The people who wrote the Constitution and those who voted it had a goal to create that is "a more perfect union". Still what is the measure of the perfection? Two hundred years of independent history, of steady and reputed democracy? What does "a union" mean? Finally, does USA manage nowadays to achieve such a "more perfect" union or does the USA constitute a united country?
We cannot deny that the U.S. today is a federation of fifty independent states covering 9.83 million km2 areas with about 308 million people. However, to properly answer the question above, besides these data we also need to decrypt what "united" does mean and then, by using different ways of understanding this word, we'll explore the nature of the U.S. union.
First of all according to the modern dictionary "united", stands for "produced by joint action" and, referring to the U.S. Such unity can be discovered through the history of its creation. Secondly, it means "made one" which supposes some common elements for all fifty states composing the Union. And finally, last but not least, to be united one need an agreement, thus, we should appreciate the U.S. nation as a harmonious one.
[...] Even though it appears that every state was represented in the Convention but we should not forget the Afro-American slaves who constituted quiet a large part of the U.S. population who had no right to express their opinion on the subject. The Convention succeeded in adopting the new U.S. Constitution, after many compromises that has been approved by thirty-nine delegates in September 1787, and then ratified by a sufficient number of states by June 1788. The Constitution definitely took effect in spring 1789 (with Rhode Island and California ratifying it afterwards). [...]
[...] Nowadays the population growth of the Hispanic and Latino Americans is a major demographic trend owing much too constant immigration from the neighboring countries. Moreover, during the XX century the USA was a privileged destination for immigrants from Eastern Europe and for Jews of different nationalities escaping nazi antisemitic terror during the World War II. So, even if there is an American stereotype, it doesn't fit to all Americans. With no doubt, there is a strong will of government and ordinary people to think of the U.S. as a [...]
[...] Despite the fact that each state initially had its own bill of rights; the one made of ten amendments can be considered as the symbol of national unity as it represents the common rights to all U.S. citizens. Not only the Federal Constitution is unique, moreover it is the supreme law of the country and it is protected by the Supreme Court. In 1803, the Marbury v. Madison case was the first time that the Supreme Court declared a federal law “unconstitutional” and established the concept of judicial review. [...]
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