Constitution of the United States of Elisia

The Constitution of the United States is the supreme law of the United States of Elisia. It superseded the Articles of Association, the nation's first constitution, on [PUT DATE HERE]. Originally including X articles, the Constitution provides the frame of the federal government through articles I, II and III. Article I defines the legislative branch and the federal government's powers to legislate, Article II defines the executive branch, including the presidency and other employees and Article III defines the Supreme Court and the federal government's judicial authority. Articles IV, V, and VI embody concepts of federalism, describing the rights and responsibilities of state governments, the states in relationship to the federal government, and the shared process of constitutional amendment. Article VII establishes the procedure subsequently used by the X states to ratify it and Article VIII enshrines the bill of rights of the United States.

History

Drafting

In April XXXX, all the delegates for the X states sat to discuss the future of the US beyond the War of Independence. The Articles of Association were limited and quite restrictive on its face. The Articles of Association contained the three branches of government, just like the future US Constitution does, however the Parliament of the Association could only make laws that were determined to be "in the unanimous interests of the association", which the Supreme Court at the time would interpret to mean that unanimous approval of the states was required for anything to pass through Parliament and become effective law of the association. One notable example of this being a hinderance was when Frank Sherrard, the parliamentary representative for the State of X, was the only one to refuse to support a bill that would have ended a dispute with neighboring nation X.

The goals of what was later referred to as the Elisian Constitutional Convention, were to revise the Articles of Association heavily to make for an effective government, and to better allow for states interests to be represented, something which the Articles of Association restricted at the time. A famous example was a clause prohibiting association members from "making any bill [...] establishing taxes, market regulations, caps or importation bans", seeing fit to reserve these powers to Parliament. The convention was wholly convinced that the articles were rushed, and that revising the articles and making them permanent would "see fit as to allow bureaucracies to falter, and a new distrust for us to rise" said Adam Burris.