THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES OF

AMERICA.

WE THE PEOPLE of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect
Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Transquility, 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.

ARTICLE I.

SECTION 1. All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in
a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and
House of Representatives.

SECTION 2. The House of Representatives shall be composed of
Members chosen every second Year by the People of the several States,
and the Electors in each State shall have the Qualifications requisite for
Electors of the most numerous Branch of the State Legislature.

No Person shall be a Representative who shall not have attained to
the Age of twenty-five Years, and been seven Years a Citizen of the
United States, and who shall not, when elected, be an inhabitant of
that State in which he shall be chosen.

*In May, 1785, a committee of Congress made a report recommending an altera-
tion In the Articles of Confederation, but no action was taken on it, and It was
left to the State Legislatures to proceed in the matter. In January, 1786, the
Legislature of Virginia passed a resolution providing for the appointment of five
commissioners, who, or any three of them, should meet such commissioners as
might bo appointed in the other States of the Union, at a time and place to be
agreed upon, to take into consideration the trade of the United States; to consider
how far a uniform system in their commercial regulations may be necessary to
their common interest and their permanent harmony; and to report to the several
States such an act. relative to this great object, as, when ratified by them, will
enable the United States in Congress effectually to provide for the same. The
Virginia commissioners, after some correspondence, fixed the first Monday in
September as the time, and the city of Annapolis as the place for the meeting,
but only four other States were represented, viz: Delaware, New York, New
Jersey, and Pennsylvania; the commissioners appointed by Massachusetts, New
Hampshire, North Carolina, and Rhode Island failed to attend. Under the
circumstances of so partial a representation, the commissioners present agreed
upon a report, (drawn by Mr. Hamilton, of New York.) expressing their unani-
mous conviction that it might essentially tend to advance the interests of the
Union if the States by which they were respectively delegated would concur, and
use their endeavors to procure the concurrence of the other States, in the appoint-
ment of commissioners to meet at Philadelphia on the second Monday of May
following, to take into consideration the situation of the United States; to devise
such further provisions as should appear to them necessary to render the Consti-
tution of the Federal Government adequate to the exigencies of the Union; and
to report such an act for that purpose to the United States in Congress assembled
as, when agreed to by them and afterwards confirmed by the Legislatures of every
State, would effectually provide for the same.