But though the Southern States, when drafting a constitution to unite themselves, narrowed the difference to this fine point by omitting to assert the right to secede, the fact remained that by seceding from the Union they had already acted on the concept that it was composed primarily of sovereign states.

Slavery was prohibited in Massachusetts by the terms of the constitution of 1780, which declared `` all men are born free and equal ''.

The Articles of Confederation, formally the Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union, was an agreement among the 13 founding states that established the United States of America as a confederation of sovereign states and served as its first constitution.

It was an era of constitution writing — most states were busy at the task — and leaders felt the new nation must have a written constitution, even though other nations did not.

Its constitution was ratified 1966 and came into effect 1967.

By the middle of the 19th century, industrialisation swept away most of the city's medieval rules of production and commerce, although the entirely corrupt remains of the city's mediæval constitution was kept in place ( compare the famous remarks of Georg Forster in his Ansichten vom Niederrhein ) until 1801, when Aachen became the " chef-lieu du département de la Roer " in Napoléon's First French Empire.

Though he was destined to be a strongly counter-reforming emperor, Alexander had little prospect of succeeding to the throne during the first two decades of his life, as he had an elder brother, Nicolas, who seemed of robust constitution.

Following the 1831 Nat Turner slave rebellion, a state convention was called to pass a new constitution, including provisions to disfranchise free people of color.

The constitution was submitted for a public vote and Johnson campaigned for its adoption ; his support of the new work provided him with additional positive statewide exposure.

It is most usual to date Athenian democracy from Cleisthenes, since Solon's constitution fell and was replaced by the tyranny of Peisistratus, whereas Ephialtes revised Cleisthenes ' constitution relatively peacefully.

In 317 BC he returned with an army of mercenaries under a solemn oath to observe the democratic constitution which was then set up.

Each signed the league's constitution, and the National League was officially born.

In 2002, O ' Donohue launched a court action that argued the Act of Settlement violates the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, but the case was dismissed by the court, which found that, as the Act of Settlement is part of the Canadian constitution, the Charter of Rights and Freedoms does not have supremacy over it.

A petition proposing a radical change in the German constitution and expressing his basic social ideas ( signed by Herman Hesse, among others ) was widely circulated.

As another consequence of the disturbances, a new constitution was accepted in 1831 which came into effect on 4 September of that year.

The constitution was more conservative than other constitutions existing at this time in the German Union.

A new constitution was adopted in 2007 ( the Virgin Islands Constitution Order, 2007 ) and came into force when the Legislative Council was dissolved for the 2007 general election.

The Head of Government under the new constitution is the Premier ( prior to the new constitution the office was referred to as Chief Minister ), who is elected in a general election along with the other members of the ruling government as well as the members of the opposition.

A European-African advisory council was formed in 1951, and the 1961 constitution established a consultative legislative council.

* Constitution of 1891 – the republic was proclaimed in 1889, but a new constitution was not promulgated until 1891.

In June 1998, Buyoya promulgated a transitional constitution and announced a partnership between the government and the opposition-led National Assembly.

The parties represented in the 120-member assembly proceeded to draft and approve a new constitution, which was promulgated September 24, 1993.

The constitution, adopted by referendum in 2005, and promulgated by President Joseph Kabila in February 2006, establishes a decentralized semi-presidential republic, with a separation of powers between the three branches of government-executive, legislative and judiciary, and a distribution of prerogatives between the central government and the provinces.

A new constitution was promulgated in 1997 but has not yet been implemented, and general elections have been postponed.

* Ecclesiam a Jesu Christo, a Papal constitution promulgated by Pius VII in 1821

This law, which was promulgated on the same day as the Meiji Constitution, enjoyed co-equal status with that constitution.

In January 1962, the cabinet finally approved the text of the new constitution, promulgated by President Ayub Khan on March 1, 1962 and finally came into effect on June 8, 1962.

Amadeus – a liberal who swore by the liberal constitution the Cortes promulgated – was faced immediately with the incredible task of bringing the disparate political ideologies of Spain to one table.

In 1964, King Zahir Shah promulgated a liberal constitution providing for a bicameral legislature to which the king appointed one-third of the deputies.

His attempts to carry out badly needed economic and social reforms met with little success, and the new constitution promulgated in February 1977 failed to quell chronic political instability.

Jordan is a constitutional monarchy based on the constitution promulgated on January 8, 1952.

The constitution promulgated at independence on 12 July 1979, establishes the Republic of Kiribati as a sovereign democratic republic and guarantees the fundamental rights of its citizens.

The constitution, approved and promulgated on November 11, 1962, calls for direct elections to a unicameral parliament ( the National Assembly ).

The new constitution was formally promulgated on 25 August.

Laos ' first, French-written and monarchical constitution was promulgated on May 11, 1947 and declared it to be an independent state within the French Union.

The majority selected self-government and Niue's written constitution was promulgated as supreme law.

A constitution was also promulgated in the same year, but it proved ineffective because of the foreign origin of its liberal, democratic tenets.

In this regard, he promulgated an apostolic constitution, Benedictus Deus, in 1336.

In 1594 a constitution was promulgated, the University enhanced and the Nobles ' College founded.

Still giving public support to the federation, Ahmad ibn Ali nonetheless promulgated a provisional constitution in April 1970, which declared Qatar an independent, Arab, Islamic state with the sharia ( Islamic law ) as its basic law.

The treaty of union was incorporated into the first Soviet constitution, which was promulgated in 1924.

A new edition of the Roman Missal implementing the Council's decisions was promulgated by Pope Paul VI with the apostolic constitution Missale Romanum of 3 April 1969.

A new constitution was promulgated in 1990, establishing Fiji as a republic, with the offices of President, Prime Minister, two-thirds of the Senate, and a clear majority of the House of Representatives reserved for ethnic Fijians, Ethnic Fijian ownership of the land was also entrenched in the constitution.