when did the us constitution come into force
United States Constitution Since the Constitution came into force in 1789, it has been amended twenty-seven times[2] to meet the changing needs of a nation now profoundly different from the eighteenth-century world in which its creators lived.[3] In general, the first ten amendments, known collectively as the Bill of Rights, offer specific protections of individual liberty and justice and place restrictions on the powers of government.[4][5] The majority of the seventeen later amendments expand individual civil rights protections. Others address issues related to federal authority or modify government processes and procedures. Amendments to the United States Constitution, unlike ones made to many constitutions worldwide, are appended to the document. All four pages[6] of the original U.S. Constitution are written on parchment.[7]
Massachusetts From 1786 to 1787, an armed uprising, known as Shays' Rebellion led by Revolutionary War veteran Daniel Shays wrought havoc throughout Massachusetts and ultimately attempted to seize the Federal armory.[50] The rebellion was one of the major factors in the decision to draft a stronger national constitution to replace the Articles of Confederation.[50] On February 6, 1788, Massachusetts became the sixth state to ratify the United States Constitution.[107]
51st state Before Alaska and Hawaii became states of the United States in 1959, the corresponding expression was "the 49th state".
Law of the United States Unlike the situation with the states, there is no plenary reception statute at the federal level that continued the common law and thereby granted federal courts the power to formulate legal precedent like their English predecessors. Federal courts are solely creatures of the federal Constitution and the federal Judiciary Acts.[41] However, it is universally accepted that the Founding Fathers of the United States, by vesting "judicial power" into the Supreme Court and the inferior federal courts in Article Three of the United States Constitution, thereby vested in them the implied judicial power of common law courts to formulate persuasive precedent; this power was widely accepted, understood, and recognized by the Founding Fathers at the time the Constitution was ratified.[42] Several legal scholars have argued that the federal judicial power to decide "cases or controversies" necessarily includes the power to decide the precedential effect of those cases and controversies.[43]