Civics: government, laws, and citizens, early United States (grade 8)

The legislative branch, Congress, makes laws. The executive branch, led by the President, carries them out. The judicial branch, led by the Supreme Court, decides what laws mean.

A bill becomes a law in steps. A member of Congress introduces it. A committee studies it. The House and Senate both pass it. Then the President signs it.

Checks and balances let each branch limit the others. The President can veto a bill, and Congress can override with a two-thirds vote. The Senate approves the President's choices for judges. Courts can rule that a law breaks the Constitution.

Anti-Federalists feared a strong national government could take away people's freedoms. They wanted a written list of rights. In 1791, the first ten amendments were added. They are called the Bill of Rights.

The First Amendment protects five freedoms: religion, speech, the press, peaceful assembly, and petitioning the government.

Other rights are in other amendments. The Sixth protects a trial by jury in criminal cases. The Twenty-sixth, much later, set the voting age at 18.

The Thirteenth Amendment ended slavery in 1865. But before the war, many states did not treat Black Americans as citizens.

The Fourteenth Amendment, in 1868, says all persons born or naturalized in the United States are citizens. Naturalized means made a citizen by law. It also says no state may deny any person "the equal protection of the laws."

It did not give women the vote. That came with the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920.

The Constitution gives some powers to the national government, such as declaring war, coining money, and making treaties with other nations.

The Tenth Amendment says powers not given to the national government belong to the states or the people. Running public schools is one example of a state power.