[BLANK_AUDIO]
Welcome back. In our previous sessions, we talked
about the Constitution's first sentence, the preamble
and its great themes of democracy and geography.
We, the People, the democratic idea of the United States, a geographic idea.
Today, we're going to begin a conversation about the next section in
textual order of the Constitution: Article One.
Article One is about the legislature, about Congress.
And we'll begin our conversation by
talking about the basic structure of Congress.
And then later on we'll start to talk about some of the powers of Congress.
Here are some of the big themes.
They're the big themes, really, of, of the preamble.
Democracy, geography, we're also going to talk about slavery and how it was
built into the structure of Congress, and into the structure of Article One.
We the People of the United States.
Who isn't counted, or who's counted
in unusual ways, distinctive ways, important ways?
Those are going to be some of the things we'll talk about in our
conversation about the basic structure of Congress before we move on to conversation
about the powers of Congress. So,
couple things. One, size matters.
We talked about how the preamble was printed in broader ty, in bigger type
than the rest of the Constitution when various newspaper publishers
ran copies of the Constitution when the document went public.
Size matters, here, also.
We have on the screen a picture of the congressional building in 1846.
This is the first photograph of the Capitol building.
And I hope you notice, just, quick inspection, it's
large and we're going to talk about why it's large.
The White House, for example, is not large.
So, what's up with that?
Why is the Capitol building large and the White House, not so large?
We'll also talk about location.
The preamble came first in the document, locationally.
And I thought that was and continue to think that's significant.
It's first because it's particular importmant particularly important.
Why is the legislature Article One?
Why is Congress Article One?
Why is that located in the text where it is?
Article One is also not just the, the
first article in the Constitution, it's the longest.
So textually its size is, I think, a, an interesting indication of significance, as
well as the size of the building itself. Let's start with the word, Congress.
Why did they pick that word?
Well at one level it's designed to ease people's minds.
Oh, this is the same word that we've used
for the preeminent body under the Articles of Confederation.
there, the, the central organ of, of federal power,
under the Articles Confederation, was known as the Congress.
And so they used the same word in the Constitution. 他们便在宪法里用相同的单词
Just as they used the phrase the United States, in the Confederation, the 就像他们在联邦里使用的词语一样
Articles of Confederation, and they used that 他们在宪法里也用联邦里
phrase, the United States, in the Constitution. 相同的词语
But in the Constitution, the United States means something a lot, a little different. 但在宪法里，美国意味着更多东西，是有所区别的
It's far more united than it was under the Articles of Confederation. 它比宪法更多关联
Remember, under the Articles of Confederation, that 记住，宪法，只是一种法律
was just a league or a kind 或一种条约，但各大州
of treaty and, and states were, in the 却不受这些法律或条约
end, free to, to leave that league or treaty. 束缚
Eleven states, in effect, left the Articles of Confederation, to form 11个州，独立于联邦法律之外，
the Constitution, initially leaving Rhode Island and, and North Carolina behind. 组成了宪法，最初为了独立罗兹岛和北卡罗莱纳州
So the United States, under the Articles of Confederation, are sort 在联邦法律下的美国，
of a looser entity, more of a league, a confederation, a treaty. 是一个个州组成的整体，超越法律、联邦和条约
That very same phrase, the United States, 如此相同的词语，宪法下美国
in the Constitution, means something much Stricter. 涵盖的内容更严谨
Once you're in, you're in, for geostrategic 我们上节说过
reasons that we talked about in previous sessions. 一旦你身处美国
So, too, this word Congress, it's a gesture back toward 国会就有联邦法律的特征
the Articles of Confederation, but it means something rather different. 但却有点不同
In the Articles of Confederation, there was 联邦法律里
one body that basically wielded all central power. 国会基本上包含所有中央权力
In the Constitution, Congress is merely one of three 宪法里，国会仅仅是
bodies that are the central federal organs. 包含了中央联邦机构
There's Article One but there's going to be an Article 从法律的第一篇到第二篇
Two, the Presidency, and an Article Three, the judiciary. 关于总统 还有第三篇 关于司法制度
Under the Articles of Confederation, the, the document doesn't 联邦法律的文件
even describe the Congress, quote congress, as a legislature. 甚至没有描述道国会，引用国会作为一种立法机构
It doesn't describe the output of that body as law.
Law that would be binding on every court in
America, state or federal.
The Articles of Confederation don't say that.
The Constitution will, actually, describe, and Article One does
describe, Congress as a legislature, as a law making body.
And so that's one important difference. And and, and Congress
is going to be vested in, in Article One with legislative power, as distinct from
executive power, in Article Two, vested in the president, and
judicial power, in Article Three, vested in federal courts.
Now this idea of Congress as a lawmaking
body is a little different than Congress under the Articles of Confederation.
There, Congress was more al, almost of an executive council, a war council.
And it wasn't so obvious that, basically, it made law as such.
now, the Articles of Confederation said that Congress would
only have certain powers that were expressly given to it.
That word doesn't appear in the Constitution.
Congress, under this new body, they have
it, powers expressly and impliedly given to it.
So that's going to be another
important difference.
And we'll talk about that in later sessions, when we
begin to talk about the particular powers of, of Congress.
And, by the way, some of those powers are new powers, vast new powers to directly
raise an army, a central army, to have taxes imposed directly on individuals.
To regulate interstate commerce and foreign affairs to regulate
federal territories.
So, these are to monitor whether each state has a Republican form of government.
These are going to be vast new powers given to this new Congress.
And by the way, when we look at this picture, we see there,
kind of, are two wings of Congress, it's going to be a bicameral body.
There's going to be a house of representatives, and a senate.
That's different than the Articles of Confederation, where you
had a unicameral body called Congress. Now the Senate, in some ways, is going to
look a little like the old Congress under the Articles of Confederation.
It's given a new name, it's now called a Senate, and
that new name suggests a little bit more independence and detachment.