List of Presidential Vetoes The Senate Library maintains a list of all bills vetoed by presidents over time. This list is published from time to time. The source for the information presented on this page was published in three documents, Presidential Vetoes, 1789 – 1988, Presidential Vetoes, 1989 – 2000, and Vetoes by President George…

Message Board Posting Tips Advertisement The USConstitution.net messaging system uses the YaBB system for posting messages and replies. The YaBB system is used throughout the Internet and may already be familiar to many users. This document will offer some tips for posting, both from a technical and a social point of view. The social tips…

The Virginia Plan Advertisement The Constitutional Convention was tasked with proposing amendments to the Articles of Confederation which would make it a more workable plan for national government. Though the final product of the Convention was a replacement for the Articles, the first proposal was presented as a series of changes to the Articles. The…

Charles Pinckney’s Plan Advertisement The Constitutional Convention was tasked with proposing amendments to the Articles of Confederation which would make it a more workable plan for national government. James Madison, largely regarded as the Father of the Constitution, came to the Convention with a list of changes he wanted to see discussed and implemented, a…

The New Jersey Plan Advertisement The Constitutional Convention was tasked with proposing amendments to the Articles of Confederation which would make it a more workable plan for national government. The Convention began with the text of the Virginia Plan and Charles Pinckney’s notes before them, and for three weeks, the provisions were debated. The smaller…

The British Plan Advertisement The Constitutional Convention was tasked with proposing amendments to the Articles of Confederation which would make it a more workable plan for national government. The Convention began with the text of the Virginia Plan and Charles Pinckney’s notes. New Jersey and the smaller states of the union, determined not to be…

The Treaty of Paris The American Revolutionary War began in April of 1775, and though the outcome was never certain, the Americans had the force of will to carry them through the conflict. That, and the skill and good luck of the American military commanders. In 1781, the Continental Army, under the command of General…

Other Constitutions and Constitutional Resources Advertisement The Constitution is presented in several formats on this site: As one large, HTML-enhanced document As a series of pages, one for each section and amendment In plain-text In Palm DOC format In enhanced TealDoc Palm DOC format PalmPilot users – Recommended readers: AportisDoc or TealDoc!. Below are links…

Barack Obama’s Keynote Speech The 2004 Democratic National Convention in Boston had one main purpose: to nominate Senator John Kerry to be the Democratic candidate for president. The party called on all speakers to tone down anti-George Bush rhetoric, hoping to prevent the party from being portrayed as just an opposition party. Many pundits felt…

The Miranda Warning Advertisement The Constitution reserves many rights for those suspected of crime. One of the fears of the Framers was that the government could act however it wished by simply saying an individual was a suspected criminal. Many of the rights in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, such as habeas corpus,…

The Mayflower Compact stories of survival, of relations with American Indians, of the first Thanksgiving, and of religious freedom found, are the stuff of American legend. One of the cornerstones of the Pilgrim ethos is the Mayflower Compact. The Pilgrims were a small group of people bound by common religious beliefs. They did not believe…

The Massachusetts Government Act When Massachusetts was first chartered, a council of inhabitants was formed, the 28 members of which were to be chosen annually by the people of the colony. This bit of democratic representation was unique among the many colonies, and it was a right the people took seriously and enjoyed, given the…

The Magna Carta Advertisement Of all the documents that make up the ancestry of the Constitution, one of the oldest is the Magna Carta (also known as the Magna Charta or the Great Charter). It was created in 1215 in England. It was an agreement between King John and the nobility of the day. The…

Madison’s Introduction of the Bill of Rights James Madison, is considered by many to be the father of the Constitution, and not without good reason. What is perhaps less well known is his role in the Bill of Rights, too. During the Convention, the delegates were mostly set against the inclusion of a bill of…

Richard Henry Lee’s Independence Resolution In the spring and early summer of 1776, war with Britain looked more and more likely. There had already been battles, but many of the leaders of the colonies felt that reconciliation with the Crown was still possible. But things deteriorated rapidly. King George sent Hessian troops to America, a…

Jefferson’s Wall of Separation Letter Thomas Jefferson was a man of deep religious conviction — his conviction was that religion was a very personal matter, one which the government had no business getting involved in. He was vilified by his political opponents for his role in the passage of the 1786 Virginia Statute for Religious…

The Report of the Hartford Convention As Britain and France battled each other in the early 1800’s, enterprising Americans wanted to take advantage of the war by transporting goods for both sides, across each nation’s blockade lines. The violation of the lines angered both governments, but Britain most of all. In a move widely hated…

The Gettysburg Address For three days in July 1863, Union and Confederate forces fought fierce battles at and near Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. The Union turned back one of the last major thrusts of the Confederate troops toward the North. Many consider it the turning point in the war; after Gettysburg, the South had to fight a…

The Fugitive Slave Act Advertisement The Compromise of 1850 was introduced to stave off conflict between the slave states and the free states upon the admission of California as a state. Under the Compromise, California was admitted as a free state, New Mexico and Utah were organized as slave territories, and Texas had its boundaries…

Benjamin Franklin’s Articles of Confederation Benjamin Franklin had long been a proponent of self-government and independence for the colonies of North America. In 1754, he had penned The Albany Plan for uniting the colonies, but the rest of the people were not ready at the time. He waited. The Second Continental Congress convened on May…

Speech of Benjamin Franklin Advertisement Monday, September 17, 1787, was the last day of the Constitutional Convention. Pennsylvania delegate Benjamin Franklin, one of the few Americans of the time with international repute, wanted to give a short speech to the Convention prior to the signing of the final draft of the Constitution. Too weak to…