# Constitution of the United States of America/Annotated/Introduction/Overview of Constitution Annotated Organization

Online at https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/essay/intro.5-1/ALDE_00000021/
Constitutional law treatises are organized in various ways. For example, some prominent treatises are organized around a limited number of general concepts, most commonly (1) the relationship between the Federal Government and the states (i.e., federalism); (2) the relationship between the different branches of the federal government (i.e., separation of powers); and (3) the relationship between the government and citizens (i.e., individual rights). In many cases, these treatises focus on these general topics without addressing more context-specific issues, such as the constitutional rules undergirding modern criminal or civil procedure. Other treatises take a historical approach, moving chronologically from interpretations of the Constitution advanced at the beginning of the Nation’s history to modern understandings.
The Constitution Annotated has long been unique among treatises on constitutional law, not only for its non-partisan mission, but also because it addresses the various provisions of the Constitution in the order they appear in that document: Article by Article, Amendment by Amendment, Section by Section, Clause by Clause. This structural approach can be useful in providing information about the Constitution to a broad audience, because no prior knowledge of particular constitutional concepts or history is needed to identify where in the treatise information about a provision exists. The clause-by-clause approach of the Constitution Annotated also allows readers to grapple with the meaning of specific language in particular clauses or sections without being distracted by tangential discussions.
Nonetheless, this approach is not without its disadvantages. Perhaps most notably, constitutional law has often proved to be atextual in the sense that certain basic understandings of the Constitution are not tied to specific language within the Constitution. For example, the right to travel does not exist within the plain text of the Constitution, but is instead the product of several constitutional law doctrines. As a result, the historic structure of the Constitution Annotated risks omitting critical sources—which do not focus on a specific constitutional provision—from the volume. Conversely, constitutional norms can be rooted in multiple articles or amendments. For example, the concept of “due process” is invoked in both the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments, with often overlapping meanings. As a consequence, following the structure of the Constitution in setting forth the material in the Constitution Annotated can, at times, lead to the unnecessary duplication.
With these considerations in mind, the current edition of the Constitution Annotated primarily follows the Article-by-Article/Amendment-by-Amendment structure of prior editions—and retains the “essay” as the fundamental building block of the content—with a few changes intended to avoid certain disadvantages of a purely structural approach. In particular, essays in the current edition are organized in three categories: (1) Introduction to the Constitution Annotated; (2) the U.S. Constitution Preamble, Articles, and Amendments, and (3) Appendix and Resources to the Constitution Annotated.

## References in the original work

* ↑ See, e.g., Kathleen M. Sullivan & Noah Feldman, Constitutional Law (18th ed. 2013).
* ↑ See, e.g., Paul Brest et. al., Processes of Constitutional Decisionmaking: Cases and Materials (5th ed. 2006).
* ↑ See Jones v. Helms, 452 U.S. 412, 418–19 (1981) (“The right to travel has been described as a privilege of national citizenship, and as an aspect of liberty that is protected by the Due Process Clauses of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments.”).
* ↑ The fundamental building block of the Constitution Annotated is the “essay.” The content may take the form of a single standalone essay or a group of essays (multiple essays grouped under a common heading).

## Notes

* $^{[A]}$↑ Jones v. Helms.