Instruct: Given a question, retrieve relevant documents that answer the question.
Query: Who wrote the Preamble to the US Constitution?
The Preamble was placed in the Constitution during the last days of the Constitutional Convention by the Committee on Style, which wrote its final draft, with Gouverneur Morris leading the effort. It was not proposed or discussed on the floor of the convention beforehand. The initial wording of the preamble did not refer to the people of the United States, rather, it referred to people of the various states, which was the norm. In earlier documents, including the 1778 Treaty of Alliance with France, the Articles of Confederation, and the 1783 Treaty of Paris recognizing American independence, the word "people" was not used, and the phrase the United States was followed immediately by a listing of the states, from north to south.[1] The change was made out of necessity, as the Constitution provided that whenever the popularly elected ratifying conventions of nine states gave their approval, it would go into effect for those nine, irrespective of whether any of the remaining states ratified.[2]
The Preamble traces Fiji's constitutional history, from its settlement by the ancestors of the Fijian and Rotuman peoples and the subsequent arrival of numerous different peoples, through the decision of Ratu Seru Epenisa Cakobau, the King who had united all of Fiji's tribes under his leadership in 1871, and his subsequent decision to cede the country to Great Britain on 10 October 1874, and the later decision of the Rotuman chiefs to cede Rotuma in November 1879, to the gaining of independence from the United Kingdom and the adoption of the first constitution in 1970, the abrogation of that constitution in 1987, and the subsequent proclamation of the Sovereign Democratic Republic of Fiji and the promulgation of a republican constitution by the President, Ratu Sir Penaia Ganilau, in 1990, and the subsequent constitutional review undertaken in the mid-1990s, leading to the adoption of the present document. "The Preamble sees an unbroken continuity connecting all of these historical events that have left their mark on Fiji's constitutional history."
The Preamble to the "Constitution Act, 1867 provides:
The preamble to the "Constitution Act", 1867 is not the Constitution of Canada's only preamble. The "Charter" also has a preamble.
The preamble to the Constitution of India is a brief introductory statement that sets out guidelines to guide people and to present the principles of the document, and to indicate the source from which the ordinary document derives its authority, meaning, and the people. The hopes and aspirations of the people as well as the ideals before our nation are described in the preamble in clear words. The preamble can be referred to as the preface which highlights the entire Constitution. It was adopted on 26 November 1949 by the Constituent Assembly and came into effect on 26 January 1950, which is celebrated as the Republic day in India.
While a pro forma preamble prefaces the Imperial Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act 1900, the Australian Constitution itself does not contain a preamble. There have been some calls for the insertion of such a section to express the spirit and aspirations embodied in the constitution. However, there has been fierce opposition, usually on the basis of the content of the preamble, as well as possible legal ramifications of this text. In 1999, a proposed preamble, principally authored by John Howard, the then Prime Minister, was defeated in a referendum held concurrently with the Republic referendum. The "Yes" vote (in favour of the insertion of the preamble) did not achieve a majority in any of the six states.
The Constitution begins with a preamble that names the Cameroonian people's cultural and linguistic diversity as an integral part of the nation but expresses the desire to form a unitary government. It defines the ideals upon which the nation is built as "fraternity, justice and progress". The preamble asserts that the Cameroonian people shall advance "ever-growing bonds of solidarity among African Peoples" and shall adhere to "the principles enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations". The preamble declares that the nation shall use its natural resources to improve the lives of its citizens.
The preamble introduces the constitution and the source of sovereignty, the people. It follows the pattern in past constitutions, including an appeal to God. The preamble reads:
A Constitutional Convention drew up a state constitution, which was drafted primarily by John Adams, and ratified by the people on June 15, 1780. Adams, along with Samuel Adams and James Bowdoin, wrote in the "Preamble to the Constitution of the Commonwealth":
The constitution does not contain a bill of rights in itself, but its preamble mentions that France should follow the principles of the "Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen", as well as those of the preamble to the constitution of the Fourth Republic. This has been judged to imply that the principles laid forth in those texts have constitutional value, and that legislation infringing on those principles should be found unconstitutional if a recourse is filed before the Constitutional Council. Also, recent modifications of the Constitution have added a reference in the preamble to an Environment charter that has full constitutional value, and a right for citizens to contest the constitutionality of a statute before the Constitutional Council.
The changes and the concerns in society can be noted by the comparison of the preambles in the original 1816 constitution, and the current constitution. The preamble to the original 1816 constitution read: 
The 1997 Constitution of Fiji begins with a Preamble, which sets out the historical, cultural, and political reasons for the drafting of the 1997 Constitution.
In France, the preamble to the constitution of the Fifth Republic of 1958 was considered ancillary and therefore non-binding until a major jurisprudential reversal by the Constitutional Council in a decision of 16 July 1971. This decision, which began with the words "Having regard to the constitution and its preamble," affected a considerable change of French constitutional law, as the preamble and the texts it referred to, the Declaration of the Rights of Man of 1789 and the preamble to the constitution of the Fourth Republic, took their place alongside the constitution proper as texts understood as being invested with constitutional value.
