Constitution Day

By: Sean Chavez '24

September 17 marks the day when the founding fathers signed the United States Constitution back in the year 1787. The school could not celebrate on that day because it landed on Sunday but this Wednesday Mr. Iniguez and his 4th-period 11th-grade class set up trivia booths at center circle for students to learn more about the Constitution. Teachers who signed up for the event brought their classes to learn about the Constitution. Students would go to a display board that talked about one article of the Constitution and its importance. They could then answer questions and receive a small prize like candy.

Mr. Iniguez believes that students aren’t the only ones who should learn about the Constitution and says, “ I think it’s for everyone to learn about the Constitution because the document is not just for a certain age group or a certain class of people, it's for everyone. The constitution is important because this is how we are all going to essentially be interacting in our society and we interact with one another through rights and laws”

When the founding fathers were setting up the federal government for the United States they originally came up with the Articles of Confederation. The Articles proved to be weak and ineffective since the federal government had very little power and could do things such as establish a federal militia or impose taxes on states. As a result, the United States Constitution was formed and would provide a stronger federal government. Power would be separated into three branches with a system of checks and balances so that each branch would not have more power than the other.

Many people had different opinions on the Constitution which led to debates over its ratification. People would be divided between either Federalist or Anti-Federalist beliefs. The Federalists wanted a strong central government while the Anti-Federalists wanted a bill of rights to protect states from the federal government, should it abuse its power.

To encourage people to ratify the new Constitution, Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay wrote a series of essays defending the Constitution. These papers would later be known as the Federalist Papers. The first state to ratify the Constitution was Delaware on December 7, 1787, and Rhode Island would be the last state to ratify it on May 9, 1789. James Madison would later introduce 12 amendments in 1789 and on December 15, 1791, 10 of those amendments would become the Bill of Rights. The Constitution would not only protect our given rights but it would also become influential to other places in the world with some European colonies citing the Constitution when establishing their own governments.