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Question #1

About half of the 55 delegates to the Constitutional Convention at one time owned slaves.

True: Talk about irony: writing a document about freedom while having slaves. Slavery was hotly debated during the Constitutional Convention. In 1865, the 13th amendment finally abolished slavery.

Question #2

George Washington is the only delegate to have his face on US money.

False: Take at look at your own money! We have several delegates on the bills and coins. Ben Franklin is on the $100 bills. Gee, which bill do you want in your wallet? Think about that...

Question #3

Rhode Island refused to attend the Constitutional Convention.

True: Franklin pretended to be an older woman so that his articles could get published in a newspaper. Talk about being a rebellious teen.

Question #4

Each branch of the American government can work independently of the other two branches.

False: Each branch is supervised by the remaining two; this is called a "check and balance" system. For example, Congress can pass a law, but the Supreme Court can declare the law unconstitutional and Supreme Court judges are appointed by the President. Think of your school's safety patrols: the patrols tell you where it's safe to cross the street; a patrol supervisor can change where students can cross the street and patrol supervisors are chosen by the principal.

Question #5

You have to be a citizen to go to school in America.

False: Any child living in America has the right to attend grade school. Feel free to do some extra homework and tests too, if you like.

Question #6

The reason the Framers set up three branches of the U.S. government is to make it easier for the government to control the people in America.

False: No way! The people in America control the government by voting for the people they want as representatives and by deciding what the government will control.

Question #7

The Constitution became the law of the land as soon as the delegates signed it on September 17, 1787.

False: Not so fast. The states that the delegates represented still had to agree to the new Constitution and 9 out of the original 13 states had to approve it before it could go into effect. That finally happened on June 21, 1788.

Question #8

In America, everyone has the freedom not to pray.

True: The first Amendment guarantees the right to pray and the right not to pray. So it's up to you to pray or not pray when you're in school, but the school can't force you to pray and, as long as you are not disturbing class time, your school can't stop you from praying either.

Question #9

Every year our nation celebrates Constitution Day on September 17th with a big national party.

False: But we should! Help make Constitution Day a National Holiday. Tell your parents and other adults about our petition to make Constitution Day a holiday. I bet you’d enjoy another day off from school.

Question #10

The Constitution is the highest law of the land.

True: In America, federal and state judges must uphold the Constitution, and the rest of us better as well.

Question #11

When the delegates signed the Constitution they were in the largest city of all the colonies.

True: At the time, Philadelphia was the largest city with about 40,000 people. Today, over 1.5 Million people live in Philadelphia.

Question #12

Writing the Constitution as we know it today was not part of the original plan for the Constitutional Convention.

True: Originally, the plan was to make changes to a document called the Articles of Confederation, but after they started making the changes, the Framers decided to write a whole new Constitution.

Question #13

The Declaration of Independence and the Constitution both do pretty much the same thing for the United States.

False: The Declaration of Independence explains why the U.S. told Britain to back off. The Constitution explains how the United States government would work.

Question #14

Constitution Day is September 17th.

True: Constitution Day is September 17th because it is the anniversary of the day that the Framers signed the Constitution. What a great day for the most important document in American history.

Question #15

Because of its age, the Constitution is no longer as important as it was when it went into effect in 1789.

False: The Constitution is as important now as it was back then! Every day, things happen in the courts, government or schools that could threaten your rights. If you don't know what your rights are, how can you stop someone from taking advantage of you?

Question #16

The US Constitution is the youngest national Constitution in the whole world.

False: Actually, even though the U.S. is a young nation, it has the oldest and shortest Constitution of any nation on earth. We can’t say for sure it’s the oldest in our galaxy, but as far as we know, it is.

Question #17

The First amendment guarantees you the freedom of speech, and that means you can say whatever you want, whenever you want.

False: You do have the freedom of speech, BUT there are some limits. For example, you can't use bad words in class to disrupt class lessons. Also, you probably shouldn't tell Ms. Smith about that hairy mole on her nose, but you can organize a group of your friends together to talk to the Principal about Mr. Matthews sleeping during class.

Question #18

The Constitution set up three parts of the U. S. government: Executive, Legislative and Judicial.

True: These parts are called branches: the Executive branch is controlled by the President; the Legislative branch is controlled by Congress and the Judicial branch is controlled by the Supreme Court of the United States. This way, America can never have one person controlling the whole country. This is a VERY important part of how the U.S. government functions!

Question #19

In 1787, Congress was happy that the delegates had saved them the trouble of having to write the new Constitution.

False: The delegates didn’t have the authority to write a new Constitution! They had been asked to fix the Articles of Confederation. That’s one of the reasons they were so secretive about writing a Constitution.

Question #20

The original Constitution was engraved in stone.

False: Jacob Shallus hand wrote the more than 4500 words of the Constitution using a quill pen. Good thing he had pretty good handwriting.