State constitutions in the United States in the context of "Constitution of Texas"

The United States of America is a federal republic consisting of 50 states, a federal district (Washington, D.C., the capital city of the United States), five major territories, and minor islands. Both the states and the United States as a whole are each sovereign jurisdictions. The Tenth Amendment to the United States Constitution allows states to exercise all powers of government not delegated to the federal government. Each state has its own constitution and government. All states and their residents are represented in the federal Congress, a bicameral legislature consisting of the Senate and the House of Representatives. Each state elects two senators, while representatives are distributed among the states in proportion to the most recent constitutionally mandated decennial census.

Each state is entitled to select a number of electors to vote in the Electoral College, the body that elects the president of the United States, equal to the total of representatives and senators in Congress from that state. The federal district does not have representatives in the Senate, but has a non-voting delegate in the House, and it is entitled to electors in the Electoral College. Congress can admit more states, but it cannot create a new state from territory of an existing state or merge two or more states into one without the consent of all states involved. Each new state is admitted on an equal footing with the existing states.

The Puerto Rico Federal Relations Act of 1950 (Pub. L. 81–600) was an Act of the 81st United States Congress, which passed unanimously in the United States Senate and with one dissenting vote, from pro-independence Vito Marcantonio, in the United States House of Representatives. Signed into law on July 3, 1950 by President Harry Truman, the Act enabled the residents of Puerto Rico to organize the insular government of the unincorporated territory under a constitution of its own, comparable to those of states of the United States. Established under the Act and its Pub. L. 82–447 joint resolution in 1952, the Constitution of Puerto Rico superseded the Jones–Shafroth Act of 1917 as the primary organic law for the local government of Puerto Rico and its relation with the United States.

With the approval of the Puerto Rico Federal Relations Act of 1950, the full authority and responsibility for the local government of Puerto Rico was vested in the residents of Puerto Rico, resulting in complete self-governance within the archipelago and island.

The Unconstitutionality of Slavery is an 1845 abolitionist essay written by the American abolitionist Lysander Spooner. In it, Spooner responds to Garrisonian abolitionists and proslavery theorists who argued that slavery was supported by the United States Constitution. Spooner claims that slavery is unconstitutional and cites natural law, colonial charters, and American founding documents to argue that there is no legal basis for the existence of slavery in the United States and that Congress is obligated to prohibit it.

Spooner was an anarchist who argued that the authority of the courts was derived from fundamental principles of justice and universal human rights. He cites the precedent established in Somerset v Stewart that slavery is incompatible with liberty and cannot exist absent positive legal sanction. Spooner notes that contrary to this principle, the Articles of Confederation, the several state constitutions, and the 1787 federal constitution do not refer to slavery directly; the Declaration of Independence, meanwhile, implicitly proscribes slavery by recognizing life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness as self-evident natural rights. Spooner rejects appeals to original intent concerning the historical context for constitutional provisions generally understood to address slavery, arguing that laws must be interpreted according to the ordinary meaning of the text. He concludes that there is no legal basis for slavery in the United States and that the Guarantee Clause requires Congress to enforce emancipation.