I'm just a Bill

(As always, if you want to follow along, the full text of the US Constitution is available here, from the National Archives)

Today, we take a crack at Article I, which is the article of the Constitution that sets up the legislative branch of the government.
Let's start with the whole "separation of powers" concept. Very clever. Checks and balances and other staples of civics class. The founders were really worried that someone was going to get too powerful, and having just fought a revolution I'm sure they weren't too eager to fight another. Anyway, onto the text.
The basics of Article I are as follows:
There's a Congress, which consists of a House of Representatives and a Senate (lower and upper houses, hooray bicameral legislature!). In order to serve in the House, you've got to be 25 (hmm, wonder if I could get elected...); 30 to be a Senator. And you have to be a US citizen and live in the state that elects you. Representatives serve for two-year terms, Senators six, with one-third of the Senate standing for election every two years.

And then we start to get technical. First we start with how things are divided. Part of why we have a bicameral legislature is because all states were not created equal. Some are big, some are small, some rural, some urban, some heavily populated, some kinda lonely. So, the states with the smaller populations wanted everyone to have the same number of legislators. The states with big populations thought we should have proportional representation, so that smaller populations wouldn't have a disproportionate voice. Thus, a compromise. The Senate has two senators per state. The House has one representative for every 30,000 people, but at least one per state (so if you only have 15,000, you still get a vote in the House). But! Despite the Declaration of Independence saying that all men are created equal, great inequality existed during the early days of our Republic (and, to be honest, still does). So, the Southern states were torn. On the one hand, they want as many representatives as they're entitled to. But if they insist on counting slaves as people for purposes of government representation, then shouldn't said slaves be treated like people? Thus, another compromise: slaves counted as 3/5 of a person for purposes of Congressional representation. Good times (NB, the constitution doesn't actually say "slaves". It says "free persons" and "all other persons". Classy)
And, next time you cast your ballot for Senate, you should know that you couldn't always do that (even if you were a white, land-owning man who could vote at all). Originally, Senators weren't chosen by the people. They were chosen by the State legislatures of each state (which were elected by the "people"). Can't have the riff-raff having too much say in who makes the laws!
Then we start to get into what powers, specifically, Congress as a whole and its different branches have. This is the reason most Social Studies teachers don't make you read the whole thing. It's a long list. One of the things I love are all the bits about what happens immediately- how many Representatives each State gets, the staggering of elections for Senate, a bunch of other things. Including: "The Migration or Importation of such Persons as any of the States now existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by the Congress prior to the Year one thousand eight hundred and eight, but a Tax or duty may be imposed on such Importation, not exceeding ten dollars for each Person." (I:9) In other words, they left the thorny question of the slave trade to Future!Congress, rather than dealing with it themselves. 1808 was 21 years away when that paragraph was written, plenty of time for the slave trade to die a natural death, if that's what it was going to do. Which of course, is what they hoped, and what didn't happen. No one could figure out how to deal with this problem, because slavery was a driving force of the US economy but a horribly immoral practice. And the inability of these privileged white men to deal with it carries forward to our contemporary issues of racism and people not wanting to talk about it or deal with it (especially privileged white men).

One of the parts that affects me personally is this: "To exercise exclusive Legislation in all Cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten Miles square) as may, by Cession of particular States, and the Acceptance of Congress, become the Seat of the Government of the United States, and to exercise like Authority over all Places purchased by the Consent of the Legislature of the State in which the Same shall be, for the Erection of Forts, Magazines, Arsenals, dock-Yards, and other needful Buildings". (I:8) Also this: "The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;" (I:8) So right there we have my Taxation without Representation. Course, the Founders never thought that anyone would actually live in the District. And if that thought that Philadelphia summer that they spent drafting the Constitution was bad, they should see DC in August (or maybe that's why they didn't think anyone would live here).

Ironically, in the same section where the slave trade is allowed to continue until 1808, the Writ of Habeas Corpus is enshrined. This is one of the rights that got into the first draft, rather than waiting until the Bill of Rights. Additionally, we are told that no "Title of Nobility" (I:9) shall be granted, nor shall there be kings or anything of the sort. Nor is Congress allowed to just take money out of the Treasury willy-nilly, they have to do it via an appropriations bill. Which doesn't really seem to stop them.

So that's Article I. A perfect encapsulation of the various compromises and conflicts that the founders were wrestling with. Were we a rural nation or an urban one? How much power should go directly into the hands of the people? How do we make sure everyone gets a voice? How do we make many into one? (by forbidding the states to make their own money and treaties, see section 10) And what do we do about slavery?
These questions and more to be answered in the next three centuries of: The United States of America.