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The Constitution of the United States is the supreme law of the United States. [ 3 ] It superseded the Articles of Confederation, the nation's first constitution, on March 4, 1789. Originally including seven articles, the Constitution delineates the frame of the federal government.
At the time of the drafting of the Constitution in 1787, and its ratification in 1789, slavery was banned by the states in New England and Pennsylvania and by the Congress of the Confederation in the Northwest Territory, by the Northwest Ordinance. Though slaves were present in other states, most were forced to work in agriculture in the South.
The United States Bill of Rights comprises the first ten amendments to the United States Constitution.Proposed following the often bitter 1787–88 debate over the ratification of the Constitution and written to address the objections raised by Anti-Federalists, the Bill of Rights amendments add to the Constitution specific guarantees of personal freedoms and rights, clear limitations on the ...
The federal government of the United States ( U.S. federal government or U.S. government) [ a] is the national government of the United States, a federal republic located primarily in North America, composed of 50 states, five major self-governing territories, several island possessions, and the federal district /national capital of Washington ...
This is an overall measure of freedom available to the press, including a range of factors including government censorship, control over journalistic access, and whistleblower protections. The U.S.'s ranking fell from 20th in 2010 to 49th in 2015, before recovering to 41st in 2016. Freedom House, a U.S.-based watchdog organization, ranked the ...
The first ten amendments were adopted and ratified simultaneously and are known collectively as the Bill of Rights. The 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments are collectively known as the Reconstruction Amendments. Six amendments adopted by Congress and sent to the states have not been ratified by the required number of states.
The US Customary system of units was developed and used in the United States after the American Revolution, based on a subset of the English units used in the Thirteen Colonies; it is the predominant system of units in the United States and in U.S. territories (except Puerto Rico and Guam, where the metric system is also officially used and is ...
U.S. presidential election popular vote totals as a percentage of the total U.S. population. Note the surge in 1828 (extension of suffrage to non-property-owning white men), the drop from 1890 to 1910 (when Southern states disenfranchised most African Americans and many poor whites), and another surge in 1920 (extension of suffrage to women).