The features based directly on experience under the Articles of Confederation are the provisions that the acts of Congress must be uniform throughout the Union; that the President may call out the militia to repel invasion, to put down insurrection, and to maintain the laws of the Union; that Congress shall have sole power to regulate foreign trade and trade between the states. No state can now coin money or print paper money, or make anything but gold or silver legal tender.  Congress now has power to lay taxes, duties, and excises.  The Constitution divides the powers of government between the legislative department (Senate and House of Representatives); the executive department (the President, who sees that laws and treaties are obeyed); and the judicial department (Supreme Court and other United States courts, which interpret the Constitution, the acts of Congress, and the treaties).

The new features are the definition of treason and the limitation of its punishment; the guarantee to every state of a republican form of government; the swearing of state officials to support the Federal Constitution; and the provision for amendment.

Among other noteworthy features are the creation of a United States citizenship as distinct from a state citizenship, the limitation of the powers of the states; and the provision that the Constitution, the acts of Congress, and the treaties are “the supreme law of the land.”

%180.  Constitution submitted to the People.%—­The convention ended its work, and such members as were willing signed the Constitution on September 17, 1787.  Washington, as president of the convention, then sent the Constitution to the Continental Congress sitting at New York and asked it to transmit copies to the states for ratification.  This was done, and during the next few months the legislatures of most of the states called on the people to elect delegates to conventions which should accept or reject the Constitution.

%181.  Ratification by the States.%—­In many of these conventions great objection was made because the new plan of federal government was so unlike the Articles of Confederation, and certain changes were insisted on.  The only states that accepted it just as it was framed were Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Georgia, Connecticut, and Maryland.  Massachusetts, South Carolina, New Hampshire, New York, and Virginia ratified with amendments. (For dates, see p. 176.)

%182.  “The New Roof."%—­The Constitution provided that when nine states had ratified, it should go into effect “between the states so ratifying.”  While it was under discussion the Federalists, as the friends of the Constitution were named, had called it “the New Roof,” which was going to cover the states and protect them from political storms.  They now represented it as completed and supported by eleven pillars or states.  Two states, Rhode Island and North Carolina, had not ratified, and so