e; and

Whereas Senate Document 232 is no longer available at the Government
Printing Office; and

Whereas the reprinting of this document without annotations for the last
ten years is now considered appropriate: Now, therefore, be it

_Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United
States of America in Congress assembled_, That the Librarian of Congress
is hereby authorized and directed to have the Annotated Constitution of
the United States of America, published in 1938, revised and extended to
include annotations of decisions of the Supreme Court prior to January
1, 1948, construing the several provisions of the Constitution
correlated under each separate provision, and to have the said revised
document printed at the Government Printing Office. Three thousand
copies shall be printed, of which two thousand two hundred copies shall
be for the use of the House of Representatives and eight hundred copies
for the use of the Senate.

Sec. 2. There is hereby authorized to be appropriated for
carrying out the provisions of this Act, with respect to the preparation
but not including printing, the sum of $35,000 to remain available until
expended.

Approved June 17, 1947.

PREFACE

By Honorable Alexander Wiley

_Chairman, Senate Foreign Relations Committee_

To the Members and Committees of the Congress, the Constitution is more
than a revered abstraction; it is an everyday companion and counsellor.
Into it, the Founding Fathers breathed the spirit of life; through every
subsequent generation, that spirit has remained vital.

In more than a century and a half of cataclysmic events, the
Constitution has successfully withstood test after test. No
crisis--foreign or domestic--has impaired its vitality. The system of
checks and balances which it sets up has enabled the growing nation to
adapt itself to every need and at the same time to checkrein every bid
for arbitrary power.

And meantime America itself has evolved dynamically and dramatically.
The humble 13 colonies, carved out of the wilderness in the 18th
Century, emerged in the 20th Century as leader of
earth--industrial--military--political--economic--psychological. Yet the
broad outline of the Supreme Law remains today fundamentally intact.

It is small wonder that W.E. Gladstone described the Constitution as
"the most wonderful work ever struck off at a given time by the brain
and purpose of man." He knew, as should we, that the