Law determining the fundamental political principles of a government

Usage examples of constitution.

Nor can a State withdraw Indians within its borders from the operation of acts of Congress regulating trade with them by conferring on them rights of citizenship and suffrage, whether by its constitution or its statutes.

It denied, in the second place, that there is any principle of law, common or otherwise, which pervades the Union except such as are embodied in the Constitution and the acts of Congress.

The Warrens were among those who had adamantly opposed the Constitution, convinced it would only encourage speculation and vice.

Warrens were among those who had adamantly opposed the Constitution, convinced it would only encourage speculation and vice.

The people of Massachusetts were to have the sole and exclusive right of governing themselves, and in an article intended to prevent the formation of a hereditary monarchy, an expanded version of a similar article in the Virginia constitution, Adams wrote: No man, nor corporation or association of men have any other title to obtain advantages or particular and exclusive privileges distinct from those of the community, than what arises from the consideration of services rendered to the public.

Constitution of Massachusetts was to proclaim, suggesting that such delight in life as Adams had found in the amiable outlook of the French had had a decided influence.

John Luzac of Leyden, a lawyer, scholar, and editor, published in his Gazette de Leyde a steady variety of material supplied by Adams, including the first European translation of the new Massachusetts Constitution, which was to have an important effect in the Netherlands.

The English constitution, Adams declared--and knowing he would be taken to task for it--was the ideal.

While Jefferson would have much to say about the Constitution and the need for a bill of rights in subsequent private correspondence with Madison, he made no public statement for the time being, whereas Adams sent off a strong endorsement to John Jay that was to be widely quoted at home.

Such republics of the past as Adams had written about in his Defence of the Constitutions were small in scale--so what hope was there for one so inconceivably large?

The suspicion that Adams was a monarchist at heart grew stronger, and understandably, as in his Defence of the Constitutions of Government he did seem to lean in that direction.

That Jefferson himself had once praised his Defence of the Constitutions, apparently finding no heresies therein, Adams, to his credit, made no mention.

It was hardly what Adams had called for, but it was a start, providing funds to equip and man three frigates, the Constitution, the United States, and the Constellation, which had been built during the Washington administration but remained unequipped for service.

Though it was clearly a violation of the First Amendment to the Constitution guaranteeing freedom of speech, its Federalist proponents in Congress insisted, like Adams, that it was a war measure, and an improvement on the existing common law in that proof of the truth of the libel could be used as a legitimate defense.

On July 23, Adams watched from an upstairs window as the Constitution headed out to sea from Boston under full sail.