1. Preamble PREAMBLE
We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
The Preamble in a Nutshell
The Preamble is the introductory statement that precedes the various provisions of the Constitution. In it, the Framers announced their goals for the Constitution as a governing document and the values underlying its provisions. The Preamble makes clear that the Constitution’s power and authority proceed from the American people.
Origin Story
It is not surprising that the Framers chose to introduce the Constitution with a preamble. Preambles were common features of legal documents, including the English Bill of Rights of 1689, the Habeas Corpus Act of 1679, and other documents that informed the Framers’ understanding of constitutionalism. Indeed, the Articles of Confederation, the governing document that preceded the Constitution, contained a preamble that declared the end of the thirteen colonies and the birth of a new “Confederation and perpetual Union.”

Today, the Preamble is arguably the part of the Constitution that most Americans know best. Yet the question of whether to include a preface—and if so, what that prefatory text would say—was not a topic of debate at the Constitutional Convention. Indeed, it was late in the drafting stage when Virginia delegate Edmund Randolph mused that “[a] preamble seems proper.”1 From there, the Preamble underwent various iterations, ultimately settling on a statement articulating the purposes of the new governing charter (and by implication, outlining the failures of the predecessor Articles of Confederation). Ironically, the Preamble’s famous opening line, “We the People,” was something of an afterthought.
Commentary
We the People…

An initial draft of the Preamble, which identified all of the thirteen states by name, was unanimously approved by all the delegates at the Constitutional Convention. However, when this draft was referred to the Committee of Style—a smaller subset of the convention delegates who were charged with editing the document—the committee eliminated the names of the thirteen states, replacing them with “We the People.” The convention records are silent as to the exact rationale for the change, but the records of the various state ratification conventions suggest that the shift was not merely rhetorical. When the Constitution was submitted for ratification, a number of Anti-Federalists raised objections to the use of “We the People.” As they argued, the states, rather than the people, were the “soul of a confederation” and for that reason, the true “agents of this compact.”2 Prominent Federalists, like John Marshall (later a chief justice of the Supreme Court), countered by noting that the powers of the states and the federal government were themselves derived from the consent of the people.3

… in Order to form a more perfect Union,…

The need to form “a more perfect Union” responded directly to the deficiencies of the Articles of Confederation, the United States’ first governing charter. Adopted in 1777 by the Continental Congress, the Articles established a “league of friendship” between the thirteen states, but this loose framework was incapable of constructing a strong national government that could mediate interstate conflicts, wage war, negotiate peace, and manage foreign commerce and diplomacy. When the war ended, the states sent delegates to Philadelphia for the purpose of amending the Articles. But it immediately became clear that modification would not cure what ailed this first charter. So, the delegates pivoted and began to draft a new governing document from scratch.

… establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility,…

In The Federalist Papers, a series of essays arguing for ratification of the Constitution, Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay, under the pseudonym “Publius,” emphasized the threat of interstate conflicts as evidence of the need for a strong federal government.

… provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare,…

Fresh from the Revolutionary War with Britain, it is unsurprising that national security was a critical concern for the Framers—indeed, John Jay addressed the subject in Federalist 25.4 The Preamble’s references to the “common defence” and “general Welfare” reflect the language of the Articles of Confederation, which made similar stipulations. However, the Articles of Confederation did not make provisions for federal or national authority to provide for either. Instead, the effort was a cooperative endeavor among the thirteen states. The prospect of relying on the states to “crowdsource” the national defense struck Alexander Hamilton as wrongheaded. In Federalist 23, he dismissed as “ill-founded and illusory”5 the hope that the states might secure the nation’s defense and welfare. Responsibility for protecting the “national interests,” Hamilton maintained, must rest with the federal government.

… and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity,…

The reference to “Posterity” underscores the Constitution’s status as the oldest written Constitution in continuous use in world history. In memorializing the Constitution as a written document, the Framers struck an immediate contrast with Great Britain and its unwritten Constitution. As the Framers intended, the written Constitution has endured as a guiding charter of American government. Its example, too, has inspired other nations to set down their own governing principles in writing.