It's more interesting to see what *isn't* in there!
For example, nowhere does it explicitly state that there is a "Freedom of Religion". The only times religion is mentioned are in Article VI, Section 3: "but no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States." and in the First Amendment: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion..."
Nor does it define a "militia" as mentioned in the Second Amendment: "A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed." Far too many people forget the part about the well-regulated militia.
Other things not covered are how the US acquires new territory, and how that territory becomes new states. That's why there was such a big fuss over the Louisiana Purchase. People thought Jefferson was overstepping his authority. And the rule saying that a VP takes over when the President dies, leaves office, or is otherwise unable to fulfill the duties of the office doesn't come in until the 25th amendment - AFTER Tyler, Fillmore, Johnson, Arthur, Coolidge, Roosevelt, Truman,
and Johnson all took office after the death of their predecessors.
And sometimes what *is* in there is so couched in obscure legalese that you can't understand it without annotations. Here's the second paragraph of Article III, Section 3:
"The Congress shall have power to declare the punishment of treason, but no attainder of treason shall work corruption of blood, or forfeiture except during the life of the person attainted."
Any idea what that means?
Without looking it up?
Let me leave you with this peroration from Jill Lepore's essay, "The Commandments", in the current issue of the
New Yorker:
The Constitution is ink on parchment. It is forty-four hundred words. And it is, too, the accreted set of meanings that have been made of those words, the amendments, the failed amendments, the struggles, the debates—the course of events—over more than two centuries. It is not easy, but it is everyone’s. It is the rule of law, the opinions of the Court, the stripes on William Grimes’s back, a shrine in the National Archives, a sign carried on the Washington Mall, and the noise all of us make when we disagree. If the Constitution is a fiddle, it is also all the music that has ever been played on it. Some of that music is beautiful; much of it is humdrum; some of it sounds like hell.
Read more
http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/atlarge/2011/01/17/110117crat_atlarge_lepore#ixzz1AglYlQHO