Institutional Choices and the Preamble: It’s a Real-World Document, Not a Utopian Blueprint

Abstract

The US Constitution is a magnificent achievement. As the longest-lasting national document of its kind in the world, it has guided the nation through good times and bad. Although it serves as a practical instrument of government, many citizens also regard it as though it were sacred. Most Americans are vaguely familiar with the Constitution’s central principles. It created a representative government with three branches. It provided for a bicameral congress to make the laws, a unitary president to enforce them, and a hierarchical judiciary to interpret them. It created a federal system that divided power between the nation and the states, both with authority to act on individual citizens. It promotes the common good by granting powers to various government and protects individual rights by limiting such powers.