BrainTeasers-Level-1

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LEVEL ONE – Appetizers. General Knowledge.

Testing Your Constitutional Knowledge

To start on your way – setting your sights on the prized appellation “Grand Historian of the Republic” – you will tackle these questions.

Here are some hints. First, ‘constitution’ always references the text that appears in the Rotunda of the National Archives and was adopted on September 17, 1787. Level One does not involve any text adopted on or after December 15, 1791, the date when the first ten Amendments were ratified by Virginia, as the last state necessary to Article V compliant ratification. Thus, ‘constitution, as amended’ is the reader’s cue that one, some or all of the Amendments are under consideration.

Again, in Level One, refer only to the constitution adopted on September 17, 1787!

QUESTION NO. 1

How many Articles are in the constitution?

A. Three

B. Five

C. Six

D. Seven

E. Ten

ANSWER: D.

QUESTION NO. 2

How many times does the word ‘article’ (or ‘articles’), meaning a ‘segment,’ or ‘portion of text’ appear in the federal constitution?

A. Seven

B. Eight

C. Nine

ANSWER: B. Besides Article I – the first of seven headings for segments or portions of the Constitution – the word ‘article’ meaning segment appears only one other time: “No Amendment…may be made prior to the Year One thousand eight hundred and eight shall in any Manner affect the first and fourth Clauses in the Ninth Section of the first Article…” (Art. 6).

‘Articles’ with the meaning of ‘items’ does also appear once; “No Tax or Duty shall be laid on Articles exported from any State.” (Art. 1, Sec. 9).

QUESTION NO. 3

Congratulation! You’ve teased out the Articles from the constitution; which of these is NOT in the constitution?

A. A Preamble

B. A Declaration after the Preamble

C. A Title

D. Signatures of Delegates

ANSWER: B and C. The constitution includes a preamble, but not a declaration. The document itself also does not have a title (while it is the Constitution of the United States, ‘Constitution of the United States’ is not written across the top of the document as might be expected).

QUESTION NO. 4

Which of these is also NOT in the constitution?

A. An Attestation by the Convention Secretary

B. A Footnote

C. An Erasure or Erazures

D. The authorized signature of a delegate from New York

ANSWER: D. Although there is a signature from a delegate from New York (Alexander Hamilton), the other two delegates from New York (Robert Yates and John Lansing) had previously left the convention; therefore, New York lacked a quorum that could vote for or against the Constitution.

QUESTION NO. 5

True or False. The equivalent of the following was proposed to be part of the constitution:

Declaration

We the People of the United States, declare:

That all Power is originally vested in, and consequently derived from, the people;

That Government is instituted and ought to be exercised for the benefit of the people; which consists in the enjoyment of life and liberty, with the right of acquiring and using property, and generally of pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety;

That the people have an indubitable, unalienable and indefeasible right to reform or change their Government, whenever it be found adverse or inadequate to the purposes of its institution.

ANSWER: True.

QUESTION NO. 6

Who proposed it and when?

A. James Madison on June 8, 1789

B. Benjamin Franklin on September 15, 1787

C. No, it was never proposed

ANSWER: A. A declaration such as the one above was proposed by James Madison when he proposed twelve amendments to the constitution (which would later become the Bill of Rights and the 27th Amendment).

QUESTION NO. 7

Which document or documents are typically printed with the constitution?

A The convention’s transmittal

B. Washington’s transmittal

C. The Continental Congress’s transmittal

ANSWER: A. B and C are typically omitted, which is a shame because you couldn’t have a constitution ratified without C.

QUESTION NO. 8

How many semicolons are in the constitution?

How many grammatical sentences, in between full stops and omitting all references to Articles and Sections?

How many times does the word ‘section’ appear?

A. 22; 87; 53

B. 37; 87; 21

C. 64; 88; 22

ANSWER: C. There are 64 semicolons, 87 sentences (including the preamble), and 22 instance of the word ‘section.’ Twenty-one uses of the word ‘section’ are for section headers. The only time the word ‘section’ appears in regular text is in Article V.

QUESTION NO. 9

How many days did it take the federal convention to write the constitution, starting from the first day after the standing orders were adopted and ending with the last day?

A. 85

B. 87

C. 88

ANSWER: A. The first day a quorum was present was May 25, 1787; the last day was September 17; therefore, the federal convention created constitutional text in a total of 87 days. So that’s 87 sentences in 87 days, if you are looking for an easy way to remember these facts.

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