Letter to Foreign Diplomat on Why the U.S. Constitution Is Important

Dear Researcher:

        I am writing to share the information that will provide an explanation of the role of the Declaration as to why our government is democratic and how the Constitution was used to implement the desires of the founders.

        It began in the mid-18th century, when Colonial America began to writhe under the foot of a tyrannical Great Britain. It had been more than a century since the colonies were founded and our forefathers had definitively chosen to cut loose from Britain’s rule. Our government refused to continue coping with the usurpations of the King and Parliament. The King’s consent was unjustly required for all laws to be passed, which resulted in him sometimes taking years to recognize, often annulling in the end. This made it simple for him to veto laws that would better the colonies. In addition, he would hold meetings in physically inaccessible places, thereby limiting the ability for colonists to be represented.

        It was for these and other grievances, that the Continental Congress issued the Declaration of Independence during the summer of 1776, a statement notifying Great Britain that the 13 American colonies no longer regarded themselves as a part of the British Empire, but instead as a union of independent states. This Declaration spelled out the essence of the principles and beliefs upon which the United States was founded and outlined the many grievances our congress had with the monarchical rule of the British Crown over the past decade.

        The first government set up by the Continental Congress was the Articles of Confederation. It was much less of a framework of government and more so a temporary unification that gave the Union enough power to effectively win the Revolutionary War. In 1787, after about a decade, each of the 13 states sent a delegate to Philadelphia for a meeting in which they would make revisions to the Articles of Confederation. However, instead of simply revising the Articles, they wrote a new charter of government, the Constitution. This is in essence the same Constitution that, barring a few dozen additional amendments, Americans live under today. The first ten amendments, however, were included in the Constitution as the Bill of Rights.

        The first amendment in the Bill of Rights is generally regarded as the most important. It expresses that all citizens have the freedom of religion, freedom of speech or of the press, and the right to assemble and to petition the government for a redress of grievances. This was one of the amendments that tied directly to the grievances stated in the Declaration of Independence. The right to freedom of religion is one of the key reasons colonists left Great Britain in the first place. When Congress would petition laws or grievances, the King and the Parliament would either ignore it or flat out veto it. Rarely would these laws be passed due to their impedance of the King’s monarchy.