Constitution Week was first established in 1956 to encourage Americans to learn more about the world’s longest surviving written charter of government.   Later in 2004, Constitution Day was created to encourage public schools and governmental offices to promote a better understanding of the Constitution.

As a day of education about, and celebration of, our constitutional rights and freedoms, Constitution Day commemorates the date on which thirty-nine of the Philadelphia Convention’s delegates signed the Constitution.  The original document is held at the National Archives in Washington, D.C. You can read the Constitution online, or pick up your own pocket-copy at the library’s reference desk!  For deeper coverage, you can also download the Library of Congress’s free app containing the official, annotated version of the United State Constitution, U.S. Constitution: Analysis and Interpretation.