon Skousen, The Making of America: The Substance and Meaning of the Constitution, © 1985, W. Cleon Skousen, © 1991, 2007 The National Center for Constitutional Studies.]
Wrapping Up
The preamble to the Constitution is chock full of information regarding the intentions of the founders when forming a new type of government with dispersed and limited powers. Often, we recite the preamble without giving much consideration to the text itself, but in doing so we leave a significant amount of understanding on the cutting floor.
Next time, we’ll unpack the preamble in greater detail so our journey through the Constitutional text itself will be more meaningful.
Copyright © Kelley Keller, 2025
Kelley Keller is a writer, researcher, and public speaker focusing on themes and issues at the intersection of law, society, and worldview and why they matter to everyday Americans. In addition to writing for third-party publications, Kelley publishes The Savvy Citizen, an online magazine with a supporting podcast chock full of insights on the rights and responsibilities of American citizenship and how those rights are secured by and protected under the U.S. Constitution and the government it creates.
Before her writing career, Kelley spent 27 years working on intellectual property, privacy, and Internet law matters in various professional capacities, including 8 years supporting international training programs on trade-related aspects of intellectual property and 15 years in the private practice of law. Kelley’s work took her to numerous countries, including China, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Turkey, Kenya, and South Africa, giving her significant breadth and depth of experience with complex matters having a global impact. Most recently, Kelley presented a seminar on Lawfare in Great Power Competition at the Führungsakademie der Bundeswehr (German Army Staff College) in Hamburg, Germany.
Kelley holds a Bachelor of Arts from Penn State, a Juris Doctor from The Catholic University of America, and is a candidate for the Doctor of Ministry in Apologetics degree at Southern Evangelical Seminary. In September 2024, she was commissioned as a Fellow with the Colson Center for Worldview.
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