States of Germany and North Rhine-Westphalia are divided into governmental districts, or "Regierungsbezirke". In Rhineland-Palatinate, these districts were abolished on January 1, 2000, in Saxony-Anhalt on January 1, 2004, and in Lower Saxony on January 1, 2005. From 1990 until 2012, Saxony was divided into three districts (called "Direktionsbezirke" since 2008). In 2012, these districts' authorities were merged into one central authority, the "". The Districts of Germany "(Kreise)" are administrative districts, and every state except the city-states of Berlin and Hamburg and the state of Bremen consists of "rural districts" "(Landkreise)," District-free Towns/Cities ("Kreisfreie Städte", in Baden-Württemberg also called "urban districts", or
History of the United States Constitution by Congress were allayed by amendments passed under the floor leadership of James Madison during the first session of Congress. These first ten Amendments became known as the Bill of Rights. Objections to a potentially remote federal judiciary were reconciled with 13 federal courts (11 states, plus Maine and Kentucky), and three federal riding circuits out of the Supreme Court: Eastern, Middle and South. Suspicion of a powerful federal executive was answered by Washington's cabinet appointments of once-Anti-Federalists Edmund Jennings Randolph as Attorney General and Thomas Jefferson as Secretary of State. What Constitutional historian Pauline Maier termed a national "dialogue