Preamble to the United States Constitution
The preamble was mainly written by Gouverneur Morris, a Pennsylvania delegate to the 1787 Constitutional Convention held at Independence Hall in Philadelphia.
[11] Although revolutionary in some ways, the Constitution maintained many common law concepts (such as habeas corpus, trial by jury, and sovereign immunity),[12] and courts deem that the Founders' perceptions of the legal system that the Constitution created (i.e., the interaction between what it changed and what it kept from the British legal system[13]) are uniquely important because of the authority "the People" invested them with to create it.
[17] All of these considerations of the political theory behind the Constitution have prompted the Supreme Court to articulate a variety of special rules of construction and principles for interpreting it.
[18] For example, the Court's rendering of the purposes behind the Constitution have led it to express a preference for broad interpretations of individual freedoms.
This area of substantive constitutional law is governed by the Fifth Amendment, which is understood to require that property acquired via eminent domain must be put to a "public use".
In deciding whether the proposed project constituted a "public use", the court pointed to the Preamble's reference to "promot[ing] the general Welfare" as evidence that "[t]he health of the people was in the minds of our forefathers".
The Congress passed the statute in order to cope with the Great Depression, and one of its provisions purported to give to the President authority to fix "the prices at which new cars may be sold".
[27] The Preamble's reference to the "United States of America" has been interpreted over the years to explain the nature of the governmental entity that the Constitution created (i.e., the federal government).
[30] Domestically, the federal government's sovereignty means that it may perform acts such as entering into contracts or accepting bonds, which are typical of governmental entities but not expressly provided for in the Constitution or laws.
This approach reasons that, if the political community speaking for itself in the Preamble ("We the People") includes only U.S. nationals and citizens, by negative implication it specifically excludes non-citizens in some way.
However, because it represents a general social contract, there are limits on the ability of individual citizens to pursue legal claims allegedly arising out of the Constitution.
After being sent to prison in the State of Washington, he filed a writ of habeas corpus with the local federal court, claiming he had been unconstitutionally put on trial without a jury.
"[67] The following examples help demonstrate the meaning of this distinction:[68] The phrase "to form a more perfect Union" has been construed as referring to the shift to the Constitution from the Articles of Confederation.
For example, shortly after the Civil War and the ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment, the Supreme Court said that the "Union" was made "more perfect" by the creation of a federal government with enough power to act directly upon citizens, rather than a government with narrowly limited power that could act on citizens only indirectly through the states, e.g., by imposing taxes.
[74] In the 21st century, following a pivotal, widely reported speech entitled "A More Perfect Union" by then-candidate Barack Obama in 2008, the phrase has also come to mean the continual process of improvement of the country.
If the men and women of the past, with all their flaws and limitations and ambitions and appetites, could press on through ignorance and superstition, racism and sexism, selfishness and greed, to create a freer, stronger nation, then perhaps we, too, can right wrongs and take another step toward that most enchanting and elusive destinations: a more perfect Union.
