The story of the U.S. Constitution does not begin with the signing of the document on September 17, l787, nor with the ninth state ratifying it and thereby establishing it as the supreme law of the land. Nor does the story begin with the Philadelphia...

Constitutional convention may refer to: Constitutional convention (political meeting), a meeting of delegates to adopt a new constitution or revise an existing constitution Philadelphia Convention, of 1787, resulted in the United States Constitution...

Calling it a "question of conscience," Gov.-elect Deval Patrick urged legislators Tuesday to avoid voting on an amendment to ban gay marriage despite the Supreme Judicial Court's ruling last week that the state constitution requires such a vote.Patrick met separately Tuesday with Sen. President Robert...

A letter George Washington wrote more than two centuries ago has been found in a child's scrapbook, and presents historians with some fresh mysteries into his efforts to found a new nation.The 111-word letter was sent in May 1787 to Jacob Morris. Morris's 10-year-old granddaughter,...

The federal judiciary will increasingly fail to attract the best-qualified lawyers if judges' pay doesn't improve, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia said Wednesday."If you become a federal judge in the Southern District of New York (Manhattan), you can't raise a family on what the salary...