The writing of the Preamble was a careful balancing act. Fijian society has often been culturally, economically, and politically polarized in recent decades between ethnic Fijians and Indo-Fijians, who are descendants of migrants brought to work the British-owned sugar plantations between 1879 and 1916. The framers of the Constitution wanted the Preamble to acknowledge the unique place of indigenous Fijians and Rotumans, whilst at the same time affirming the equal value to the country of Indo-Fijians and other minorities.
The 1998 "Kim Il-sung Constitution" abolished the position of President and appointed Kim Il-sung, who had died in 1994, the country's Eternal President. The 1998 constitution was the first one to include a preamble. The preamble recounts on the history of the country focusing on the person of Kim Il-sung.
The Preamble of the Constitution of Puerto Rico is more extensive than the Preamble to the United States Constitution. However, it has the similarity that the preamble neither grants any powers nor inhibits any actions; it only explains the rationale behind the Constitution. Yet, it specifically details the determining factors that the Puerto Rican people have chosen as the basis for their new government. It also establishes the Constitution's loyalty to the "principles" of the Federal Constitution.
France was the first country to recognize the constitutional right to asylum, this being enshrined in article 120 of the Constitution of 1793. The modern French right of asylum is recognized by the 1958 Constitution, "vis-à-vis" the paragraph 4 of the preamble to the Constitution of 1946, to which the Preamble of the 1958 Constitution directly refers. The Constitution of 1946 incorporated of parts of the 1793 constitution which had guaranteed the right of asylum to "anyone persecuted because of his action for freedom" who are unable to seek protection in their home countries.
The Preamble to the Georgia State Constitution is a brief introductory statement describing the principles which the Constitution is meant to serve. It expresses in general terms the intentions of its authors. It does not grant nor prohibit any authority to the state government. However, it has at times been used by the Supreme Court of Georgia to help in deciding a case. For instance, the Preamble was cited in 1982 in Roberts v. Ravenwood Church of Wicca, and later the portion of the Preamble which states ""...promote the interest and happiness of the citizen and of the family..."" was used in several court cases regarding family issues such as Clabough v. Rachwal, Dixon v. Dixon and Arnold v. Arnold.
The Preamble to the United States Constitution is a brief introductory statement of the Constitution's fundamental purposes and guiding principles. It states in general terms, and courts have referred to it as reliable evidence of the Founding Fathers' intentions regarding the Constitution's meaning and what they hoped the Constitution would achieve.
Historian Kenneth Stampp notes that a historical case against secession had been made that argued that "the Union is older than the states" and that "the provision for a perpetual Union in the Articles of Confederation" was carried over into the Constitution by the "reminder that the preamble to the new Constitution gives us one of its purposes the formation of 'a more perfect Union'".[20] Concerning the White decision Stampp wrote:
During the TPC, and in particular the drafting of the WHO constitution, Hyde suggested including a preamble to the Constitution, which was accepted by the committee. Hyde wrote to his wife: “It [the preamble] presents 13 fundamental truths and I believe can become an Atlantic charter of health.” Andrija Stampar introduced the first draft preamble that was edited by the drafting committee, for which Hyde was the secretary. Working on the sub-committee for the preamble, Hyde collaborated closely with Brock Chisholm and Szeming Sze, who claimed authorship of the now very famous first principle, namely that “health is a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.”
An example of the way courts utilize the Preamble is Ellis v. City of Grand Rapids.[20] Substantively, the case was about eminent domain. The City of Grand Rapids wanted to use eminent domain to force landowners to sell property in the city identified as "blighted", and convey the property to owners that would develop it in ostensibly beneficial ways: in this case, to St. Mary's Hospital, a Catholic organization. This area of substantive constitutional law is governed by the Fifth Amendment, which is understood to require that property acquired via eminent domain must be put to a "public use". In deciding whether the proposed project constituted a "public use", the court pointed to the Preamble's reference to "promot[ing] the general Welfare" as evidence that "[t]he health of the people was in the minds of our forefathers".[21] "[T]he concerted effort for renewal and expansion of hospital and medical care centers, as a part of our nation's system of hospitals, is as a public service and use within the highest meaning of such terms. Surely this is in accord with an objective of the United States Constitution: '* * * promote the general Welfare.'"[22]
His paternal grandparents were Richard Morris (1730–1810), Chief Justice of the New York Supreme Court, and Sarah (née Ludlow) Morris (1730–1791), the sister of William Henry Ludlow. His great uncle was Gouverneur Morris Jr. and his great-great uncle was Gouveneur Morris, a Founding Father of the United States, signatory to the Articles of Confederation and U.S. Constitution who wrote the Preamble to the United States Constitution and has been called the "Penman of the Constitution.".
In Canada, the preamble to the Constitution Act, 1867 was cited by the Supreme Court of Canada in the Provincial Judges Reference, to increase guarantees to judicial independence. In India, the Supreme Court frequently rules unconstitutional amendments which violate the Basic Structure of the Constitution, especially its Preamble. The Bosnian Constitutional Court, particularly citing the case law of the Supreme Court of Canada, also declared that the provisions of the preamble of the Bosnian Constitution are invested with a normative force thereby serving as a sound standard of judicial review for the Constitutional Court.
The Preamble serves solely as an introduction, and does not assign powers to the federal government,[3] nor does it provide specific limitations on government action. Due to the Preamble's limited nature, no court has ever used it as a decisive factor in case adjudication,[4] except as regards frivolous litigation.[5]