Crimes Explained: U.S. Constitution

The Constitution of the United States in its official text, annotated. Each provision is color-coded to show the rights it guarantees, the powers it grants and the limits it sets, and broken into its parts.

• Select any provision to open its own page with the official text beside a breakdown: each right, power, limit or duty in it, who holds it, who is bound, what it requires or forbids, its conditions and exceptions, and any official note that it was changed by a later amendment. Breakdowns use only the provision's own text.
• In the official text, rights are green, grants of power are highlighted in orange, limits on government are red, and conditions by their if or unless are purple italics. The small numbers are the clause numbers of the official print.
• Dotted-underlined words are legal terms. Tap or hover to see what they mean.
• The colored bar on each card shows the provision's main kind: a right, a power, a limit, a duty, or structure (offices, terms, elections and procedures).
• The text keeps the original spelling and capitals of 1787 ("chuse", "defence"). Clauses changed by later amendments stay in the text, with the official note saying so.