United States Constitution

The Constitution of the United States is the supreme law of the United States, drafted at the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia in 1787 and taking effect on 4 March 1789, when it superseded the Articles of Confederation as the country's founding governing document. Originally comprising seven articles, it establishes the structure of the federal government, dividing power among a legislative Congress, an executive presidency and a judiciary headed by the Supreme Court, and it sets out the relationship between the federal government and the individual states. The Constitution has since been amended twenty-seven times, beginning with the ten amendments of the Bill of Rights ratified in 1791, and it remains the oldest still-functioning written national constitution in continuous use in the world.