<P> Since the Constitution came into force in 1789, it has been amended 27 times, including an amendment to repeal a previous one, in order to meet the changing needs of a nation that has profoundly changed since the eighteenth century . In general, the first ten amendments, known collectively as the Bill of Rights, offer specific protections of individual liberty and justice and place restrictions on the powers of government . The majority of the seventeen later amendments expand individual civil rights protections . Others address issues related to federal authority or modify government processes and procedures . Amendments to the United States Constitution, unlike ones made to many constitutions worldwide, are appended to the document . All four pages of the original U.S. Constitution are written on parchment . </P> <P> According to the United States Senate: "The Constitution's first three words--We the People--affirm that the government of the United States exists to serve its citizens . For over two centuries the Constitution has remained in force because its framers wisely separated and balanced governmental powers to safeguard the interests of majority rule and minority rights, of liberty and equality, and of the federal and state governments ." </P> <P> The first permanent constitution of its kind, adopted by the people's representatives for an expansive nation, it is interpreted, supplemented, and implemented by a large body of constitutional law, and has influenced the constitutions of other nations . </P> <P> From September 5, 1774, to March 1, 1781, the Continental Congress functioned as the provisional government of the United States . Delegates to the First (1774) and then the Second (1775--1781) Continental Congress were chosen largely through the action of committees of correspondence in various colonies rather than through the colonial or later state legislatures . In no formal sense was it a gathering representative of existing colonial governments; it represented the dissatisfied elements of the people, such persons as were sufficiently interested to act, despite the strenuous opposition of the loyalists and the obstruction or disfavor of colonial governors . The process of selecting the delegates for the First and Second Continental Congresses underscores the revolutionary role of the people of the colonies in establishing a central governing body . Endowed by the people collectively, the Continental Congress alone possessed those attributes of external sovereignty which entitled it to be called a state in the international sense, while the separate states, exercising a limited or internal sovereignty, may rightly be considered a creation of the Continental Congress, which preceded them and brought them into being . </P>

The constitution of the united states created what form of government and operates under what