The Commandments of the US Constitution (short form)
The Constitution’s Basic Principles
The primary purpose of the constitution so to describe how we form (constitute) our government — not to delineate every moral code we choose as a society — in order to determine how governmental power is determined, allocated and shared.
The general principles underlying our American Constitution form a set of “commandments” of our American government that we share:
- We shall not have a tyrannical government
- We shall have a representative government so it can be changed and its power checked
- Each of us shall have rights the government can’t take away
- No religion or religious sect gets government preference over another
- None of us can be unjustly deprived of life, liberty or property
- Each of us can say what we believe, including especially about the government
- We shall have a nation governed by the rule of law, applied equally to all, including those in power
- All laws and government actions must conform to this US Constitution, which is the ultimate authority
- The nation can defend itself, fight wars and provide for a military
- We can tax ourselves
- The federal government shall be our voice in foreign relations
These do not look anything like the Judeoo-Christian 10 Commandments, about which I've remarked here.
Long form here.
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