With the end of the Revolutionary War, the newly free Americans had the whole "New World" as their oyster. The Articles of Confederation ended up about as effective as an umbrella in a hurricane, so the Founding Fathers were left to determine just what would be the best way to run the fledgling nation.

So, how does it all work? If you're hoping Nicolas Cage is going to show up at any moment with a secret map and cipher to get you through that question, stop. 

Just...stop.

The Articles of Confederation limited the power of the federal government so much that there wasn't really a central government at all. Instead there was a confederation of states, each of which governed as it saw fit. The whole government was based off of the idea that the states would work together under a "firm league of friendship."

And then maybe go pick daisies together in the sunset. 

States began acting like their own little countries. With no central power to stop any of the madness, the nation's leaders knew it was time for action. The general consensus was that the federal government needed more power. 

They decided to hold a convention in Philadelphia in 1787 to revise the failing Articles of Confederation. Originally, the plan was just to tweak things here and there, without reinventing the entire government, but once they popped, they just couldn't stop. The end result was a brand spanking new government. This Constitutional Convention would determine the fate of the nation, and out of it would come our Constitution.

Duh.

The goal was to get representatives from each state to gather to address the shortcomings of the Articles and how to revise them. Amazingly, that "firm league of friendship" idea hit a roadblock when Rhode Island decided not to show up for the convention. You know what they say: every party has a pooper.

Even without Rhode Island, the delegates were able to push forward through debates, compromises, and rock, paper, scissors matches, to create probably the single most important document in our history.

And although it may seem like the Founding Fathers were all BFFs with matching wigs, you'll also learn about the many compromises made during the drafting of the Constitution as well as the two party system that developed during this time period and how it still works ("works" is a relative term, of course) today.

So, let's explore the road that got us from weak-sauce Articles of Confederation to He-Man warrior Constitution.

Despite all of the great reasons below for why you should care about the making of the Constitution, we're going to hit you with a 21st-century example first.

In 2002, an 18-year-old high school student named Joseph Frederick in Juneau, Alaska, unfurled a 14-foot-long banner just outside school grounds amid the crowd that had gathered to watch the Olympic torch relay pass through town on its way to the Winter Games at Salt Lake City, Utah.

The banner referred to marijuana use and read "Bong Hits 4 Jesus." Even though he was standing on a public sidewalk, the school suspended Frederick for ten days because they said he and other students were participating in a school-sponsored event. They'd been let out of classes and were accompanied by their teachers. By refusing when the principal ordered him to take down the banner, Frederick was—according to school officials—violating a school policy by promoting illegal drug use. As the school board's lawyers noted in their Supreme Court appeal, "Bong is a slang term for drug paraphernalia."

Frederick sued the school board on the grounds that his First Amendment right to free speech was infringed upon. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, California, agreed with him. They concluded that the school couldn't show Frederick had disrupted the school's educational mission by displaying a banner off campus.

The three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit relied on the precedent of the Supreme Court's famous 1969 "Tinker" case, in which two Iowa high students were allowed to continue wearing anti-Vietnam War armbands. The Juneau school board appealed the decision to the Supreme Court, and on June 25th, 2007, the Court decided in five-to-four favor of the school board in the case of Morse v. Frederick.

The majority—represented by Chief Justice John Roberts—argued that since "schools may take steps to safeguard those entrusted to their care from speech that can reasonably be regarded as encouraging illegal drug use," the school didn't violate Frederick's First Amendment rights by confiscating his banner and suspending him.

Dissenting Justice John Paul Stevens—who was joined by Stephen Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and David Souter—instead wrote that "Although this case began with a silly, nonsensical banner, it ends with the Court inventing out of whole cloth [essentially, this means "out of thin air"] a special First Amendment rule permitting the censorship of any student speech that mentions drugs, at least so long as someone could perceive that speech to contain a latent pro-drug message." 

Given the fact that the 9th Circuit and the Supreme Court disagreed, and that this case was decided by the closest possible majority on the Supreme Court itself, it demonstrates the ongoing debates—in the legal field and far beyond—over the meaning or means of interpreting the Constitution. There are often high stakes involved in these debates, as evidenced in the Frederick case.¹

Maybe you've heard the news or talk radio or your parents—or hopefully, you and your friends—discussing recent governmental issues. Maybe some of those conversations involve the concept of constitutionality. 

• As in, is it constitutional for the president to secretly wiretap people's phone lines without a warrant?
• Or, is it constitutional for the country to go to war without a declaration from Congress?
• And just how much power is the executive branch supposed to have, anyway?

For the answer to all these questions and more—including, "What's the difference between the House and the Senate and why do we need both?" and "What the heck is the Electoral College?" and "What brought about the Constitution in the first place?"—you should read on. Because it's all here: the foundation of American government as we know it.

Just imagine trying to do this from scratch. Forget everything you know about the three branches of government, the term limits for the president and congressional representatives, the Supreme Court's right of judicial review, Congress' ability to override a presidential veto with a two-thirds majority, and so on. 

Now visualize yourself attempting to invent all of that. Amidst a great deal of domestic strife, because your current government isn't working and you've got an empty Treasury, a broke, grumpy army to deal with, and broke, grumpy citizens who are waging armed insurrections because they're desperate. 

Sure, you've got some leads: the Magna Carta is a good beginning when it comes to guaranteeing all citizens certain fundamental rights, and doing it in writing.

You know that you want a republican government—but how far do you take that? 

• Is it wise, or even feasible, to allow the white male voters to directly choose the president, the senators, and the representatives?
• How do you satisfy both the large and small states, the slaveholding states and the free states, and the conflicting claims that many of them hold on western territory?
• Who gets to become a citizen?
• How do you rework the government to make it more powerful and efficient, without leaving open the possibility that it will become too centralized and autocratic one day?
• What is necessary in order to ensure a balanced but effective government, now and forever?

These are the dilemmas the Founding Fathers faced.

They tried their best, and the matters they left undone were addressed using the blueprint they left for us. The Bill of Rights helped to assure suspicious citizens that their individual liberties would always be protected. The ratification process spelled out in Article V provided a means for Americans to revise or change this government blueprint as they saw fit. So, the Constitution would evolve over time along with the rest of the country, through the abolition of slavery to the enfranchisement of Blacks, then women, and then everyone 18 and over. 

It wasn't a perfect governmental structure, but then, what is? It was certainly an impressive achievement, and many of today's debates on current affairs invoke the Constitution because it remains the one standard which most Americans still want to respect and uphold.