The American Constitution is enacted, perhaps the most extraordinary document of political and institutional construction in all of history. It establishes a federal state, with the quartet of powers established by Locke (an executive branch, a bicameral legislature, and a Supreme Court), a single market, a unified trade policy, a single currency, a single army, a single bankruptcy law for those with debts exceeding their property, and an amendment to protect the individual from the state. Further attempts will arise in various other nations (two years later in France), but the American one is the only one destined to last. The American Constitution is completed and signed in Philadelphia, and the new government it established takes office on March 4, 1789, after a bitter struggle over ratification in many states. These disputes lead to the creation of a Constitution based on compromise between the various states and political factions.
