This beautiful hardcover volume contains the two documents every American and citizen of the world should read: the complete text of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States of America, along with all 27 of its amendments. A full, analytical index of the original Constitution and all of its ratified amendments follows.On July 4, 1776, in the midst of the Revolutionary War, the thirteen colonies of the United States ratified a document that would later be known as the Declaration of Independence. In it, the Continental Congress and the people it represented declared they were no longer under the rule of Great Britain and were now the United States. The Delegates who convened at the Federal Convention in Philadelphia on May 25, 1787, agreed to construct a new framework for a national government. Throughout the next four months, led by their elected president, George Washington, they debated the proper form such government should take. Once the Constitu