The Constitution of the United States of America: Welcome

The Avalon Project

On this site, constitutional experts interact with each other to explore the Constitution’s history and what it means today.

Writing the U.S. Constitution

Authenticated text of the Constitution, U.S. Government Publishing Office, 2016

The Center for the Study of the American Constitution (CSAC) is a resource for “scholars, educators, and students who are interested in the American Constitution in its historical context.”

The Albany Plan of Union was a plan to create a unified government for the Thirteen Colonies, suggested by Benjamin Franklin, then a senior leader (age 45) and a delegate from Pennsylvania, at the Albany Congress on July 10, 1754 in Albany, New York.

The Continental Association, often known simply as the "Association", was a system created by the First Continental Congress in 1774 for implementing a trade boycott with Great Britain.The boycott became operative on December 1, 1774.

On June 7, 1776, Richard Henry Lee of Virginia proposed independence for the American colonies by introducing this resolution in the Second Continental Congress.

On June 11, 1776, the Congress appointed three concurrent committees in response to the Lee Resolution: one to draft a declaration of independence, a second to draw up a plan "for forming foreign alliances," and a third to "prepare and digest the form of a confederation." Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman, and Robert R. Livingston were appointed to a committee to draft a declaration of independence.

On June 28, A fair copy of the committee draft of the Declaration of Independence was read in Congress.

On July 1-4, Congress debated and revised the Declaration of Independence.

On July 2, Congress declared independence by adopting the Lee Resolution.

An agreement among the thirteen original states, approved in 1781, that provided a loose federal government before the present Constitution went into effect in 1789.