Why did it take 13 years before the Americans decided they needed a constitution?
Our leaders at the time thought we should give it a try as thirteen more nearly independent states. New York didn’t want to cede any political power to Virginia, thank you very much, and all around vice versa.
That, and you think it’s easy to write a set of rules that’ll last 200 years? It is not, by all accounts of the day.
Because we had a system of government in place for that 13 years. The Articles of Confederation were adopted in 1777, while the Revolution was still going on. It provided for a VERY weak central government, making the new nation pretty much a loose alliance of sovereign states.
The problems that this caused for things like paying the soldiers and the new country’s debts wasn’t fully obvious until more than a decade after they were adopted, at least in part because of the fact that the Revolution was a pretty huge distraction from the niceties of political philosophy.
The Constitutional Convention was supposed to only suggest ways to improve the Articles. There was actually quite a bit of suspicion that some of the delegates were going to try to do exactly what they did: draft and vote on a completely new system of government. Patrick Henry was chosen as a delegate but refused to attend because, as he put it, he “smelt a rat”.
Even after the Constitution was drafted, it wasn’t immediately obvious as an improvement over the Articles. It took a very long struggle to get the thing ratified because of states-rights advocates who considered it to be a usurpation of the sovereignty of the states.
During the end of the Revolutionary War, we used a governing document called the Articles of Confederation, which ended up being inadequate after the war.
Edit: Hey, Jayjay simulposted and did it better!
Was it a given at that time that countries needed a constitution or was the
US one of the first to write one? What I mean is, did someone come along and say, “Why don’t we write a constitution that binds as together” or was it more like “Hey fellas, I thinks its time we write that constitution. I think we need one now.”
Am I correct that Great Britain still doesn’t have a written consitution?
You are correct in that there is no single document we could point to. We do have constitutional law covering the same ideas, but that’s spread around many different pieces of legislation. And we have unwritten rules, which are followed even though there is technically no actual law to enforce them.
Like **jayjay ** said, the Constitution was written to address problems arising from trying to “run the place” with the Articles of Confederation. It wasn’t like we needed one to be ISO 1776 compliant (tee hee).
The Articles of Confederation were a constitution. So the current constitution is actually the second one the US has had. Virginia first adopted one in 1776, so that predated the Articles. I don’t think there were any earlier ones.
From Wikipedia:
Well, if you’re using Constitution to mean a set of rules preceded by the reasons said rules should exist, then maybe the Mayflower Compact of 1620 would count, but I wouldn’t really press that.
However, the current Massachusetts Constitution from 1780, copies of which I used to hand out to schoolchildren over 200 years later, is considered the oldest functioning one in the world. Its preamble may sound a little familiar:
Originally posted by the Constitutional Convention of Massachusetts Bay:
Yes, Virginia’s first constitution was a bit older, but it has since had five or six major revisions, with new Conventions, so it’s not usually considered the same document. MA has had the same one with over a hundred amendments added but with the same document, although things like “white”, “males”, “landowners”, and such phrases have been taken out and things like terms altered.
Sorry, I know how furriners hate it when we have to answer “It’s one of those things that’s different for every state!” but it’s true again here. My own NY state has a 45-page monstrosity that looks like it was written by a lawyer because it mostly was.
Ahem. So, the point is that constitutions were already part of our culture and it seemed logical, when a new system was needed, to write one covering the entire country. It is most renowned for the great compromise that meant small and large states both got voices in Congress–an upper house with equal representation in Congress and a lower with seats allocated by population.
I’ve heard that over half the length of the New York Constitution is simply amendments exempting particular pieces of land in the Adirondacks from provisions that would otherwise preclude any development on them.
Parallel to the OP, I’ll just point out that the EU is in a similar state where a little over a decade after forming, a need to rework the system was necessary.
What looks good on paper will usually be found to have flaws once put into effect.
Ah, no. The USA as a sovereign country did not exist prior to the ratification of the Constitution. The Articles governed thirteen sovereign countries in a loose confederation.
Let this serve as an example of exactly why every state is different. Originally (back when the world was huge), the states wanted to be independent and have a very loose federal government. That gave rise to small things like our separate systems of state and federal courts and big things like the American Civil War (one that still subtlely rages in parts of the south).
Do you have a cite that the USA was not a sovereign country between 1781 (end of the war / adoption of the Articles of Confederation) and 1788 (adoption of the Constitution)?
A weak-central-government confederation is still a sovereign country.
Of course the United States existed under the Articles. The central government was given the power to deal with other nations. It also had sole authority over military forces. And it could maintain its own currency. Those are all things sovereign nations do.
The central government didn’t have as much power as it would under the Constitution, but that doesn’t mean the US didn’t exist.
The states are not nearly as independent as they were in this vision, but important remnants of it still exist in our political and legal structure. For instance, each state decides when to have its primary election, even for President and Vice President. And almost all the laws that govern our daily lives, from parking violations to felonies to building codes to business and professions, are set forth in state statutes rather than federal ones. Even doctors, whose privileges of prescribing narcotics are managed by the federal DEA, still are licensed by state boards.
Do any other countries have this type of arrangement? For instance, do Canadian provinces or German Laender have such extensive legal codes that are applicable only within their borders?
Niiiiiiice line. I’ll be using this one today. Thanks! 
Most incorrect. VERY incorrect. Made on the basis of a false assumption entirely.
Indeed, for the period 1776 to 1781, the United States of America had no written constitution. That is, it had no single document titled a constitution, or which carried out the function of a constitution. The method of government was, like that of the United Kingdom, based upon what the delegates to the Continental Congress decided to do, to the extent that the sovereign states allowed.
At present, there is little difference, except that the sovereign states gave up some portions of their sovereignity to the federal government when they adopted the Constitution of 1787.
But, since July 4, 1776, there has been in existence The United States of America.