CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

THE PREAMBLE

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more

perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, pro-

vide 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.

PURPOSE AND EFFECT OF THE PREAMBLE

Although the preamble is not a source of power for any depart-

ment of the Federal Government,

the Supreme Court has often re-

ferred to it as evidence of the origin, scope, and purpose of the Con-

stitution.

“Its true office,” wrote Joseph Story in his Commentaries,

“is to expound the nature and extent and application of the powers

actually conferred by the Constitution, and not substantively to cre-

ate them. For example, the preamble declares one object to be, ‘pro-

vide for the common defense.’ No one can doubt that this does not

enlarge the powers of Congress to pass any measures which they

deem useful for the common defence. But suppose the terms of a

given power admit of two constructions, the one more restrictive,

the other more liberal, and each of them is consistent with the words,

but is, and ought to be, governed by the intent of the power; if one

could promote and the other defeat the common defence, ought not

the former, upon the soundest principles of interpretation, to be ad-

opted?”

Jacobson v. Massachusetts, 197 U.S. 11 (1905).

E.g., the Court has read the preamble as bearing witness to the fact that the

Constitution emanated from the people and was not the act of sovereign and inde-

pendent States. McCulloch v. Maryland, 17 U.S. (4 Wheat.) 316 (1819) Chisholm v.

Georgia, 2 U.S. (2 Dall.) 419 (1793); Martin v. Hunter’s Lessee, 14 U.S. (1 Wheat.)

304 (1816), and that it was made for, and is binding only in, the United States of

America. Downes v. Bidwell, 182 U.S. 244 (1901); In re Ross, 140 U.S. 453, 464 (1891).

1 J. STORY, COMMENTARIES ON THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES (Boston: 1833),

462. For a lengthy exegesis of the preamble phrase by phrase, see M. ADLER & W.

GORMAN, THE AMERICAN TESTAMENT (New York: 1975), 63–118.